LONDON — Months after he was released from Guantanamo Bay, Abdul Rahman was back in the company of terrorist leaders along the Pakistan- Afghanistan border. But he was a double agent, providing Taliban and al-Qaeda secrets to Pakistani intelligence, which then shared the tips with Western counterparts.
The ruse cost him his life, according to a former Pakistani military intelligence official, Mahmood Shah. The Taliban began to suspect him and after multiple interrogations, executed him.
The case of Rahman, which Shah recounted to The Associated Press, falls in line with a key aspect of the fight against terrorism — Western intelligence agencies, with help from Islamic allies, are placing moles and informants inside al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The program seems to be bearing fruit, even as many infiltrators like Rahman are discovered and killed.
It was a tip from an al-Qaeda militant-turned-informant that led international authorities to find explosives hidden in printer cartridges from Yemen to the United States a week ago, Yemeni security officials say. Officials say the explosives could have caused a blast as deadly as the 1988 Lockerbie bombing in Scotland that killed 270 people.
Thwarting terror plots
Intelligence agencies such as MI6 and the CIA have hired more agents from diverse backgrounds since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and others that followed. Many say the tactics have worked: Several plots, including a 2006 trans-Atlantic airline plot, were thwarted because intelligence agents were able to use tips to track the would-be terrorists.
In recent years, U.S., European and Pakistani intelligence officials have said al-Qaeda has been weakened by CIA drone strikes along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border and by governments planting agents within terror cells. Top leaders have been taken out of the picture or trust has been eroded enough that militants have begun to turn on one another.
In an unprecedented public speech last week, MI6 chief John Sawers revealed for the first time that the British spy agency had managed to “get inside” terrorist organizations. He would not elaborate.
“Layers of al-Qaeda’s security have been slowly worn down, and it’s much easier today to infiltrate these groups,” said Noman Benotman, a former jihadist with links to al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Sudan, who now is a security and terrorism analyst in London.
Gitmo detention helps
Saudi Arabia has had some of the most success with spies in the Arabian Peninsula, some of whom have been former Guantanamo detainees, Benotman said. Jail time at Guantanamo is an asset on the resumes of many double agents, security officials say — an ultimate sign of credibility that often makes them revered and trusted among senior operatives.
The Saudis have a terrorist rehabilitation program that has hosted about 120 of the nearly 800 men who have passed through Guantanamo since it opened nine years ago.
Of them, about two dozen have taken up arms again, while a handful are thought to be working as spies for the Saudis in exchange for stipends paid to their families and tribes, loans and other monetary incentives, according to two European government officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of their work.
Yemeni authorities have said a tip on last week’s mail bomb plot came from a Saudi who returned from Guantanamo in 2007, spent time in the rehab program and fled to Yemen before handing himself in to Saudi authorities in late September.
Yemeni security officials say he might have been a double agent, planted by Saudi Arabia. But European government officials say that although the Saudi might have provided broad outlines about the plot, it appears Saudi Arabia had additional sources.
