Al Qaeda In America: The Enemy Within

Qaeda operatives seem to be dangerous drivers. Faris was busted for speeding in 1996 and for "failure to control his vehicle" in 1997, when he flipped his vehicle on a highway exit ramp, local officials say. An arrest for drunken driving marred the otherwise clean record of another suspected sleeper agent whose story is a chilling example of Al Qaeda's foothold in the American heartland.

During his interrogation, KSM identified a man named Ali S. Al-Marri as "the point of contact for AQ operatives arriving in the US for September 11 follow-on operations." KSM described Al-Marri as "the perfect sleeper agent because he has studied in the United States, had no criminal record, and had a family with whom he could travel." Actually, Al-Marri had been charged with driving under the influence in Peoria, Ill., in 1990. The Qatari national had returned to the United States on Sept. 10, 2001, to pick up a graduate degree in computer information systems from Peoria's Bradley University. He was accused by the FBI of phoning an alleged Qaeda operative in the United Arab Emirates, Qaeda paymaster Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, and lying about it that same December. Al-Marri's apartment was filled with Islamic jihadist materials. His computer included bookmarked Web sites for hazardous chemicals, computer hacking and fake IDs, according to court documents. Bookmarks in an almanac marked entries for dams, reservoirs and railroads. U.S. officials were outraged when the Saudi Embassy helped Al-Marri's wife obtain a passport to leave the United States in November (U.S. officials say she was still under subpoena; Saudi lawyers disagree). Al-Marri, who pleaded not guilty to charges of lying to investigators and credit-card fraud, is in prison in Peoria, awaiting trial.

Intelligence records obtained by NEWSWEEK list other Qaeda operatives who may be hiding out somewhere in America. "KSM has identified Adnan el Shukri Jumah, a Saudi born permanent US resident alien as an operative with standing permission to attack targets in the United States that had been previously approved by Usama bin Laden," reads one entry in a Homeland Security document. "El Shukri Jumah lived in the US for six years and received an associate's degree from a Florida college. He reportedly surveilled targets in New York, as well as the Panama Canal." Osama's made man has apparently vanished.

Intelligence officials say, however, that they are in some ways more worried about lone wolves who have only distant ties to Al Qaeda. "My concern is what we're seeing in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank," one top official told NEWSWEEK--the solo fanatic suicide bomber, or, in intelligence parlance, a "non-aligned mujahedin." These are the lost souls who wandered through Al Qaeda's Afghan training camps during the '90s and have gone on to create their own cells. They may pose a more imminent threat than the kind of top-of-the-line, well-trained operatives who carried out the complex, almost balletic 9-11 hijack plan.

Canada seems to be a haven for these folk. In late May, Canadian authorities finally moved to expel a pizza-parlor operator and Moroccan refugee named Adil Charkaoui under newly enacted provisions of an antiterrorist law. Charkaoui, who admits he traveled to Pakistan for "religious training," has long been tied to Ahmed Ressam, the alleged terrorist who was arrested as he entered the United States from Canada at the time of the 2000 Millennium celebrations. In his car were the makings of a bomb, which, he later confessed, was intended for an attack on the Los Angeles airport. Charkaoui, a martial-arts expert, has also been linked to the 9-11 plotters as well as to a plot to blow up an Air France jetliner.

American authorities fret that the Canadians allow sleepers to walk the streets until they are compelled to take legal action. Bush Justice Department officials have not been so reticent. By putting suspects in what one top law-enforcement official described to NEWSWEEK as "a kind of limbo detention"--essentially living with FBI agents who could charge them at any time--the Feds are pushing the legal envelope. "We're making this up as we go along," said the official. "It's a brave new world out there." When FBI agents confront Qaeda suspects, they give them a choice: cooperate or face the consequences, which could include a life in prison and possibly even the death penalty. (Justice Department spokeswoman Barbara Comstock declined to discuss any specific cases, but said that the department has deployed legal tactics that have been "historically used in organized crime and drug cases and proven effective in breaking down conspiracies.") One lever the Feds currently lack is the threat of expulsion from the United States. Some Bush administration officials would like to amend the law to allow prosecutors to strip terror suspects of their naturalized citizenship and deport them.