Author: Stewart Bell
Publication: National Post
Date: January 18, 2003
After finishing high school in Ontario,
Mohammed Mansour Jabarah became an al-Qaeda terrorist. Now detained in
the U.S., the 21-year-old is revealing his secrets: He met with the architects
of the World Trade Center and Bali bombings, convinced Osama bin Laden
of his worth as an operative and planned several attacks of his own.
In an interrogation room in New
York last summer, FBI agents extracted a valuable secret from their young
Canadian prisoner, Mohammed Mansour Jabarah: the code words used by al-Qaeda
terrorist cells in Southeast Asia.
"Market" is code for Malaysia, "Soup"
means Singapore and "Hotel" means Philippines, he told the agents. A "Book"
is a passport and Indonesia is referred to as "Terminal." And then there
was the code word for Americans: "White Meat."
Mr. Jabarah knew this, he confessed
to the FBI, because after finishing high school in St. Catharines, Ont.,
he had spent more than six months as a trusted al-Qaeda operative, the
National Post can reveal for the first time.
His confession, detailed in a classified
FBI report obtained by the Post, describes how he was involved in planning
explosions at Western embassies, businesses and tourist resorts. Among
those he admitted to conspiring with was the notorious Hambali, the man
behind last fall's massive bombing in Bali, Indonesia.
Less than three years ago, Mr. Jabarah
was a straight-arrow student at a Catholic high school who wanted to be
a doctor, worshipped at the local mosque and did volunteer work picking
up litter from roads in Niagara. Today, he is a 21-year-old detainee at
a U.S. military base, trying to rescue his life by revealing to FBI agents
the secrets he learned as a terrorist.
Mr. Jabarah's descent into the underworld
of radical Islam, where Americans are dehumanized even in code ("White
Meat" comes from pigs, the consumption of which is deemed un-Islamic),
is all the more troubling considering he spent his teenage years in Canada,
the country that gave him refuge, citizenship and an education.
"The boy was a gentleman," recalled
Hussein Hamdani, a family friend and official at the Islamic Society of
St. Catharines. "He was working here in the mosque, nice polite boy....
I'm damned sure they got the wrong man."
An investigation by the Post, however,
based on classified intelligence documents and interviews, has found that
Mr. Jabarah long ago admitted to being an al-Qaeda agent recruited to organize
attacks in Southeast Asia.
So highly prized was Mr. Jabarah
that the al-Qaeda leadership went to great pains to ensure he would not
get caught. Hambali, Southeast Asia's leading al-Qaeda operative, once
told the Canadian: "It will be a very big hit for us if you're arrested."
- - -
The Jabarah family -- mother, father
and four sons -- moved to Canada from Kuwait in 1994, three years after
Allied troops liberated the country from Saddam Hussein of Iraq, who had
invaded and plundered his oil-rich neighbour.
"After the Gulf War, it was really
scary in the Gulf area and I wanted to have a good life and a good education
for my sons and a new home," Mansour Jabarah, his father, a businessman
in the financial industry, said in an interview.
They moved into a two-storey home
with a porch on a quiet street in St. Catharines. The father served as
vice-president of the local Islamic society. Mohammed helped out around
the mosque, and participated in its volunteer programs.
At Holy Cross Secondary School,
Mr. Jabarah did not stand out as a radical, although he was serious about
his Islamic faith. "He was a religious boy. He didn't drink, he didn't
have girlfriends," his father said. In his high school yearbook photo,
he sports a thin moustache and does not smile.
[Shortly after graduation in June,
2000, he flew to Kuwait City to enrol at university, but his father said
he had trouble gaining admission and was also discouraged because the school
did not offer Islamic studies courses in English.
He went instead to Pakistan.
The al-Qaeda faithful who roam Pakistan's
religious schools in search of fresh recruits saw Mr. Jabarah as a prized
asset. His fluent English and Canadian passport made him a valued potential
operative. He could travel freely without raising suspicion. He was also
young and unworldly. "He grew up in Canada, he never went to any Asian
countries before," his father said.
The recruiting tactics used by radical
Islamic groups such as al-Qaeda harness the force of religion to incite
Muslim youths to violence. Psychologists hired by the government of Singapore
to study 31 captured members of Jemaah Islamiyah found the recruits had
been singled out in religious classes and gradually indoctrinated over
an 18-month period.
Those selected to participate in
terrorist attacks were unassertive, unquestioning and harboured feelings
of guilt and loneliness. Gradually the recruits were led to believe the
Muslim faith was under attack and a holy war against the West was a religious
duty. They were promised martyrdom if they died for the cause. To complete
their indoctrination, they were given code names.
Mr. Jabarah was code-named Sammy.
He excelled in weapons training at al-Qaeda camps in eastern Afghanistan
and made such an impression that, in July, 2001, he convinced Osama bin
Laden he could be an effective international operative, according to Professor
Rohan Gunaratna, a terrorism expert in Singapore and the author of Inside
al-Qaeda: Global Network of Terror.
The Canadian, then 19, travelled
to Karachi in August, 2001, to meet Khalid Sheik Mohammad, the architect
of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, who gave Mr. Jabarah a
critical assignment. He was to organize truck bombings at the U.S. and
Israeli embassies in Manila.
It was to be a joint operation,
with al-Qaeda supplying the suicide bombers and the money. Jemaah Islamiyah,
a regional Islamic group that wants to establish a Muslim state in Southeast
Asia, was to procure the explosives and draw up the plans.
"Jabarah advised that he was in
charge of the financing for the operation," according to the FBI report,
dated Aug. 21, 2002, and titled "Information Derived from Mohammed Mansour
Jabarah." Mr. Mohammad gave him US $10,000 to get started.
For two weeks, Mr. Jabarah underwent
intensive training at a house in Karachi, learning techniques for operating
in urban environments, said Prof. Gunaratna, who has extensively investigated
the cell. "The training emphasized operation security, measures and counter-measures
to be adhered to by al-Qaeda operatives during travel, living in a city,
interaction with others."
Eventually, Mr. Jabarah was introduced
to Hambali (an alias for Riduan Isamuddin), an al-Qaeda member who serves
as operations chief of Jemaah Islamiyah. The meeting took place at the
Karachi apartment of one of Hambali's four wives. He instructed Mr. Jabarah
to contact his two point men in Malaysia -- Mahmoud (an alias for Faiz
Bafana) and Saad (an alias for Fathur Rahman Al Ghozi).
"Make sure you leave before Tuesday,"
Mr. Mohammad cautioned Mr. Jabarah, according to the FBI. The Tuesday he
was referring to was Sept. 11. Mr. Jabarah left Pakistan for Hong Kong
on Sept. 10. He was staying at a Hong Kong hotel when hijacked planes brought
down the World Trade Center.
After three days in Hong Kong, Mr.
Jabarah flew to the first stop in his jihad mission, Kuala Lumpur. He met
a man code-named Azzam, as well as Mahmoud, a bomb-making expert who had
learned his tradecraft at an al-Qaeda camp in Afghanistan. Mahmoud told
Mr. Jabarah to speak to Saad, who was then training with Moro Islamic Liberation
Front rebels in the Philippine mountains.
"Jabarah told Mahmoud that he needed
to go to the Philippines and Mahmoud said he would get in touch with Saad,
as he is the person who could obtain any of the needed explosives," the
FBI report said.
Mr. Jabarah and his associate, Ahmed
Sahagi, a would-be suicide bomber, flew to the Philippine city of Makati
and checked in at the Horizon Hotel. A few days later, Saad e-mailed his
Manila phone number to Mr. Jabarah and they made plans to meet.
"When Saad arrived at the hotel,
Saad informed Jabarah he only had 300 kilograms of TNT and he needed additional
time and money. Saad informed Jabarah he wanted four tons of explosives,"
the FBI report said.
There was another complication.
Saad thought the U.S. embassy in Manila was not a good target because it
was set back too far from the road. They scouted the U.S. and Israeli embassies
together and Saad decided to return to Malaysia to discuss the plot with
Mahmoud.
They met again in Kuala Lumpur to
talk about targets, and decided the embassies in the Philippines were no
good. They wanted to try somewhere else. Mahmoud advised Mr. Jabarah to
go to Singapore to record videotapes of potential targets there.
At a parking lot at Singapore's
Marina South, Mr. Jabarah held a meeting with local terrorist operatives
and asked for their suggestions about targets. In addition to the American
and Israeli embassies, they identified the Australian and British high
commissions as well as several commercial buildings that housed American
companies.
Using a Sony video camera, Mr. Jabarah
posed as a tourist to film sites such as the American Club and American
International Assurance. The videos were labelled "Visiting Sightseeing
Singapore." They were then transferred on to CD-ROMs for distribution up
the chain of command.
Mr. Jabarah rented an apartment
in Kuala Lumpur in November, 2001, but he was running out of money and
asked his boss in Pakistan, Mr. Mohammad, for more. A few days later, an
al-Qaeda agent named Youssef handed him a bunch of envelopes. Inside were
wads of US$100 bills, tied with elastic bands -- US $30,000 in total.
Because TNT was difficult to obtain
in the region, the cell decided to use ammonium nitrate. The operation
was to use six trucks. Each would carry three tonnes of ammonium nitrate
(by comparison, the truck bomb used in Oklahoma City in 1995 contained
two to three tonnes of the explosive).
"Sammy would bring his people down
to Singapore to rig the bombs at the secured warehouse," said a Jan. 7,
2003, report on the plot prepared by the government of Singapore. "The
trucks would then be driven and parked at designated points near the targets.
The local cell members would then leave the country as unknown suicide
bombers arrived. These suicide bombers (believed to be Arabs) would be
brought down to Singapore just a day before the planned attack."
In early December, 2001, the Jemaah
Islamiyah chief Hambali told Mr. Jabarah to cancel the Singapore plot and
move the target back to Manila. The advantage of attacking in Manila, Hambali
said, was that the explosives were already in the Philippines and would
not have to be shipped to Singapore. The attack could therefore be done
sooner -- and al-Qaeda wanted it done quickly. If the embassies proved
too difficult to attack, they would find other targets in the Philippines,
Hambali said.
By then, however, videos and notes
about the Singapore plot had been found in the ruins of an al-Qaeda safehouse
in Afghanistan bombed by American warplanes. Police moved in to break up
the cell. On Dec. 9, 2001, Singapore's Internal Security Department made
the first in a series of arrests. Within a week they had arrested 13 Jemaah
Islamiyah members.
But "Sammy" got away.
- - -
Mr. Jabarah was in Malaysia in December
when an e-mail landed in the inbox of his Yahoo account. It was from Azzam.
The title was "Problem." Mahmoud, Mr. Jabarah's point man who knew everything
about the plot, had been arrested in Singapore, it said. Mr. Jabarah left
for southern Thailand.
At a hotel in Bangkok, Mr. Jabarah
met with Hambali, who advised him to get out of the region before he was
caught. He was too valuable to al-Qaeda to end up behind bars, Hambali
said. But Hambali was furious the Singapore plot had failed, and he began
discussing attacks elsewhere.
"The last contact Jabarah had with
Hambali was in mid-January, 2002, in Thailand," the FBI report said. "During
this time Hambali discussed carrying out attacks with his group. His plan
was to conduct small bombings in bars, cafes or nightclubs frequented by
Westerners in Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines and Indonesia."
He tried to take a bus to Myanmar
but could not get a visa. He went to Chiang Mai, Thailand, and flew to
Bangkok and Dubai. Using his e-mail address, honda_civic12@yahoo.com, Mr.
Jabarah contacted Hambali and Khalid Sheik Mohammad -- the 9/11 mastermind
who had sent him on his mission.
Mr. Jabarah sent them a copy of
an article from a Canadian newspaper that linked him to the bombing plot
in Singapore. He said he had to run and needed money. He wanted to go to
Saudi Arabia but could not get a visa, so he went to neighbouring Oman,
where, according to the FBI, he was helping "al-Qaeda operatives travelling
through Oman to Yemen" when he was arrested in March, 2002.
According to Canadian officials,
the Omani government did not know what to do with Mr. Jabarah. It did not
want to hand him to the Americans, fearing Omanis would be angered that
their government had delivered a fellow Muslim into U.S. custody.
They decided to give him instead
to the Canadians. He was after all a Canadian citizen, and if Canada were
to send him to the United States, it would not be Oman's doing. Canadian
Security Intelligence Service agents brought Mr. Jabarah back to Canada
in late April, 2002.
Mr. Jabarah was a big catch for
the intelligence service. "To an intelligence officer, this is like having
the ideal terror consultant sharing your living room with you," said David
Harris, a former CSIS agent. "Jabarah's words could launch major actions.
In our life-and-death footrace with terror, names, dates and places can
add up to fresh leads and these can mean outstripping the enemy."
Canadian intelligence agents interviewed
Mr. Jabarah for about a week and passed their findings to the Americans.
The information he provided "vastly improved the knowledge of al-Qaeda,"
Prof. Gunaratna said. "As a result of this investigation, the Canadians
will be able to move forward in better understanding and responding to
the al-Qaeda network."
Mr. Jabarah had such remarkable
inside knowledge about al-Qaeda and its key players in Southeast Asia that
he knew the Americans would want to speak to him in person. At his request,
Canadian officials arranged to transfer him to the United States last May.
After news of Mr. Jabarah's case
was first publicized in Canada in July, a Toronto newspaper claimed there
was no evidence against him and that the only reason Canadians were not
outraged by his treatment was that he was Muslim, "not a Jones or a Bouchard."
The Canadian Arab Federation and Canadian Civil Liberties Association held
a news conference to demand a government probe.
Instead of facilitating his transfer
to the U.S., Canada should have "been advising him not to go to the United
States where he will get lost in the hellhole of secret detentions, secret
evidence and secret hearings," said Raja Khouri, the Arab federation president.
But documents obtained by the National
Post under the Access to Information Act support Ottawa's claims that he
wanted to go to the United States. According to the documents: "Jabarah
voluntarily came to Canada and then voluntarily went to the United States."
Officials say he knew he had two
choices: Keep quiet and face criminal charges for terrorism, extradition
and possibly a lengthy prison term, or he could co-operate. According to
authorities, he chose to talk. One of most dangerous terrorists to emerge
from Canada became one of its most valuable contributions to the war on
terrorism.
- - -
The inside account that Mr. Jabarah
supplied was distributed to police and intelligence services in August,
2002, and some responded by heightening security at their embassies. It
was not enough, however, to prevent the worst act of terrorism since Sept.
11.
In Thailand, Hambali had ordered
his deputy, Muklas, to plan attacks at places where Western tourists were
known to hang out, including nightclubs in Indonesia, Prof. Gunaratna said.
"Ironically, before the Bali tragedy,
the U.S. intelligence community communicated this specific threat to Southeast
Asian security and intelligence services in August, 2002. However, the
Southeast Asian services failed to develop the contact or ground intelligence
essential to detect and disrupt a terrorist attack."
Two Canadians, Mervin Popadynec,
an oil industry engineer from Wynyrd, Sask., and Rick Gleason, a financial
advisor from Vancouver, were vacationing on the Indonesian island paradise
of Bali when Hambali's men struck on Oct. 12.
The bombers parked a minivan packed
with explosives on the narrow street outside the Sari Club, a nightclub
in the city of Kuta that was filled with Western tourists. Flames roared
through the club and the building collapsed, killing almost 200.
Mr. Popadynec was killed instantly.
Mr. Gleason died later from burns that scorched nearly half his body. A
friend recalled him as an adventurous traveller and outdoorsman with a
"refined sense of humour." But to the terrorists, they were no more than
"White Meat."
- - -
The FBI appears to have completed
its interrogation of Mr. Jabarah, but his fate remains uncertain. He celebrated
his 21st birthday in detention in December, reportedly at a military base
beneath Brooklyn's Verrazano Narrows Bridge.
Some officials speculate his New
York lawyer, David Wikstrom, has been negotiating a plea bargain with the
U.S. Justice Department, but his father said he knew nothing about that.
Mr. Wikstrom declined to comment.
The father insisted his son had
no advance knowledge of any terrorist plots and called the claims lies.
"No, this is false information, 100%, because Mohammed's situation, he
doesn't know this kind of information," he said from Kuwait City.
"And in the meantime his wish is
now to go back home to Canada to contin ue his education as a doctor,"
he said.
"He's an excellent boy."
In the FBI's account of its interrogations,
Mr. Jabarah spoke about the bombing plots with cold detachment, sounding
like a university student tackling an exam problem.
When he was asked about the bombing
plot in Singapore, he said it "would not have been difficult," according
to the FBI report. "This embassy is very close to the street and did not
have many barriers to prevent the attack," he told the agents.
Asked about the plot to bomb the
U.S. embassy in Manila, he added that "a plane would be needed to attack
this building because the security was very tough."
No mention was made of the lives
that would have been lost.
JABARAH TIMELINE:
1 June, 2000 Graduates from Holy
Cross High School in St. Catharines, Ont. Goes to Kuwait, then Pakistan.
JULY, 2001 Recruited by al-Qaeda
because of his "clean" Canadian passport, fluent English and performance
in training.
2 August, 2001 In Karachi, meets
senior al-Qaeda leaders Khalid Sheik Mohammad, architect of the Sept. 11
attacks, and Hambali, operations chief of Jemaah Islamiyah. Mr. Mohammad
gives him US$10,000 and instructs him to organize bombings at the U.S.
and Israeli embassies in Manila. "Make sure you leave before Tuesday [Sept.
11]," Mr. Mohammad warns.
3 SEPTEMBER 10, 2001 Flies to Hong
Kong to get visas.
4 SEPTEMBER 13, 2001 Three days
later, flies to Kuala Lumpur, meets al-Qaeda bomb expert Faiz Bafana, alias
Mahmoud, to discuss the bomb plot.
5 SEPTEMBER, 2001 Goes to Makati,
Philippines, to meet Fathur Rahman Al Ghozi, alias Saad, who tells Mr.
Jabarah he needs more time, money and explosives. They discuss switching
the operation to Singapore.
6 OCTOBER 16, 2001 Arrives in Singapore
to scout targets, using a Sony video camera. The plot takes shape. Mr.
Jabarah intends to pack six trucks with ammonium nitrate. Arab suicide
bombers are to arrive to drive them to the targets, which include the U.S.
and Israeli embassies, British and Australian high commissions and American
businesses.
DECEMBER 9, 2001 Singapore's Internal
Security Department arrests members of Mr. Jabarah's cell. Among those
caught is Faiz Bafana. Mr. Jabarah receives e-mail titled "Problem."
7 DECEMBER, 2001 Travels to Bangkok
and meets with Hambali, who tells him to leave. "It will be a very big
hit for us if you're arrested."
8 JANUARY, 2002 Meets for the last
time with Hambali and discusses a plot to bomb sites frequented by Western
tourists in Indonesia. Goes to Dubai, stays at a hotel and contacts his
al-Qaeda boss Mr. Mohammad to tell him he has to run.
9 MARCH, 2002 Goes to Oman, gets
arrested.
10 APRIL, 2002 Canadian intelligence
agents bring him back to Canada. He wants to go to the United States so
he can make a deal.
11 MAY, 2002 CSIS facilitates his
transfer to New York.
AUGUST 21, 2002 The FBI issues a
confidential intelligence report to its allies based on Mr. Jabarah's confession.
Several Western countries put their embassies in Southeast Asia on alert.
12 OCTOBER, 12, 2002 Jemaah Islamiyah
detonates truck bombs at a Bali nightclub packed with Western tourists,
killing almost 200, including two Canadians. Authorities say Hambali was
behind the blast.
