Click to play videoFor 14 years, Osama Bin Laden had a spy in America who was an officer in the US military, worked for the CIA and FBI and eventually betrayed all these strategic agencies.
He was the Triple Cross and the US was so complacent that it could not detect his designs till it was too late.
Minutes after 9/11, US turned to this prisoner, jailed since 1998.
Ali Abdul Saoud Mohamed was Osama bin Laden's spy in America.
“What he laid out was the attack as if he knew every detail of it. This is how you position yourself. I taught people how to sit in first class. He told me about utility knives. It was just kind of eerie,” says FBI Special Agent, Jack Cloonan.
The US Department of Defense, the CIA and the FBI had all used him, but Ali Mohammed was actually triple-crossing them all.
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In 1984, Ali Mohamed was dismissed from the Egyptian Army for being a radical Muslim. He was fluent in English, French, Arabic, Hebrew, and had a degree in psychology.
The CIA felt the urbane Ali could work for them. He was even sent to Germany to infiltrate a mosque in Hamburg.
“Ali goes in and over the course of the week lets it be known to the people in the mosque that he's actually been sent there at the behest of the agency,” says Cloonan.
The CIA soon sacked Ali and put him on a watch list.
Back in Egypt, Ali met Ayman al-Zawahiri, now Al-Qaeda's No. 2 and a plan emerged.
First, Ali traveled to America and got a US visa, despite being on a terror watch list.
Next, he married an American to become a US citizen and a year later he was in the US Army.
Strangely, Ali was still open about his radical views.
“Islam without political domination cannot survive. We have to establish an Islamic state, because Islam, without political domination, cannot survive,” he had said.
Somehow, he evaded all background security checks.
“There is nothing more important for a terrorist group then to have a live agent, a living agent inside a military organisation such as the US military,” says Terrorism Analyst, Rohan Gunaratna.
In 1988, Ali Mohamad surprised everyone by using his army leave to join the Afghan Mujahideen to fight the Soviet Army.
It is here that Ali met Osama bin Laden.
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Two years later, Ali Mohamed allowed the FBI to recruit him as an informant.
“Ali Mohamed not only served the Egyptian Islamic Jihad but served al-Qaeda from the very beginning of his association with Dr. Ayman al Zawahiri,” says Gunaratna.
Today, the FBI admits to the glaring security lapse.
“So did somebody close their eyes and just sign off something and give it to him? We were never able to confirm that. I think it's a function of A not knowing what B's doing and that he took advantage of it,” says Cloonan.
To get more insights into terrorism tune in to Nat Geo Investigates Terrorism from Sept 11 to 22 on weeknights @ 10 pm. You can also log on to www.nationalgeographic.co.in/explore/terrorism for the full schedule of Nat Geo Investigates Terrorism.
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