Agent Storm: My Life Inside al-Qaeda by Morten Storm, Paul Cruickshank, Tim Lister Read Free Book Online Page B
mosque.
He introduced himself as Mahmud al-Tayyib.
‘Where are you from?’ he asked.
I told him that I had recently arrived from Denmark and had converted to Islam just a few months earlier.
‘Are you married?’
I launched into my sad tale about Samar, how she had promised to join me, my plans for a Muslim wedding.
Tayyib was sympathetic. In his gentle way he was also persuasive. Like Suleiman he had a passion for conveying his faith. He was a man of deep learning.
‘Would you like to study Islam? Why not travel to a Muslim country?’
It was a soft but earnest sell.
‘I can get you to Yemen. It’s the easiest Muslim country to get a visa to study – do you have a passport?’
I did. But I had never heard of Yemen. And I had little notion of what Tayyib regarded as the authentic expression of Islam. He was one of the many well-funded envoys sent around the world by wealthy Saudi interests to bring Muslims into the Wahhabi fold. Ever since the Islamic Revolution in Iran, the Saudis had spent lavishly promoting their ‘authentic’ brand of Islam in the face of the challenge posed by Ayatollah Khomeini. To the puritanical Wahhabis – Sunni fundamentalists – the Shia were heretics guilty of polluting Islam.
Of this battle for the soul of Islam, being waged in mosques around the world, I knew little. But I was about to become one of its foot soldiers.
‘There is a seminary in Yemen. It is remote and it is primitive by European standards,’ Tayyib continued. ‘But it is pure. Many foreigners seeking truth in Islam go there. It is called Dammaj. I can organize a plane ticket for you and people to look after you when you arrive.’
His eyes were sparkling.
‘The imam at Dammaj is a great scholar, Sheikh Muqbil. He is returning Yemen to the true path of the Sunnah. But you should know that the day is long and you will have to get a grasp of Arabic.’
I was excited. I loved to travel and the thought of visiting Arabia had been beyond my wildest imagination. Now I was being offered a returnticket, a place to stay and a chance to become immersed in my new faith.
I accepted Tayyib’s offer and said it would take me a couple of weeks to wrap up my affairs in England. He was delighted.
‘But don’t become a Sufi or a Shia,’ he said with a wry grin, ‘and don’t shave any more.’
CHAPTER FOUR
Arabia
Late Summer 1997–Summer 1998
For a 21-year-old Dane, the searing heat of Sana’a was an assault on the senses. Before I flew into Yemen’s capital in the late summer of 1997 I had no sense of my destination. I had vaguely imagined that Sana’a was actually in Oman, where Western oil companies were established and a moderate Sultan ruled a peaceful kingdom. I could not have been more wrong.
I was shocked by the ramshackle building that passed for Yemen’s welcome to the world. Flies drifted in the arrivals hall as wiry Yemeni men jostled for position at passport control.
Tayyib had organized for me to be picked up. I was greeted by a couple of young men of Somali background (a lot of Somalis had crossed the Gulf of Aden to settle in Yemen). I was overwhelmed by the noise and chaos, the mountains rising above the city.
Sana’a filled the senses: the medieval buildings of mud brick in Sana’a’s old quarter decorated like outsize marzipan confections, the air full of dust but also of the scent of herbs and spices, the shabby appearance of the men, the women shrouded in black, the call of the muezzin and the guttural Arabic. I was taken aback at the sight of men holding hands. Above all I was amazed by the Kalashnikovs; people even carried them while visiting the supermarket.
My first two weeks were spent in a poor district of Sana’a, living in a house without furniture, sitting cross-legged on the floor, eating Somali food. It was a halfway house as well as a half-built house. Tayyib had warned me that it might take some time to reach Dammaj, whichwas in a valley some 100 miles north
He introduced himself as Mahmud al-Tayyib.
‘Where are you from?’ he asked.
I told him that I had recently arrived from Denmark and had converted to Islam just a few months earlier.
‘Are you married?’
I launched into my sad tale about Samar, how she had promised to join me, my plans for a Muslim wedding.
Tayyib was sympathetic. In his gentle way he was also persuasive. Like Suleiman he had a passion for conveying his faith. He was a man of deep learning.
‘Would you like to study Islam? Why not travel to a Muslim country?’
It was a soft but earnest sell.
‘I can get you to Yemen. It’s the easiest Muslim country to get a visa to study – do you have a passport?’
I did. But I had never heard of Yemen. And I had little notion of what Tayyib regarded as the authentic expression of Islam. He was one of the many well-funded envoys sent around the world by wealthy Saudi interests to bring Muslims into the Wahhabi fold. Ever since the Islamic Revolution in Iran, the Saudis had spent lavishly promoting their ‘authentic’ brand of Islam in the face of the challenge posed by Ayatollah Khomeini. To the puritanical Wahhabis – Sunni fundamentalists – the Shia were heretics guilty of polluting Islam.
Of this battle for the soul of Islam, being waged in mosques around the world, I knew little. But I was about to become one of its foot soldiers.
‘There is a seminary in Yemen. It is remote and it is primitive by European standards,’ Tayyib continued. ‘But it is pure. Many foreigners seeking truth in Islam go there. It is called Dammaj. I can organize a plane ticket for you and people to look after you when you arrive.’
His eyes were sparkling.
‘The imam at Dammaj is a great scholar, Sheikh Muqbil. He is returning Yemen to the true path of the Sunnah. But you should know that the day is long and you will have to get a grasp of Arabic.’
I was excited. I loved to travel and the thought of visiting Arabia had been beyond my wildest imagination. Now I was being offered a returnticket, a place to stay and a chance to become immersed in my new faith.
I accepted Tayyib’s offer and said it would take me a couple of weeks to wrap up my affairs in England. He was delighted.
‘But don’t become a Sufi or a Shia,’ he said with a wry grin, ‘and don’t shave any more.’
CHAPTER FOUR
Arabia
Late Summer 1997–Summer 1998
For a 21-year-old Dane, the searing heat of Sana’a was an assault on the senses. Before I flew into Yemen’s capital in the late summer of 1997 I had no sense of my destination. I had vaguely imagined that Sana’a was actually in Oman, where Western oil companies were established and a moderate Sultan ruled a peaceful kingdom. I could not have been more wrong.
I was shocked by the ramshackle building that passed for Yemen’s welcome to the world. Flies drifted in the arrivals hall as wiry Yemeni men jostled for position at passport control.
Tayyib had organized for me to be picked up. I was greeted by a couple of young men of Somali background (a lot of Somalis had crossed the Gulf of Aden to settle in Yemen). I was overwhelmed by the noise and chaos, the mountains rising above the city.
Sana’a filled the senses: the medieval buildings of mud brick in Sana’a’s old quarter decorated like outsize marzipan confections, the air full of dust but also of the scent of herbs and spices, the shabby appearance of the men, the women shrouded in black, the call of the muezzin and the guttural Arabic. I was taken aback at the sight of men holding hands. Above all I was amazed by the Kalashnikovs; people even carried them while visiting the supermarket.
My first two weeks were spent in a poor district of Sana’a, living in a house without furniture, sitting cross-legged on the floor, eating Somali food. It was a halfway house as well as a half-built house. Tayyib had warned me that it might take some time to reach Dammaj, whichwas in a valley some 100 miles north
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