Prisoner of the Sultan
The bus went as far as Hatiya in southern Thailand. From there Mohammed made his way to the railway station and boarded a train. It was late in December when he arrived in Bangkok and checked his email. There was a message from Hambali. He too had fled Kuala Lumpur with Azzam, taking a circuitous route from Kuala Lumpur to Tanjung Pinang island, by ferry to Medan and then by air to Singapore, Phuket and Bangkok. Hambali sent Jabarah a phone number and told him to call.
They were reunited the next day at the Chaleena Hotel, along the banks of the Saen Saeb Canal. Mohammed noticed that Azzam had shaved off his beard. They discussed Faiz Bafana’s arrest and their fears that he would talk under interrogation. Jabarah was afraid that Faiz would give police his description and that his photograph or sketch would be circulated and published in the newspapers. Hambali was not ready to call things off, though. He was still planning more attacks. But he feared for his Canadian friend. Jabarah knew so much about so many people; his arrest could endanger the entire organization. And Mohammed was the future of Al Qaeda. “It will be a very big hit for us if you’re arrested,” Hambali told him.
Mohammed tried to take a bus to Myanmar but he was turned back because he did not have a visa. He went instead to Chang Mai in northern Thailand. He called the United Arab Emirates embassy and asked about visa requirements, then boarded a plane to Bangkok and transferred to a flight to Dubai. He was still on the run, a wanted man in a dangerous time, but at least he was back on the Arabian peninsula. Kuwait was only a short flight away. He sent emails to KSM and Hambali, letting them know he was in Dubai and that he was safe. Hambali did not reply, but two days later KSM responded with a new contact number. Jabarah also phoned Abu Mohammed and some other old friends in Kuwait, and he called his parents as well. Mansour was furious because Mohammed’s name had been in the news.
On January 11, the Singapore home ministry had issued a lengthy press statement about the progress of their investigation of the bombing plot. Thirteen of the 23 suspects under arrest had confessed they were active members of Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) and had been involved in the surveillance of targets and logistical groundwork for the attack, including stockpiling materials and finding hiding places. They were being held under the Internal Security Act. Eight of them admitted they had trained in Malaysia and Afghanistan, via Peshawar, and said that Hambali had taken care of the logistical arrangements for their travel to Pakistan. Their cover story was the same as the one used by Mohammed—that they were going to study at Pakistani religious schools. Some of the detainees identified the leader of the Jemaah Islamiyah as Abu Bakar Bashir.
The investigation was providing the first glimpse of the JI terror network and its links to Al Qaeda. The surveillance videos found at the office of Fathi Bafana, Faiz Bafana’s brother. The original version of the surveillance video recovered in Afghanistan was found hidden in the bottom of a cabinet. Police found documents such as notes on how to make bombs and a letter sent to Taliban leader Mullah Omar, advising that, “I am glad to inform you that some of our brothers are ready to extend their help for the cause of Islam and the Muslims.” A $1,000 contribution was enclosed. Ibrahim Maidin, the Jemaah Islamiyah head in Singapore, told police the fact the bombing was stopped meant that God didn’t want it to happen. Another important break came when Mike the Bombmaker was about to leave Manila for Kuala Lumpur to get the money he needed to buy more TNT. He was arrested and a police search turned up the TNT he had stockpiled, as well as 300 detonators and six rolls of detonating cords. Under interrogation, he admitted it was to be used in Singapore.
“How did such Singaporeans who were by no means marginalized or ignorant wind up this way?” Wong Kan Seng, Singapore’s Minister of Home Affairs, asked during a session of Parliament. “Many of the detainees now regretted their actions and attributed it to their blind loyalty to their leaders and their teachings. They were in search of religious knowledge but got sucked into a militant ideology and were infected by its hatred and radical and violent values. A few had some doubts but they felt they were too deeply involved to withdraw. Moreover, they had taken oaths of allegiance to their leaders which were sworn in the name of God and feared retribution if they should betray their vows.”
The Singapore government said in a press statement that the local cell members had been approached by two foreigners who were looking for help with a bombing. One of them, the statement said, was “of Arab extraction calling himself ‘Sammy’ and believed to be linked to the Al-Qaeda organization.” Sammy was described as “the leading and directing figure in the plan,” but there was no other mention of him. The interrogations of the Singapore cell members yielded a lot of intelligence about JI, but none of the suspects had much to offer about Sammy. It was just one of the many indications of Mohammed’s skill as a clandestine operative that he could spend weeks in the company of a group of men, but when they reflected under questioning, they realized that they knew almost nothing about the man.
The Internal Security Department (ISD) had only a few pieces of the puzzle; it needed to see the whole picture, so the agents did what intelligence services do—they tried to piece it together with the fragments that they had. They knew Sammy was a foreigner and that he had entered the country by road, so they got the landing cards from the border crossings and started sifting through them. That gave them a short list to work from. They entered the names into their databases and looked for hits. One of the possibilities was a Canadian passport holder named Mohammed Mansour Jabarah, age 20. He had entered Singapore at about the right time and was a Westerner of Arab ancestry, just like Sammy appeared to be. On his landing card Jabarah had listed his occupation as student and said he was coming to Singapore as a tourist. His record was clean. There was nothing in the computer system that indicated he was a threat. There was, however, some information about his father and brother. It said that Mansour Jabarah had been involved with right-wing Islamic groups. (For his part, Mansour says he was not involved in Islamist politics in Kuwait and suggests he appeared in the database because of his involvement at the St. Catharines mosque.) One of Mohammed’s brothers was also listed. (I have not been able to determine which one.) There was no record of terrorism for either the father or the brother, but the information on the family told the investigators they might be on to something.
At first, the ISD thought that Sammy might actually be one of his brothers using Mohammed’s passport, but they soon had it figured out. Sammy was Mohammed Jabarah. He was traveling on his own Canadian passport. It was a stroke of genius by Al Qaeda. Since 9/11, it was increasingly difficult to travel on forged documents. But Mohammed did not need a fake passport; he had a Canadian one. By the time Sammy had been identified, he had already left Singapore. The priority for the ISD investigators was to neutralize the Al Qaeda-JI cell and learn as much as they could about its operations. The agency shared its information with its security and intelligence partners around the world. “Investigations are continuing,” the statement concluded. “Several suspect operations cell members have fled the country and efforts are being made, in co-operation with the authorities of neighboring countries, to locate them.” Experts believe more than 3,000 people could have died had the attack succeeded. An Asian 9/11 had been averted.
The Singaporeans contacted Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs for help and, on January 17, the Canadian Press wire service reported from Washington that Sammy had been carrying a Canadian passport in the name of “Jabarah Mohd Mansur.” The story ran on the front page of the Toronto Star. “Canadian authorities will provide Singapore with any assistance it requires in pursuing this investigation,” the story quoted an unnamed Canadian embassy official as saying. When Mansour saw the article, he was angry and he told Mohammed so on the phone. Mansour says he had no idea his son was in Dubai. Mohammed was still telling his parents he was in Pakistan.
Worried, Mohammed sent KSM a copy of the Star article. A few days later he called KSM and told him he wanted to go to Mecca for the Haj, but the plan was scuttled when he could not get a visa for Saudi Arabia. His mood brightened when he got word that his brother Abdul Rahman was on his way. Following his brush with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service in St. Catharines, Abdul Rahman had left Canada and returned to Afghanistan in August, but when the U.S. air strikes started, he fled to Pakistan with the rest of the Al Qaeda exodus. He flew to Syria and then Dubai. Mohammed went to the airport to surprise him, he told investigators later.
The brothers spent a week together at a Dubai hotel while Mohammed awaited further instructions. Abdul Rahman told him that because of the devastating air strikes in Afghanistan, Al Qaeda members were supposed to go to Tajikistan, Iran or Pakistan “to regroup or to return to their home countries and wait for a call.” Mohammed called the number that KSM had given him, but another man answered. It was Al Attash, who Jabarah knew from Kandahar. They caught up on events and Al Attash told Jabarah that Al Qaeda had another mission for him. He was to travel to Muscat in the Sultanate of Oman and then call back. Jabarah got a visa within three days and left.
The American-led war in Afghanistan had pushed hundreds of Al Qaeda members into neighboring countries, particularly Pakistan and Iran. But these were not necessarily safe places for fleeing terrorists and Al Qaeda was searching desperately for escape routes. One of the pipelines they came up with was to travel by boat from Iran to Oman and then to Yemen, which many in Al Qaeda thought would be their next operational base. Bin Laden was a Yemeni by ancestry, and the country had large tracts of wild desert where bandits and terrorists could operate out of reach of the law. And there was nothing separating Yemen and Saudi Arabia but sand dunes. Jabarah called Al Attash upon his arrival in Muscat and was told to rent an apartment for 15 to 19 men who would be arriving from Iran en route to Yemen. In code, they were to be referred to as “fifteen nice girls without papers.” Al Attash said he was sending another operative from Pakistan to help out, a Saudi in his late 20s named Abu Abdelrahman. Jabarah had met Abdelrahman once at a guesthouse in Kandahar, although he did not know him well. Abdelrahman had stayed in Afghanistan throughout the fighting until the end of December 2001 or the beginning of January 2002. He arrived in Oman with $5,000 that KSM had given him to set up the transit apartment. Abdelrahman brought Jabarah up to date on what was happening inside Al Qaeda.
At the beginning of March, Jabarah spoke again by phone with Al Attash. As soon as the Oman mission was completed, Jabarah was to return to Pakistan for his next assignment. Jabarah also received emails from Al Attash asking him to come back to Pakistan. Jabarah understood that Al Qaeda had a new job for him, but he had no idea what it was. When the boat full of “nice girls” arrived from Iran, Jabarah got a call from Pakistan. He was instructed to meet up with the transiting fighters and phone back when they were safe.
It all fell apart on a single day.
The Al Qaeda operatives who had come to Oman by boat were arrested, and so were Abu Abdelrahman and Jabarah. They were together when the police arrived on March 2, 2002. Abdelrahman was deported to Saudi Arabia and the “nice girls,” who were Yemenis and Saudis, were expelled to their respective countries.
Only Jabarah remained. His was a more complicated case for the Omanis. Their first priority was to determine just what he was doing in Muscat. Was he scouting embassies for an attack? They pressed him on the matter for a week but came up empty. Some have suggested Mohammed was tortured during this time, but officials told me he wasn’t. Jabarah told the Omanis he was not aware of any Al Qaeda operations in Oman. He said he had not visited the U.S. embassy and did not even know where it was.
The Omanis were satisfied that Mohammed was not a threat to them and decided to release and deport him. But to where? Kuwait was a possibility, but Mohammed said he did not want to go there. He knew that as soon as he arrived, he would be detained. Al Kandari and the other Kuwaitis returning home from jihad were all being arrested. He knew the same fate was waiting for him. He also ruled out going back to Pakistan. The Pakistanis were rounding up Al Qaeda members and handing them over to the Americans, and Mohammed knew he would be “scooped.”
Mohammed suggested Iraq. He was still an Iraqi citizen and he had family in Basra. He thought he would be safe there (the U.S. invasion was still a year away at this time). But the Omanis said no. They were afraid of the damage to Omani-American relations should the United States find out they had sent an Al Qaeda terrorist to Saddam’s Iraq. There was only one option left, and that was Canada. For his part, Mohammed was willing to go back, and the Omanis saw no difficulties with that. The Omani intelligence chief approved. Mohammed would be handed over to the Canadians.
The Canadian security liaison officer in charge of Muscat took the phone call. He listened as the Omani official explained the situation: Mohammed Jabarah was in custody and unless a Canadian official came to pick him up, he would be set free. CSIS knew immediately who Jabarah was, and desperately wanted to talk to him. The agency had wanted to talk to him since the first tip about his activities at the St. Catharines mosque had come in a year earlier, and the emerging intelligence about his role in Singapore made it that much more pressing.
CSIS had a couple of options. It could try to convince the Omanis to give Mohammed to the Americans, who wanted him for the Singapore plot. CSIS consulted the CIA to find out what the Americans would do with Mohammed if they got him. The answer was that he would be sent to Guantanamo Bay, and that did not appeal to CSIS.
When they found out that Mohammed had been caught, the Americans started lobbying the Omanis. In one of his letters from prison, Mohammed describes the attempts by U.S. authorities to convince Sultan Qaboos bin Said Al Said, who has ruled the country since 1970 and also serves as prime minister, to hand him over.
One of the officials of the CIA visited Sultan Qaboos of Oman during the period when I was in jail and tried to convince him that Oman must deliver me directly to them. Qaboos refused that request based on the fact that there was no agreement between Oman and the U.S. to expatriate a Canadian citizen to the U.S.
The Omanis would not give Mohammed to the Americans. On that they were firm. Another option was to ask the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) to pick up Mohammed. This was the choice favored by CSIS. Canada had recently passed its Anti-Terrorism Act, which outlawed terrorist activities for the first time. The RCMP looked into the case and, incredibly, could find no grounds for arresting Mohammed. The problem was one of timing. The things that Mohammed had done for Al Qaeda were indeed illegal under the Act. But Parliament had only passed the law on December 24, 2001, in response to the 9/11 attacks. All of Jabarah’s terrorist activities pre-dated the enactment of the legislation, and the law was not retroactive. Canada’s lawmakers were so slow to outlaw terrorism that Mohammed could not be charged. The RCMP option was ruled out completely when the Omanis declared that they would not hand Mohammed over to any police force, even the Mounties. There were only two possible scenarios left: Either CSIS would bring him back to Canada, or Jabarah would be set loose. For an agency charged with protecting the security of Canadians and their allies, the latter option was no option at all.
Two CSIS agents, a senior officer from headquarters in Ottawa and another from the Toronto regional office, flew to Oman to take custody of Mohammed and bring him home. When they saw him, he looked to be in good shape. He was eager to return to Canada. They took him to the Muscat airport and boarded British Airways Flight 72 to London at midnight on April 18. At Heathrow Airport, they walked to Gate 24 and, at 9 a.m., boarded Air Canada Flight 869, destined for Toronto’s Lester B. Pearson International Airport.
Mohammed writes in a letter to his brother in Canada:
When we flew from Oman to Canada, I was supposed when I first reach Canada to ask for a lawyer and not to speak to this cunning Arabic Mike, whose real name is Marlon. All security places, not only in Canada, but everywhere, usually will have strong evidence against the accused. The strongest way to arouse the anger of American detectives is to tell them during questioning, “I shall never speak in the absence of a lawyer.” Saying this will be like spitting at their faces and giving them a nice slap on the cheeks.
In less than two years, Mohammed Jabarah’s jihad had taken him from Canada to Kuwait, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, United Arab Emirates and Oman. He had been trained by the top-ranked terrorists in the world, who had been grooming him to become a leader of the future, another Khalid Sheikh Mohammad. He had been their apprentice.
And now it was all over.
He had not achieved his goal of martyrdom, but he had served the cause of Al Qaeda like few others had. And at least he was coming home in style.
Mohammed flew Executive Class, in seat 4D.