Morten Storm is a Dane who claims to have been used by the Danish intelligence agency (PET) and the CIA to infiltrate al-Qaeda and by finding well known YouTube cleric Anwar al-Awlaki a wife, help the agencies eliminate him.

The drama takes place in Denmark, England and Yemen, with a Croatian blonde, radicalised British youths, a social media savvy muslim cleric, bugged luggage, encrypted emails, and finally, inevitably, a drone strike.

I helped the CIA and PET track Anwar so the Americans could send a drone after him. . . That was the plan, which was created by the CIA and PET

Said Storm to the Jyllands Posten, the Danish newspaper best known for publishing cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed. Storm’s life has been a troubled one, and his path to covert ops for two intelligence agencies strange. Born in the small town of Korsør, Storm was committing armed robberies at 13, and was in and out jail during his teenage years before joining Bandidos – an international biker gang with the slogan “we are the people our parents warned us about”. 

In 1997, Storm renounced his life of drugs and crime telling everybody he was converting to Islam. It seemed he was taking it very seriously, and after living in England for a while, Storm moved to Yemen to study the Koran.

Since his claims of assisting the CIA have surfaced, reports of Storm being a trouble-maker in England have come out. Abu-Eesa Asif, a leader in the Birmingham Muslim community, told the Copenhagen Post that Storm was an “‘infiltrator’ with ‘an incorrect understanding’of Islam who attempted to ‘incite the youth of Birmingham into becoming radicals.'”

Asif told the newspaper that Storm would often be in fights and sold drugs to local youths. All this, Asif says, while on the payroll of PET.

He lived between England and Yemen. While in Yemen, he married a Moroccan woman in 2000 and had a son in 2002. He named it, no spice, Osama. It was during this time that Storm was thought to have been in contact with radicals. It was through them that Storm came into contact with the American-born al-Awlaki.

But after some time, Storm said that he tired of radical Islam, “I found out that what I believed in was, unfortunately, not what I thought it was,” he said.

He turned to the Danish intelligence agency PET, and told them he could help combat terrorism using the trust he’d built up with radical Islamists. They had accepted to a degree, and in 2009 the CIA became involved, and a plan was hatched to target Anwar al-Awlaki using a bugged suitcase and a new wife.

According to Storm’s account, one of his many meetings with al-Awlaki took place at a desert camp in Shabwa province, Yemen, in September 2009.

“He asked if I knew a woman from the West he could marry. I think that he lacked someone who could better understand his Western mind-set,” Storm told Jyllands-Posten. According to Storm, al-Awlaki wanted a white Muslim convert who could be his “companion in hiding” in remote tribal areas.

The plan was for Storm to find a wife for the cleric, get her to use bugged luggage provided by the CIA, so when she and Al-Awlaki were married, a drone strike could take them both out.

Storm said he tried to find someone with the same sort of beliefs has Al-Awalaki. He found a 33-year-old Croatian woman “Aminah” on Facebook.  She was an al-Qaida sympathiser who frequented a pro-Awlaki Facebook group, and seemed perfectly expendable to Storm

He sent word back to al-Awlaki in Yemen, and on December 11, 2009, the cleric got in touch, asking for more information.

After some back and forth communication between al-Awlaki, Aminah and Storm, and between Storm and the intelligence agencies; Storm told Jyllands Posten that with CIA operatives shadowing him, he traveled to Vienna, Austria, and on March 8, 2010, met Aminah outside the international bus station in the city center.

Storm said he was certain about her devotion to al-Awlaki.

“Do you know the consequences?” he said he asked her. “Yes, I’m ready,” Aminah replied.

Storm said that at al-Awlaki’s request, he taught her how to send encrypted e-mails using jihadist encryption software.

On May 18, 2010, Storm travelled to Vienna again to buy Aminah’s plane ticket to Yemen and to give her $3 000 in cash from al-Awlaki, he told Jyllands Posten. Aminah and the suitcase arrived in Sanaa at the beginning of June, and Storm’s work was done.

Two days later, one of his Danish intelligence handlers texted him: “Congratulations brother, you just got rich, very rich,” Jyllands Posten published the text Sunday on its website.

Storm said on June 9, 2010, a CIA agent handed him a briefcase at a Crowne Plaza hotel near Copenhagen, Denmark. “What’s the code?” Storm asked. “Try 007,” the agent responded. Inside was $250 000.

While none of the intelligence agencies has confirmed any of this, Storm has produced quite a bit of evidence, and has given it to  Jyllands Posten. It includes video recordings exchanged by al-Awlaki and his bride-to-be, communications from al-Awlaki, travel receipts and a photograph of the briefcase stuffed with $250 000.

Unfortunately for Storm and the CIA the suitcase plot didn’t work. Aminah spent several weeks in Sanaa, and then a messenger arrived to arrange her travel to meet al-Awlaki. For security reasons — among them concerns about tracking devices — she was told to leave her suitcase behind.

Aminah and al-Awlaki married shortly afterward. Al-Awlaki sent Storm a message thanking him for arranging the marriage. She had not only lived up to expectations, al-Awlaki wrote in a message viewed by Jyllands Posten, but was “…. much better!”

Al-Awlaki was killed in a a drone strike in 2011. Storm claims that he was still involved, and a USB stick that he and al-Awlaki used to exchange messages was the device the CIA used to pinpoint the cleric’s position.

Aminah is thought to still be in Yemen working for an al-Qaeda magazine. Storm has gone in to hiding, and is thought now, along with the newspaper, to be an important target for al-Qaeda.

[Source: CNN, Copenhagen Post, Wired, Jyllands-Posten]