An Al Qaeda Sleeper Likely to Return to Jihad

On Saturday, January 17^th, 2014,Ali Saleh Kahlah al Marri touched down in his native homeland of Qatar. Al Marri was released after serving eight years in prison starting in 2009 after pleading guilty to conspiring to provide material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization.

His departure follows a series of releases of detainees from U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba as President Obama tries to close the facility, opened in the wake of the 9-11 attacks. With this said, the destructive nature and background of Al-Marri should be brought to light.

Al Marri was operating out of central Illinois when he was picked up on a routine traffic stop just weeks after the September 11 attacks. He was declared an “enemy combatant” in 2003 and sent as a U.S. prisoner to a Navy brig in Charleston S.C. A writ of habeas corpus was granted by the Supreme Court in 2008 and he was granted a federal hearing in Illinois. He accepted a plea deal in 2009 that included the 15-year sentence, which was mitigated by long periods of isolation and deprivations while aboard the Navy brig.

No evidence showed he had a specific mission in the U.S., but U.S. District Judge Michael Mihm determined that al-Marri’s decision not to change course after the September 11^th attacks showed he intended to remain with the terrorist organization. United States intelligence believed that some of Al Marri’s targets were water reservoirs, the New York Stock Exchange and the United States military academies.

Al Marri, a dual national of Saudi Arabia and Qatar attended college in the United States graduating with a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois. While attending school, Al Marri had in fact entered the United States as a “sleeper agent” under the direction of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Osama bin Laden.

Al Marri confessed that his earliest contact with Al Qaeda was attending al-Qaeda training camps and safe houses in Pakistan prior to 2001. The details of these trainings were solidified by the FBI’s forensic evaluation of Al-Marri’s laptop in December 2001. Research consistent with chemical warfare, al-Qaeda, and weapons of mass destruction were all found within the hard drive of his computer.

Numerous files and bookmarked internet sites were found relating to the research and purchase of chemicals, specifically potassium cyanide, sodium cyanide, sulfuric acid, and arsenic. The laptop also contained a website and 5 pretentious email addresses with a draft he had not yet sent to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The website listed “Immediately Dangerous to Life and Health” chemical concentrations. The email draft contained a coded version of Al-Marri’s telephone number.

Upon his release, representatives from Qatari’s interior and foreign ministries ceremoniously greeted Al Marri. Qatar’s media has issued a “public invitation” for a party that was to be held down the street from a stadium for the 2022 World Cup. As the Counterterrorism blog “Long War Journal has noted,

“The nature of al Marri’s release raises serious questions about whether or not he should have been allowed to return to Qatar, a country notorious for turning a blind eye to terrorists and terror financiers within its midst.”

The plea bargain made public in 2009 stated that he could have been deported to either Saudi Arabia or Qatar. Ironically, he traveled to the United States on a Saudi – not Qatari passports.

In conclusion, Al Marri’s return to Qatar, a major hub of terrorism financing, where many previous detainees have also been released, taken together with his continued loyalty to Al Qaeda and its global jihad ideology (noted by the judge at Al-Marri’s sentencing in 2009) does not bode well for the United States’ fight against terrorism. The Obama Administration cannot release terrorists and and expect to convince the American public that they are exploiting every avenue to fight ISIS, al-Qaeda, and other jihadists. These prisoners, specifically Al-Marri did not do anything to earn their freedom and must be considered a continued threat to the United States and its allies.