Agent Storm: My Life Inside al-Qaeda by Morten Storm, Paul Cruickshank, Tim Lister Page B

conversations about religion. He urged me not to read books by Salafis who did not support jihad and we devoured websites that reported on the conflicts in Indonesia and Chechnya.
    One evening I went to visit him at his mother’s home – a plain breeze-block house on an unpaved street in Sana’a. Emaciated cats wandered among the piles of garbage as children played football or ran with hoops. Hussein al-Masri, the Egyptian jihadi who had previously offered to get me to bin Laden’s camps, was there when I arrived.
    As we sat on the floor, drinking tea, it became clear Abdul had been busy while I’d been in London. He told me in hushed tones but with unmistakable pride that he had travelled to Afghanistan, spent time in al-Qaeda’s camps and even – he claimed – met Osama bin Laden.
    ‘He is doing Allah’s work,’ Abdul said. ‘The attack on the American warship and on the embassies is just the beginning,’ he continued, referring to al-Qaeda’s bombing of US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam in 1998. ‘There are good Muslims from all over the world who are now in Kandahar and Jalalabad.’ He and al-Masri told me they could get me to Afghanistan to help build the promised land. I sometimes wondered whether Abdul was embellishing his exploits and encounters, but he certainly displayed first-hand knowledge of Afghanistan and none of the al-Qaeda members I subsequently met contradicted his account.
    I was tempted to go myself. My religious views were certainly no longer an obstacle. Once back in Yemen, encouraged by Abdul, I had devoured books by pro-jihadist Islamic scholars – even translating some into Danish. I had forsaken my Salafi purism to view preparation for jihad as a necessity.
    It was not religious fervour alone that tempted me to head to Afghanistan. One of my circle in London – a half-Barbadian, half-Englishman – had told stories of training in Afghanistan, stimulating the sense of adventure that always itched within me. He spoke of roaming the majestic mountains, weapons training and an intense fellowship among the fighters.
    ‘I might be going back soon,’ Abdul said. ‘The Sheikh said that people like you should come,’ he added, referring to bin Laden. He showed me a video from Afghanistan with scenes of al-Qaeda recruitstraining on monkey bars and firing rockets, footage which later became iconic.
    ‘I would like to go,’ I said. I could not restrain my excitement about being with the mujahideen in the mountains of Afghanistan. My new wife was soon to join me in Sana’a, but training for jihad was all I could think about.
    ‘We can arrange a plane ticket to Karachi, from where you’ll be picked up and driven over to Afghanistan,’ Abdul said.
    Karima arrived in the height of summer, but I was now in a quandary. I felt I could not just leave her in Sana’a while I disappeared to the Hindu Kush – even though she accepted it was my religious duty to prepare for jihad. She knew nobody in Sana’a.
    I sought an audience with Mohammed al-Hazmi, one of the radical clerics I had encountered during my previous stay in Sana’a.
    ‘I want to train with the mujahideen in Afghanistan,’ I told him.
    ‘ Masha’Allah , this is good. According to Sharia you can’t leave your wife unless she is with a responsible family member: a father, brother or uncle. But for jihad there is an exception. Your wife can stay in your residence in Sana’a and the landlord can take her as family.’
    There seemed a lot of flexibility in the rules as applied to Holy War.
    Abdul, just back from Afghanistan, had different advice, telling me that if I travelled there I should take my wife with me, so that we could make hijra – emigrate to a Muslim land. He was relaying Osama bin Laden’s appeal for jihadis to bring their families. Many did: when al-Qaeda’s last redoubt at Tora Bora was cleared later that year, women and children were among those killed or put to flight.
    I decided against taking