Al Qaeda at Home, Our Home

Rohan Gunaratna's interest in Al Qaeda began with a series of visits to Pakistan in 1993. Since then he's become the world's foremost expert on Islamist terrorism. The Sri Lankan native has interviewed more than 200 Al Qaeda members and has written six books on armed conflict. From 2000 to 2001 he served as principal investigator for the United Nations' Terrorism Prevention Branch. A consultant on terrorism to governments and corporations, Gunaratna travels extensively, this summer shuttling between the U.S., Singapore and Scotland, where he is a senior research fellow at the University of St. Andrews' Center for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence. His extraordinary new book, Inside Al Qaeda (Columbia University), demonstrates his profound understanding of terrorist mechanics. A surprise best-seller, it's already regarded as the definitive work on Al Qaeda. Behind his gentle demeanor and even-handed scholarship, Gunaratna is unsparing in assessing the threat of Al Qaeda. This past summer he visited Playboy's Chicago offices and painted a disturbing picture of our domestic security in a conversation with Leopold Froehlich.

Playboy: The September 11 hijackers lived undetected here for a year and a half. Are there more members in the U.S. now?

Gunaratna: Yes, there is an Al Qaeda presence. Al Qaeda has two types of cells in America. Support cells disseminate propaganda, recruit, raise funds and procure technologies. They'll buy Osama bin Laden a satellite phone. They'll find safe houses, rent vehicles and mount initial reconnaissance on future targets. The operational cells are the Mohamed Atta type of cells. When a target has already been identified, they will come. They do final reconnaissance or surveillance and execute the operation--assassination, bombing, suicide attack, whatever. Both types of cells are active. But now that there's a state of alert in the U.S., most of the cells here are support cells. Operational cells are established before an attack, because operations are the most vulnerable to detection.

Playboy: You've said you believe Bin Laden is alive in Pakistan. Do you expect him to go public again?

Gunaratna: Yes. It was in his interest to maintain ambiguity immediately after U.S. troops arrived in Afghanistan. But now that he's stabilized himself he'll make it known that he's alive and Al Qaeda is active.

Playboy: What are the next Al Qaeda hot spots targeted here?

Gunaratna: Actually, the Midwest and New York--New Jersey are two active areas. But it's likely that because Al Qaeda knows these locales are being watched they'll establish a presence in other states also.

Playboy: You say in your book that there's a degree of sympathy with Al Qaeda's objectives among American Muslims. How much sympathy, and with what specific pursuits?

Gunaratna: American Muslims don't want to support terrorism, but there is a segment of the Muslim community that has been radicalized and politicized to a point that, although they live here, they would have no problem with witnessing another September 11. They're angry with the U.S. And some of them are convinced the U.S. must be attacked. This fifth column of Al Qaeda in America is small, but they make it possible for Al Qaeda to operate here. The hijackers knew so much about how to behave in this country. How did they know that?

Playboy: We're told that Atta was well assimilated into American culture. How well does Al Qaeda actually understand this culture?

Gunaratna: They have a significant understanding of Western societies because they have penetrated them for at least 10 years. They have people in the West as their fifth column. Because of that, they know how to blend in.

Playboy: Who is the typical Al Qaeda supporter in New Jersey, Michigan or Texas? Is he a doctor? A shopkeeper? Taxi driver?

Gunaratna: We can't exactly say they are from a particular class. Al Qaeda is integrated vertically and horizontally in the Muslim communities. They have supporters, collaborators, sympathizers and members from all those levels. We know the core leadership usually comes from upper- and middle-class families. Bin Laden is from the richest nonroyal Saudi family. Ayman al-Zawahiri, a pediatrician, is from an educated Egyptian family. But most of the membership comes from the lower ranks. The middle Al Qaedas, who are the experts, come from middle-class families. They've attended universities.

Playboy: What's the appeal of Americans to Al Qaeda?

Gunaratna: U.S. passport holders arouse less suspicion when they cross borders. Retired and active military personnel work for or support Al Qaeda. For instance, Ali Mohamed trained Bin Laden's bodyguards. He was part of an Al Qaeda team that included other retired U.S. military personnel who went to Bosnia to train and arm Muslims.

Playboy: How does Al Qaeda work in the States?

Gunaratna: They rely on affiliates for support. Al Qaeda did not establish these organizations, many of which enjoy charitable status; they infiltrated them. Since September 11 the FBI has stepped up surveillance, freezing the funds of some U.S.-based Islamic organizations. The Benevolence International Foundation and the Global Relief Foundation, both based in Chicago, are currently being investigated by U.S. authorities for their alleged links with terrorists.

Playboy: How did the BIF set up shop here?

Gunaratna: Adel Batterjee formed the Benevolence International Foundation in Florida in 1992. Shortly afterward he moved it to Chicago. Enaam Arnaout, a Syrian-born U.S. citizen, became the BIF's American head, a post he continues to hold. Arnaout traveled widely, visiting the Balkans, the Caucasus and Asia, channeling U.S.-generated humanitarian support. Until it was raided by the feds last December, BIF Chicago supported an office in Peshawar, Pakistan. BIF Peshawar funded an orphanage near Kabul in Afghanistan. The patron of the orphanage is a former employee of the Taliban Foreign Ministry, with whom Bin Laden and his family stayed six months after they returned to Afghanistan.

Playboy: Do former BIF members still operate in Chicago?

Gunaratna: When the FBI raided the BIF's Chicago office, the search warrant named a well-known employee of MAK, the Afghan Service Bureau. From 1995 to 1998, another BIF Chicago employee gave radical speeches throughout the U.S. in support of jihads in Afghanistan (continued on page 147)Al Qaeda(continued from page 74) and Chechnya. Before he left for Pakistan, where he now lives, this man founded another charity, Nasr Trust, also in Chicago. Although BIF's funds were frozen, its office in Chicago continues to function. BIF raised $3.6 million in 2001.

Playboy: That's pretty amazing.

Gunaratna: The Global Relief Foundation is another Islamist organization that had its funds frozen. The GRF had an employee, also a U.S. citizen of Syrian descent, who was responsible for processing documents for Arab volunteers fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan.

Playboy: You've said Abdullah Azzam had 30 offices here to support the mujahidin in their war against the Soviets. Do these offices still exist?

Gunaratna: They do not exist as Al Qaeda offices or as Afghan relief offices. But there are certain mosques and Islamic institutions in this country that still pledge allegiance to Osama's ideology. They advance those themes and objectives in a clandestine or deceptive way. They are clandestine even as far as the larger Muslim population is concerned.

Playboy: As you've said, the executive director of the BIF in Chicago is a Syrian American. What about the Syrian community in Chicago?

Gunaratna: Many Muslims in Chicago support various Islamic charitable organizations without knowing they may be linked to Al Qaeda. I doubt that most people who support the BIF know its political mission. They just don't know.

Playboy: You've reported that 20 percent of Muslim charities have been corrupted. How has this been accomplished?

Gunaratna: When Al Qaeda identifies a nongovernmental organization, an Islamic registered charity, for instance, they send one or two of their people to join. Gradually, those people become prominent members of the organization. Eventually, they control the funds. They largely work through deception in the U.S., but in the Philippines, for example, they use intimidation. If one man says, "We have to be more accountable," they intimidate him. They will coerce him until he's scared for his life, for his children. Most of the Al Qaeda--infiltrated charities--most of the front and sympathetic organizations of terrorist groups in the U.S.--are still operating. They work as human rights organizations, humanitarian or cultural organizations, social or educational groups.

Playboy: Who contributes to these charities? In 2001, Illinois state tax filings for the BIF cite an $80,000 donation from someone who is listed as unknown and $225,000 from a person identified only as Muhammad. Shouldn't that arouse suspicion?

Gunaratna: Well, that doesn't conform to proper administrative and financial regulations, at least in spirit. The U.S. government has belatedly taken action against BIF. But there are several organizations like it. We know of several other terrorist groups operating here.

Playboy: You've said donors in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait also don't know where their charitable money is used.

Gunaratna: That's because they don't have a proper system. American and other Western institutions have procedures for accountability. Charities account for every cent. They maintain books here, but not in those countries.

Playboy: Why have Americans become so vulnerable to attack?

Gunaratna: Americans were lulled into a false sense of security. Their isolationist mentality focused on guarding borders, not on strategic threats. Sheikh Kabbani of the Islamic Supreme Council of America said in January 1999 that "extremist Islamists took over 80 percent of the mosques in the U.S." He said that the ideology of extremism has been spread to 80 percent of the Muslim population, mostly the youth. Because of the radicalization of some American Muslims by Islamist preachers, and because of the penetration of Muslim diasporas by foreign terrorists, the FBI infiltrated several American Muslim communities. But the prevailing view in law enforcement was that if American Muslims who support or participate in terrorism elsewhere didn't harm American interests, nobody would act against them. Al Qaeda knew U.S. intelligence was monitoring Muslim communities here, so they moved the September 11 operational team away from Islamic strongholds in New Jersey and Illinois. They built a new network that had no connection with any of the U.S. networks that Bin Laden believed had been compromised by the FBI.

Playboy: Should the U.S. government have had an inkling about what was going on?

Gunaratna: Certainly. Mohammad Jamal Khalifa, for example--Bin Laden's brother-in-law--visited the States. When U.S. immigration detained him in San Francisco in December 1994, they found documents in his luggage that detailed the "outline of the institution of jihad." These papers had titles like "The Wisdom of Assassination and Kidnapping," "The Wisdom of Assassinating Priests and Christians," "The Wisdom of Bombing Christian Churches and Places of Worship." Khalifa was held without bail before he was subsequently extradited to Jordan for allegedly financing the 1994 bombing of a cinema there. He was later tried and acquitted on that charge. As Al Qaeda's reported chief for Southeast Asia in the Nineties, Khalifa reportedly helped finance a plan to destroy 11 U.S. airliners over the Pacific, to crash an explosives-laden aircraft into the Pentagon and to assassinate President Clinton and the Pope in Manila. But until Khalifa was acquitted in Jordan, U.S. intelligence had no knowledge of his role in the plan. After the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, intelligence authorities arrested Khalifa in Saudi Arabia and later released him.

Playboy: How has Al Qaeda altered their approach since the mid-Nineties?

Gunaratna: The quality of the September 11 operations was markedly different from earlier U.S. attacks. Without exception, the hijackers were hand-picked for their willingness to kill and die for Allah. When you compare September 11 with the unsuccessful attempt to bomb Los Angeles International Airport in December 1999, Al Qaeda has improved in almost every aspect. Realizing the threat of terrorist infiltration from Canada, with its relaxed immigration policy, the Americans tightened security along the border and instigated measures to protect key public buildings from car bombs. So Al Qaeda got their operatives into the U.S. by commercial airline, carrying correct identity papers and with sound alibis for their presence. Al Qaeda had originally planned the attack for September 9, but because of unknown operational constraints, the attack was postponed.

Playboy: Were any future Al Qaeda members trained at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School in Fort Bragg, North Carolina?

Gunaratna: Ali Mohamed was. He was a captain in the Egyptian military who came to the U.S. for advanced training. He received training at the John F. Kennedy Center. He came back again and joined the U.S. Army and attained the rank of sergeant in the Special Forces. He was a member of Al Qaeda. As I pointed out, he trained Bin Laden's bodyguards. He trained the teams that operated in Somalia, Bosnia and Afghanistan.

Playboy: Did the hijackers follow their instructions?

Gunaratna: To the letter. Being advised to keep physically fit and mentally alert, they joined gyms. Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi went to a health club in Decatur, Georgia. Ziad Jarrah did likewise in Florida, where he took martial arts lessons, including kickboxing and knife fighting. Al Qaeda anticipated that passengers might attack. So the hijackers were ordered to build body strength. Until a month before the operation, the hijackers had planned to threaten or, if necessary, use knives to gain control of the aircraft. An Al Qaeda group had used a knife to seize an Indian Airlines plane in 1999. Al Qaeda realized that the scheme could be compromised if team members were caught trying to smuggle knives aboard. So they carried box cutters that were less than four inches long, which were permitted by the Federal Aviation Administration. Other than pepper sprays, the box cutters were the only weapons carried by the hijackers.

Playboy: How else did they prepare?

Gunaratna: All the cells independently acquired flight deck simulation videos. Atta bought videos and other items from Sporty's, a pilot store in suburban Cincinnati. Nawaf al-Hazmi also obtained flight deck videos from the same store. Rehearsing was another central precept of Al Qaeda doctrine. Atta and al-Shehhi took a flight-check ride around Decatur in February 2001, and Jarrah did likewise at a flight school in Fort Lauderdale. They repeatedly took the same flight to familiarize themselves with airport security and cockpit access.

Playboy: Did all the hijackers come from abroad specifically for the attack?

Gunaratna: No. Al Qaeda recruited and trained Hani Hanjour, a Saudi national who had come to the U.S. in 1996 to study English. In 2001, Hanjour attended pilot-training courses in Arizona and Maryland.

Playboy: How did Zacarias Moussaoui's arrest affect the operation?

Gunaratna: It forced them to move up the schedule. Although Al Qaeda strives to train agents who disclose nothing to captors, they were aware of the danger to the operation. Moussaoui was one of the few suspected terrorists who knew about both the Hamburg and the Kuala Lumpur cells. But the FBI failed to examine his computer before September 11. With the imminent threat of being compromised, Al Qaeda's cells stepped up final preparations within a week of Moussaoui's arrest. On August 22, Fayez Ahmed used his Visa card in Florida to get the cash that had been deposited in his Standard Chartered Bank account in the United Arab Emirates the day before. That same day, Jarrah purchased global positioning equipment and schematics for cockpit instruments. From August 25 to August 29, the hijackers got their airline tickets with credit cards or online--except Khalid Almihdhar and Majed Moqed of American Airlines flight 77. Their Visa card didn't match their mailing address, so they had to drive to Baltimore--Washington International Airport and pay cash for two one-way tickets.

Playboy: Good to see the security worked. Did these men know they were going to die?

Gunaratna: Well, Atta sent a Fed Ex package from Florida to Dubai in early September. It's likely that it contained his farewell message to the head of his Al Qaeda family.

Playboy: It sounds like they covered all the bases.

Gunaratna: Al Qaeda also prepared a backup team to attack the World Trade Center, and had two other teams of trained pilots and hijackers poised to strike targets in India, Britain and Australia as well.

Playboy: In helping the anti-Soviet jihad, did the CIA help Islamic radicals here? As you point out, Abdullah Azzam came to lecture in America. Did U.S. intelligence sponsor radical lectures in American mosques?

Gunaratna: The Afghan Service Bureau didn't receive any money from the CIA. Its office got money from the Gulf countries and from Muslim immigrants.

Playboy: What about through Pakistani intelligence, the ISI?

Gunaratna: The ISI did give assistance. The CIA gave weapons to the ISI, and the CIA gave millions of dollars to Pakistani intelligence. The ISI did the training. I know this because I've spoken to the ISI. I spent a lot of time with them. People say the CIA supported Al Qaeda. But the CIA never did. The CIA gave assistance to ISI. And the ISI gave money to all these groups.

Playboy: Has Osama bin Laden's family really disowned him?

Gunaratna: Absolutely--except for one member, his brother-in-law Khalifa. No one else in the family supports him.

Playboy: You said it's unlikely Al Qaeda could mount a biological or nuclear attack but that it could mount a chemical or a radiological attack. Is that still true?

Gunaratna: Yes. Al Qaeda has tried to acquire chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons. But as a terrorist group, it's difficult to get nuclear and biological material. So it's likely they will acquire and use chemical or radiological weapons.

Playboy: How much did the Afghan war hurt Al Qaeda? How much did the bombings and the U.S. military intervention affect it?

Gunaratna: They completely destroyed Al Qaeda's infrastructure. Training infrastructure is critical for the continuation of any terrorist conflict, because you have to constantly train members, both ideologically and physically. We know the bombs destroyed the infrastructure. When the quality of the Al Qaeda fighter becomes poor, he is vulnerable to detection. His operational security will be poor, so the efficiency of operations goes down. Also, the bombings have already demoralized Al Qaeda supporters, sympathizers and many of its members.

Playboy: Are there currently any native-born Al Qaeda members?

Gunaratna: Yes. We know there are from several interrogation reports and arrests. Even before September 11 we knew from the East Africa bombings that there are Americans in Al Qaeda. We know some of them even trained Bosnian Muslims.

Playboy: If that's the case, wouldn't it be possible for Americans to infiltrate? If it's conceivable that John Walker Lindh can become a Taliban member, can't the FBI recruit infiltrators?

Gunaratna: Yes. But the FBI and the CIA lack creativity. They don't want to take a risk. When you are working with clandestine agents, sometimes you have to terminate them. They don't want to dirty their hands. I was a foreign-policy fellow at the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland. My faculty adviser was Stansfield Turner. I love the man. I respect him because he's an honest man. But the only disagreement I ever had with him was why he got rid of various clandestine programs when he was director of operations in the CIA. He later realized what he did was a mistake. America lost its eyes and ears.

Playboy: Has the FBI or any other intelligence agency infiltrated Al Qaeda?

Gunaratna: They're trying their best now, and they will.

Playboy: You've said that you think the French have infiltrated Al Qaeda.

Gunaratna: They have. They have infiltrated Al Qaeda for a long time. The French are good. Of all the Western intelligence agencies, they're the best on Al Qaeda. Among Arab countries, Jordan and Egypt have the best intelligence.

Playboy: In Inside Al Qaeda you write about the lifespans of terrorist groups. How long will Al Qaeda survive?

Gunaratna: It depends on how the U.S. and the international community respond. If you rigorously pursue a group, you can destroy it. I'd say in five years we will be able to destroy Al Qaeda. Five years is average. The CIA infiltrated Hezbollah in five years, although that was peripheral infiltration. But now, with so much energy going into counterterrorism, I believe that in the next one or two years there will be good infiltration of these groups. That will enable us to destroy them.

Playboy: How long should it take the FBI and CIA to catch up in terms of human intelligence? How long will it take the FBI to get Arabic-speaking agents?

Gunaratna: Since September 11 they have started to recruit immigrants as well as Americans skilled in languages. They hadn't done that before in sufficient volume.

Playboy: How reliable is Abu Zubaydah, who's now in custody?

Gunaratna: He'll never tell the truth. I know him. I listened to his communications before he was captured. He will never compromise his organization. Even if he's cut into small pieces, he won't. But, also, it's in the interest of federal agents to say Abu Zubaydah is cooperating. If you say one of the key guys in Al Qaeda is cooperating, it demoralizes others. It drives fear into others: Oh, our leader is exposing us.

Playboy: Why has there been so little effective counterpropaganda?

Gunaratna: Americans are clean people. They think black propaganda is something bad. It's a big mistake. The American people themselves killed the Pentagon's Office of Strategic Influence. They should never have done that. That office would have been central to fighting Al Qaeda. Americans must understand that when you deal with a secret organization, a terrorist group that has no principles, you have to undertake black operations--especially when you face a high threat.

Playboy: How long would it take for an OSI-type office to be effective? Could it be done quickly?

Gunaratna: The people who know the threat want to do it. But there is some resistance. In five years you will produce world-class intelligence operatives, because young people have seen the suffering of Americans.

Playboy: Considering the presence of Saudis in Al Qaeda, especially in the September 11 operation, is there any connection between terrorist supporters and U.S. financial interests? Quite a few major American corporations have longstanding relationships with Saudi Arabians.

Gunaratna: Well, the Saudi system tacitly aids terrorism in a big way. Naturally, the organizations that work with the Saudi system indirectly, without their knowledge, contribute to this. Think about it: American troops kill three to five Al Qaeda members a week in Afghanistan, but the Saudi system produces maybe two dozen Al Qaeda members every week.

Playboy: The Sudanese government supposedly offered to turn Osama bin Laden over to the U.S.

Gunaratna: Yes.

Playboy: And the feds said no?

Gunaratna: They said no because they didn't have sufficient evidence to prosecute him. It's very unfortunate. And, of course, a year before, the Sudanese offered Carlos the Jackal to the French government. And Carlos the Jackal is now in France in custody. Bin Laden was afraid to stay in Sudan after that. He was worried the same thing would happen to him.

Playboy: You say that American troops should leave the Arabian peninsula. But aren't the troops there to protect the Saudi royal family as much as they are to defend American interests? Would the regime be at risk from theocratic forces if the soldiers left?

Gunaratna: The regime will definitely be threatened, but not now. Maybe in five years, if the Saudis don't do a proper job cleaning up. More than catching the terrorists in Saudi Arabia, you must restructure a system that produces terrorists, that produces youths vulnerable to propaganda and indoctrination. Saudis are becoming sympathizers, supporters, collaborators and members of terrorist groups.

Playboy: Has Al Qaeda been successful in bridging the Shia--Sunni divide?

Gunaratna: Yes. To target a common enemy, Al Qaeda has gone beyond the ideological divide, which is unprecedented. In fact, the world's two most dangerous groups are Hezbollah and Al Qaeda, a Shia group and a Sunni group that now work together.

Playboy: Is there any potential for disunity--ideological, factional or political--among Al Qaeda?

Gunaratna: As long as Osama bin Laden is alive, there will be unity. When he's removed, there will be so much infighting. Bin Laden is a good diplomat. He can bring people together and give them a dream to follow, a vision and a mission.

Playboy: There are a lot of disenfranchised youths in the Islamic world. How much does demographics--a surfeit of people under the age of 20--help Al Qaeda?

Gunaratna: The young are most vulnerable to radicalization. Even if they're educated, they can't find employment. Or they will be underemployed. These are the people who join Al Qaeda. They want to attack, attack, attack. We see that mentality: Kill the Americans; Death to America. Those kinds of slogans come mostly from young people. In the case of Al Qaeda, the demography will not change in the Middle East.

Playboy: Do you see a possibility for a reform movement in the Muslim world?

Gunaratna: The fight against Al Qaeda and other Islamist terrorist organizations and Islamic radicalism should, essentially, be waged by moderate Muslims, because moderate Muslims are the most threatened. They are in danger of having their values taken away. But they don't have the willpower or the ability to do it. That's why the West must work with moderate regimes and people.

Playboy: Is there a reform movement that would be able to counter the radical Islamist tendency, a counterreformation away from the Wahhabi, away from fundamentalism?

Gunaratna: The Saudi royal family is under pressure to change that system now, because they know their system spawns and sustains terrorism. But will they be able to do it? That's the biggest question. Can the West persuade them? We have not seen signs of their doing it.

Playboy: Can the madrassas be changed?

Gunaratna: Egypt is reforming its madrassas in a big way. And Algeria has reformed. Algeria says every madrassa and mosque must be registered. Pakistan has also started to do this.

Playboy: Tell us about the encryption systems. Al Qaeda's e-mails were secure. How did they know the National Security Agency couldn't break their encryption software?

Gunaratna: I don't know how Al Qaeda knew. But less than five percent of their communications are decipherable, because they're using the commercially available Pretty Good Privacy. Al Qaeda had a special school in Afghanistan to train people to use computers, to use encryption. Terrorists have produced many computer viruses, especially in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and they continually target European and North American countries. They are waging a war against the information infrastructure. Al Qaeda does this with simple means, buying programs off the shelf.

Playboy: What's your personal impression of Al Qaeda members who you've interviewed? Are they wild-eyed fanatics? Are they zealots?

Gunaratna: Actually, there is an A team and a B team. Members of the A team are the highly trained, highly motivated cool guys. They are icemen. The B-team guys are hotheads. Al Qaeda doesn't care for them. They are expendable assets. The Al Qaeda manual for explosives says you must never give explosives training to a hothead, because he will blow himself up and blow up other Al Qaeda members and supporters. Always pick the right man for the right job. One category is expendable, the other is not.

Playboy: But you wouldn't want to mess with either of them.

Gunaratna: The ones you have to watch out for are the Takfirs, who came out of Egypt in the late Sixties. Takfir believers can deviate from Muslim practices to blend in with infidels. They will drink scotch with you, go to topless bars.

Playboy: How safe are we now?

Gunaratna: The U.S. remains a vulnerable society. The threat of terrorism is still high. The only sure way to protect America--short of destroying Al Qaeda's entire infrastructure abroad, an objective likely to remain unattainable--is for the FBI and other agencies to step up recruitment of agents from migrant Muslim communities. That's how they can penetrate Al Qaeda's core leadership.

just what you want to hear: terrorists are on the street where you live

Americans work for Al Qaeda. They arouse less suspicion when they cross borders.

They rely on American affiliates for support. Al Qaeda did not establish these organizations--they infiltrated them.

Al Qaeda anticipated that passengers might attack. So the hijackers were ordered to build body strength.