Ex-Guantanamo detainee Moazzam Begg is back in the news this week. On Sunday, CNN’s Fareed Zakaria interviewed Begg to get his perspective on the recently released report, written by Democrats on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, concerning the CIA’s controversial interrogation program. Zakaria teased Begg’s segment at the beginning of his show, saying, “Moazzam Begg wants an apology. He was held in U.S. prisons and says he was abused and witnessed torture. What is his response to the report? I will ask him.” Zakaria treated Begg’s claims of abuse as credible and barely challenged the ex-Gitmo detainee on his well-known extremist views.
On Monday, the Washington Post published a front-page story centered on Begg. The Post’s piece, authored by the Post’s London bureau chief Griff Witte, portrayed Begg in sympathetic terms. The Post sees Begg as a legitimate critic of the abuses and practices outlined in the Feinstein report. Witte did not question Begg’s claims regarding his treatment in U.S. custody and only mentioned Begg’s “hard-line Islamist sympathies” in passing. Witte made sure to note that Begg “denied participating in violence or being affiliated with terrorist organizations,” but the Post reporter could not be bothered to check the copious documentation illustrating otherwise — such as that included in, say, the Feinstein report. In addition to the front-page story, the Post gave extra space to Begg by publishing excerpts of his interview with Witte online.
Comedian, actor, and counterterrorism expert Russell Brand got into the act. Brand led off his own interview with Begg, which Brand eagerly tweeted to his nearly 9 million followers, and Begg of course tweeted as well, by asking the ex-Gitmo detainee about his connection to the events described in the Feinstein report. Begg recounted his story – America is horrible. Brand, a.k.a. @rustyrockets, added this pearl of wisdom in one of his Begg-related tweets: “The people who do ‘terror’ best are the people who decide what ‘terror’ is.”
Here is the problem: Zakaria, Witte, and Brand clearly did not read the parts of the Feinstein report dealing with Begg. Only in Brand’s case is this understandable. Journalists like Zakaria and Witte should know better.
Begg plays a significant role in the Feinstein report, but not because he was abused or tortured. The Feinstein report does not say that Begg was mistreated in any way. On the contrary, the Democrats cite Begg’s debriefings as an example of the valuable intelligence that was learned without using coercive interrogation measures.
In fact, the Democrats use the intelligence voluntarily given up by Begg as part of their attempt to undermine the CIA’s claims about the efficacy and necessity of the so-called enhanced interrogation techniques.
According to the Feinstein report, Begg played a crucial role in identifying Dhiren Barot (also known as Issa al Hindi, or Esa al Hindi, among other aliases). Barot was an al Qaeda operative who cased targets in the U.S. prior to 9/11 on behalf of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM). Years later, in 2004, Barot was plotting with other senior al Qaeda terrorists to launch attacks in the U.K. The CIA has claimed that intelligence gleaned from KSM, after harsh interrogation techniques were used, led to Barot. The Democrats counter by citing Begg’s debriefings and other intelligence. Multiple streams of intelligence allowed authorities to piece together the story, and it is difficult to discern just how important KSM’s information was. The CIA, of course, disputes the Democrats’ finding. Interestingly, it appears that the CIA does not dismiss the value of Begg’s identification of Barot in 2003. The CIA claims that the questioning of other detainees in 2003 was based on intelligence first gleaned from KSM.
The Feinstein report contains assessments drawing into question whether or not Barot’s scheming posed an imminent threat or could have been successful. Regardless, the manhunt for Barot was an urgent matter for both U.K. and U.S. counterterrorism officials, as he was rightly suspected of planning mass casualty attacks on behalf of al Qaeda. Barot was eventually convicted and sentenced to decades in prison on terrorism charges. And Begg, according to overwhelming evidence in the Feinstein report, played an essential role in tracking Barot down.
Begg is not a victim of the CIA’s aggressive and harsh interrogation practices. The Feinstein report confirms previous official accounts: Begg is a snitch and gave up crucial details on his fellow jihadists in debriefings that were far from tortuous.
Begg doesn’t deserve an apology. CNN’s viewers and the Washington Post’s readers do. As for Brand, well, he can be very funny.
Pre-9/11 investigations into Barot and Begg
Begg’s relationship with Barot began prior to 9/11, according to the Feinstein report. Barot wrote a popular jihadist tract on the jihad in Kashmir. The book, “The Army of Madina in Kasmir,” was marketed and sold at Begg’s bookstore. The Feinstein report says Begg’s bookstore (Maktabah al-Ansar) “published” the book.
The Feinstein report reads: “An Internet archive search for the title of the book, ‘The Army of Madinah in Kashmir,’ found the book prominently advertised among the ‘Recommended Products’ in 2002 on the website for the Maktabah al-Ansar bookstore (www.maktabah.net/books/images/kashmir.jpg: internet archive 2002).”
(The web link cited in the Feinstein report has long been defunct, but a copy of what appears to be the same description offered on the bookstore’s website can be found here.)
Citing the archived website from 2002, the Feinstein report says that Begg’s bookstore “states that the author ‘Esa al-Hindi’ converted ‘to Islam at the age of 20’ and recalls his ‘personal experience in occupied Kashmir fighting the Indian forces.’”
The U.S. intelligence community was aware of Barot’s book in 1999. “Information concerning a book written by Dhiren Barot (under the alias ‘Esa al-Hindi’) on jihad in Kashmir appeared in [redacted] and CIA intelligence records as early as December 1999,” the Feinstein report reads. “At that time,” the Feinstein report continues, “U.K. authorities had a number of U.K.-based extremists under investigation, including Moazzem Begg.”
The Feinstein report elaborates (footnotes omitted):
The Feinstein report provides more details on Begg’s suspicious associates (footnotes omitted):
In other words, intelligence officials on both sides of the pond found Barot’s book to be suspicious well before Begg was detained. And U.K. officials were already investigating Begg because of his ties to al Qaeda, and raiding his bookstore, before he was captured in 2002.
Begg arrested in an “al-Qa’ida safe house,” gives up valuable intelligence
Begg was “arrested at an al-Qa’ida safe house in Islamabad, Pakistan” in February 2002, according to the Feinstein report. Before being transferred to U.S. military custody at Guantanamo, Begg was questioned in Pakistan. Begg quickly began giving up intelligence on his jihadist comrades. One of them, known as “Sulayman” or “Sulyman,” would later be followed by UK officials during the hunt for Barot.
“While still in Pakistani custody, Begg provided reporting on U.K.-based extremists in the context of terrorist training camps, including information on an individual who would play a key role in ‘Issa’s’ identification and capture, ‘Sulayman’ (variant Sulyman),” the Senate Intelligence Committee’s Democrats found.
The Feinstein report notes that, “based on reporting from U.S. military detainee Moazzem Begg,” authorities “disseminated intelligence indicating that Sulyman was likely Nisar Jalal.” U.K. officials “also reported that, in June 1999, an individual assessed to be Issa provided Moazzem Begg with telephone numbers for a lawyer known as Sulyman.”
When married with other intelligence, Begg’s identification of Nisar Jilal (aka Sulyman) led U.K. authorities to “continuously” monitor Jilal. U.K. officials “photographed [Jilal’s] associates,” which led to a “specific series of photographs” being passed to CIA officials. Langley’s analysts found that one of the photographed individuals “bears a striking resemblance” to the sketch of Barot provided by Moazzem Begg.
According to the Feinstein report:
Begg continued to provide useful intelligence after being transferred from Pakistani to U.S. custody. Throughout 2003 and 2004, the FBI and CIA cited the intelligence offered up by Begg as being crucially important in the hunt for Barot. The Feinstein report reads:
In October 2003, CIA officers wrote the following (emphasis added):
The CIA also authored a “Serial Flyer,” dated June 25, 2004, and entitled, “Guantanamo Bay Detainee Moazzem Begg’s Links to Active Operatives.” The Feinstein report quotes from this CIA document:
The CIA prepared talking points, dated August 30, 2004, regarding Barot’s identification. Citing “[i]nternal CIA communications” related to the talking points, the Feinstein report finds that “a sketch of Issa al-Hindi [Dhiren Barot], by U.S. military detainee Moazzem Begg, ultimately played a central role, as a surveillance photo of a suspected Issa al-Hindi ‘looked so much like the sketch.’”
Begg identified by another well-connected jihadist
Not only did Begg provide information on his captured al Qaeda associates, at least some of them also provided details on Begg. Dhiren Barot was often confused with another “Issa,” whose real name is Sajid Badat. Sorting out the differences between the two “Issas” was key to untangling al Qaeda’s web. Badat knew Begg, and Badat knew that Begg and Barot ran in the same jihadist circles.
“Once detained in the United Kingdom in November 2003,” the Feinstein report reads, “Sajid Badat (one of the Issas) cooperated with U.K. authorities and provided information about the other ‘Issa.’” Badat said that “people often asked [Badat] about [the other] Issa, as they were both British Indians.” Badat added that “ ‘anyone who had been involved with jihad in Britain since the mid-90s’ would know Issa al-Hindi (aka Dhiren Barot), to include Babar Ahmed, Moazzem Begg, Richard Reid, Zacarias Moussaoui, and KSM.”
That is, according to Badat, Begg and some well-known al Qaeda operatives (Reid and Moussaoui were both involved in KSM’s plotting against the U.S.) would certainly know Dhiren Barot, because they had all been part of the jihadist scene for so long.
Begg’s claims investigated and dismissed several times
The whole purpose of the Feinstein report is to undermine the idea that harsh interrogations were necessary at all. Therefore, it is damning for Begg and his boosters in the media that the report confirms the findings of previous investigations: Begg cooperated with American authorities.
According to a 2008 report prepared by the Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG), the Defense Department “conducted three investigations of Begg’s allegations of abuse and found no evidence to substantiate his claims.” The OIG itself investigated Begg’s allegations (see pages of 266 – 276 of the OIG’s report) and “did not find sufficient evidence to support Begg’s allegations.” The OIG investigated the same claims that Begg has been making this week.
The OIG did find that Begg voluntarily signed and annotated a damning confession in the presence of FBI officials and two Defense Department Criminal Investigative Division agents. The OIG also concluded that coercive measures would have been inconsistent with the rapport-building approach used by the FBI agents who questioned Begg, as they wanted him to make statements that would be admissible in court. The OIG summarized Begg’s confession in this manner:
That is a long way from what the Post reported on Monday. The Post uncritically citing Begg’s own claim that he was not “affiliated with terrorist organizations.”
The Feinstein report adds to our understanding of the valuable intelligence Begg provided to U.S. authorities. But the Feinstein report focuses exclusively on Begg’s role in identifying Dhiren Barot. Leaked and declassified files produced at Guantanamo contain additional examples of the jihadists Begg gave U.S. officials intelligence on.
The Joint Task Force Guantanamo (JTF-GTMO) threat assessment for Begg describes him as “a confirmed member of Al-Qaida.” Reading through the Feinstein report and other publicly available documents, it is easy to see how JTF-GTMO came to that conclusion.
Maybe some day journalists like Zakaria and Witte will actually read through the Feinstein report and not just take Begg at his word. And maybe some day Brand will realize that the jihadists, not America, do terror best.
Thomas Joscelyn is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
