In September 2009, Morten Storm, a young Danish national-turned-Islamic jihadist, flew to Yemen to visit an old friend — Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born terrorist leading al Qaeda in Yemen.
Awlaki had been released from prison two years prior. He had served an 18-month sentence on ambiguous charges. After his release, Awlaki went underground.
He soon sent Storm an email. “Come to Yemen,” it read. “I need to see you.”
As a UK resident with a Yemeni wife, Storm was highly valuable to Awlaki. And for Storm, the attention of one of jihad’s most powerful leaders was thrilling.
Storm and his wife flew to Sanaa, Yemen’s capital, and were met by a ragtag bunch of young radicals with AK-47s. They drove a Toyota Land Cruiser and took Storm and his wife deep into al Qaeda territory.
Storm found one stressed-out terrorist.
“The Americans want me dead,” Awlaki said. “They are putting pressure on the [Yemeni] government all the time.”
He was also bitter about his time in prison.
“I was in solitary confinement for the first nine months,” Awlaki said. “The only contact I had with humanity was my guards, and the cell was 3 meters long. It was underground. There were times when I thought the isolation and claustrophobia would drive me insane.”
FBI agents had been in to see him, Awlaki said. They wanted details of his meetings in California with two of the 9/11 hijackers months before the attacks. Awlaki wouldn’t talk and said he had shoved a CIA agent who wouldn’t stop asking questions. He knew he’d be protected — his father, a prominent Yemeni who had served as minister of agriculture from 1988 to 1990, knew Yemen’s president, Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Now that he was out, Awlaki wanted to overthrow Saleh — whom he saw as an Islamic apostate and American lapdog — and establish a caliphate. He asked Storm to recruit young Western Muslims and send them to Yemen for training so they could launch attacks in their own homelands.
Storm taught Awlaki how to safely communicate electronically: Save all emails to a draft folder in an account he and Storm shared. This way, both could correspond without sending a single note, avoiding detection by Western intelligence agencies.
What Awlaki didn’t know then was that Storm himself was a double agent working for the Americans, the Brits and the Danes, and that his new life’s mission was bringing Awlaki down.
‘Mujahedeen Secrets 2.0’
In his new book, “Agent Storm: My Life Inside Al Qaeda and the CIA,” co-authored by Paul Cruickshank and Tim Lister, Storm offers a rare look inside the mindset of the most dangerous jihadis of the past decade — many of whom Storm knew well.
“I was far from the only young man in Europe or America at the end of the 20th century to find meaning in a different way of life or code of conduct,” he writes. A troubled youth, Storm found a sense of community and order at his local mosque. After 9/11, he became a hard-core militant.
“Osama bin Laden was pure; he was a hero. President Bush did not believe in Allah or accept Mohammed as His messenger.”
“Osama bin Laden was pure; he was a hero. President Bush did not believe in Allah or accept Mohammed as His messenger.”
When a friend from the mosque told Storm he had been acting as a courier for bin Laden, the young Dane was energized. He began working out, with al Qaeda training videos as his guide, and in late 2005, he went to Yemen, where he was recruited by Awlaki.
The two became close, with Awlaki introducing Storm to other Western converts determined to attack the West. But as a 6-foot-1, redheaded Dane shuttling between Europe and the Middle East, Storm attracted the attention of PET, the Danish intelligence agency.
By late 2006, PET began interrogating Storm, threatening to deport his Muslim wife and 3-year-old son, Osama. He says he suffered a crisis of conscience — claiming an Internet search elucidated the contradictions in Islam — and began spying for the West.
PET began debriefing him immediately, plying the former ascetic with beer and expensive meals at fine hotels. They put Storm on their payroll, starting at $1,800 a month, and he gave up every Islamic militant he knew.
His contacts were deep. His former mentor, Omar Bakri Mohammed, fled London for Beirut right after the July 7, 2005, bombings in the English capital, and two years later, PET had an in: “How about a visit to Lebanon?”
Off Storm went, and MI5, MI6 and the CIA quickly became eager to use him as well.
They gave Storm field training, and routinely sent him off with terrorist-requested laptops and BlackBerrys — all loaded with software that relayed every keystroke and tracked every location.
The CIA was most interested in Awlaki.
Awlaki revealed to Storm how to crack the 256-bit encryption code he used to communicate with acolytes in Europe and the United States. He called it “Mujahedeen Secrets 2.0.”
Storm took detailed notes, which he turned over to all three intelligence agencies.
The ‘honeytrap’
Early 2008 brought Storm a unique opportunity. Awlaki was complaining about his two wives, who were not taking to his life on the run. He wanted a third wife, preferably a Western Muslim. Could Storm help?
He could. Storm found her on Facebook, on a page devoted to fans of Awlaki. She was a Gwyneth Paltrow look-alike, a 32-year-old blond Croatian who had converted to Islam for an ex-boyfriend. Her birth name was Irena, but she had changed it to Aminah. She had her sights on Awlaki.
“I was rejected a lot of proposal,” she wrote to Storm in broken English, “cause brothers weren’t serious about marriage or they are not on the same ideology.”
Storm returned to his handlers.
“Aminah can lead us to Awlaki,” he told them.
The Brits, Storm writes, were gun-shy, worried about sending a civilian into harm’s way.
The Americans, however, were all for it. By now, Awlaki was directly linked to the 2009 Fort Hood massacre. Storm’s CIA handler, “Jed,” was straightforward.
“It’s time to take Awlaki out,” he said.
“You mean to arrest him?” Storm asked.
“Nah,” Jed replied. “I don’t think so.”
Awlaki began sending encrypted messages to Aminah through Storm. He outlined what she could expect as a wife of a terrorist. “First, I do not live in a fixed location. Sometimes I even live in a tent,” he wrote. “Second, because of my security situation, I sometimes have to seclude myself which means me and my family would not meet with any persons for extended periods.”
He closed by asking for a photo.
Meanwhile, Awlaki was plotting to bomb another American passenger jet. His operative would smuggle a bomb on board in his underwear. (The attack failed.)
That Awlaki was still online was mind-boggling. “Lust had gotten the better of him,” Storm writes.
On Christmas Eve 2009, Yemeni forces, with US help, launched an airstrike against al Qaeda leaders in Shabwa province. Awlaki survived, and Aminah was now in a panic to marry immediately.
The Brits backed out and tried to get Storm to keep working for them. The CIA launched a muscular counteroffensive, flying Storm to a five-star resort in Iceland and upping his pay to $4,000 a month, with a $250,000 bonus for making this marriage happen.
Storm went with the CIA. Two weeks later, the mission was on.
“President Obama himself has been briefed on this,” one handler told Storm. Among themselves, they called it “the mother of all honeytraps.”
MI5 disowned Storm.
“It’s really sad to see this happening,” said his British handler.
$5 million to find him
Storm met Aminah in Vienna and, per Awlaki’s instructions, took her to the Yemeni Embassy for a visa.
“The embassy apparently thought there was nothing out of the ordinary in a Croatian blonde going to Yemen to learn Arabic,” Storm writes. She was on a plane within days.
“I don’t know how I will ever pay you back,” she told Storm.
By June 2010, Aminah and Awlaki were married. In an email to Storm, Aminah said that upon landing in Yemen, her suitcase — bugged by the CIA — was confiscated by al Qaeda operatives.
The CIA paid Storm as promised, but otherwise cut him off.
The embassy apparently thought there was nothing out of the ordinary in a Croatian blonde going to Yemen to learn Arabic.
- Morten Storm on getting Amenia's visa
The Danes kept him on retainer, but Storm was largely inactive until April 2011, when the CIA again came calling. They had lost all leads on Awlaki, who had nearly pulled off his most sophisticated plot yet: the smuggling of bomb-laden laser printers on FedEx and UPS planes.
The CIA had also intercepted an encrypted email from Awlaki. “Our highest priority is the US,” he had written. He had also been behind the launch of Inspire, the online al Qaeda magazine that contained instructions for building a homemade bomb.
The CIA’s offer: $5 million to Storm if he led them to Awlaki.
In June 2011, Storm paid another visit to his old friend in Yemen. By now, Awlaki was largely offline and communicating via courier. He and his wife requested items that were hard to come by in Yemen — like maxi pads, as well as designer dresses, expensive chocolate, lingerie, Dolce & Gabbana perfume, and hexamine for bomb-making.
“We can’t agree to the hexamine,” said one CIA handler.
But Awlaki had also asked for a fridge — for bomb storage — and this the CIA could do. Within weeks, they had built one with a satellite transponder.
On this last trip, from July 27 to Aug. 17, Storm never met with Awlaki. The terrorist was underground. Storm passed the requested items to a courier, including a bugged USB stick that included particular information on ricin that Awlaki wanted.
The killing
On Sept. 30, 2011, two Predator drones took off from Saudi Arabia and launched Hellfire missiles at a convoy including Awlaki. Back in Europe, Storm learned of Awlaki’s death on the news. Aminah survived and still lives in Yemen, Storm says.
Despite helping eliminate one of the world’s most wanted terrorists, Storm remains bitter. He never received the payment from the CIA, which claimed it had tracked Awlaki not through Storm but through a courier.
Now 38, Storm refuses to reveal where he lives or what he does, but says he’ll never work for an intelligence agency again. “Passers-by glance at me,” he writes, “but can’t know the role I played in protecting their way of life.”