(The blog formerly known as) All Things Counter Terrorism

I had promised a post about this guy, but it seems after an admin bungle my dissertation is due for examination  several months earlier than I thought so that’s getting top priority, which is why I am still awake at 5am in the morning!

Mind you I am digging through my forum archives for my last chapter so if I find anything of note I will post on it. Thus far there is one particularly interesting Abu Dujana from 2002 who I’m looking at. Having said that there were quite a few with that user name. But why I’m looking is that I strongly suspect that al Khorasani’s history goes back further on the forums (and possibly in the real world) than what is being reported. In fact quite a bit of his history doesn’t add up. I was reading an article in the WaPo and two excerpts stuck me as being particularly interesting in this respect.  My comments below each excerpt:

“First, the guy had extremist credentials, including proven access to senior figures,” the U.S. intelligence official said. “Second, you had a sound liaison service that believed they’d turned him and that had been working with him since. And third, the asset supplied intelligence that was independently verified. You don’t ignore those kinds of things, but you don’t trust the guy, either.”

What immediately jumps out at me here is that the access to senior figures  pre-dates the turning by GID, which strongly suggests that Khorasani had deeper links than just a forum administrator.  This begs the question of how he got these.   I strongly suspect that his history is a little more complex than what is being said publicly. And access to senior figures is not something that comes along via the internet very often. That’s more a real world link.

Al-Qaeda is deeply suspicious of new volunteers, and especially so of Jordanians because of repeated attempts by GID to penetrate the organization, according to former Jordanian intelligence officials. There are no Jordanians in bin Laden’s inner circle, and some who have risen to prominence, such as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the slain leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, were given assignments far from the leadership.

Al-Qaeda security and intelligence officers rigorously vet new arrivals and subject them to a host of tests before they reach “even the third circle around the leadership,” as a former Jordanian intelligence official put it.

“Their first instinct is to suspect,” this former official said. “They check and double-check his background. They watch him eat and sleep and pray, for signs. They analyze everything. That’s how they have survived since 9/11. And after all that, if they believe him, he won’t get near the inner circle.”

Again all of this points to a far more complex picture. I’d like to know Khorasani’s activities while in Turkey, his travel movements etc. Had he been to Afghanistan before?  If his links were to senior figures and they predate GID turning him, I think it’s a question well worth asking in light of the above comments about access to the inner circle. Also in terms of sending an asset in to penetrate a group when he’s supposedly only had internet contact.

Another point of interest is Khorasani’s  internet history circa 2001- 2003. Despite what Khorasani said in his interview in the Taliban magazine ( I think it was the Taliban mag if memory serves), one does not get to be a forum administrator overnight. I watched another person rise through the ranks this way and he had direct contact with  a mid-level AQ commander. It still took him 18 months or so. This brings me back to my question about Khorsani’s early internet history and possible real world history. As an aside, back then, in the early days you didn’t write Khorasani, Kandahari etc unless you had been there. It was used as an identifier. This has changed in recent years but I do wonder about this with him too.

Anyway, just some random thoughts on the matter.

via In Afghanistan attack, CIA fell victim to series of miscalculations about informant – washingtonpost.com.