Al-Matari said, “What do you mean, our land? If America comes, the fighting will not be in Saudi Arabia. Your country has a cozy relationship with the infidels.”
But it was clear the Saudi didn’t care about what the Yemeni said, because bin Rashid saw the gleam in al-Matari’s eye. What bin Rashid was selling was exactly what al-Matari was buying. Al-Matari recognized the value of destroying military and intelligence targets in America every bit as much as the man across the table did.
The Saudi said, “Everyone in the Islamic State wants one reaction out of the West.”
Al-Matari nodded. “Of course. We want the Americans to invade in numbers. We are fighting the Kurds and the Iraqis and the Syrians when we could be fighting the West. Yes, the West flies high overhead, scared to stand and battle us on the ground. But if America puts troops in the cities of Iraq, like they did ten years ago, then the uprisings would grow larger, the brothers from as far away as Morocco and Indonesia will flood back in, America will be destroyed and sent home in disgrace.” Al-Matari couldn’t hide a little smile. “The caliphate would then grow into these other countries when they take the fight to their own homelands throughout the Middle East, North Africa, and Southeast Asia.”
The Saudi nodded vehemently. “Exactly, brother! President Jack Ryan was himself a spy and a soldier. How do you think he will react when one of your operatives shoots and kills his spies in their bathrobes in front of their homes? How do you think he will react when we kill his soldiers while they eat their lunch? He will react. America will react. They will all react by coming here to fight.”
The older man smiled now. “And just think of the remote radicals who will grow like flowers in America once you and your instruments of justice begin the real fight inside America. Right now you have many young men and women who would join your struggle, if your struggle were showing some real signs of success. Remember the first two years of the existence of the Islamic State? Foreign brothers and even sisters flooded into the new caliphate. It could be that, again, but not foolish boys running into the meat grinder in Syria. But men and women right there in America, in the heart of the enemy, given good instruction and direction and sent out into their neighborhoods, the lands they know and understand, understand better than you and me, my brother. They can make a difference in our fight in the Middle East. These men and women could be our foreign legion for the caliphate.”
Before the Yemeni could speak, the Saudi added one more thing. “And you, you my brother. You can start this off. In the next few years you can be the one to turn it all around.”
Al-Matari clearly thought this all too good to be true. “I can get operatives into America. I have developed another group of contacts already in the U.S. They will die for the jihad. But I need them to know how to kill for the jihad. This training location. Where is it?”
The Saudi sipped tea and grinned. “When the time is right, that will be revealed. You show me you have the operatives, men and women with U.S. passports, student visas for the U.S., or work visas. I will make sure they are trained.”
Al-Matari said, “I know of some refugees from Syria who have been sent to America.”
“No,” the Saudi said with authority. “They will be watched carefully. I only want men and women in your forces who can move freely and without undue scrutiny. Once the first wave of attacks is successful, when the world sees we are not terrorists, but we are Islamic soldiers fighting infidel soldiers, then the follow-on waves of self-motivated will come, they will align themselves with our noble cause, and they will multiply your good work by ten times, by one hundred times.”
Musa al-Matari’s heart filled with a purpose and a power he had not felt since the day before the Americans wiped out his last operation before it even began.
“Inshallah,” al-Matari said. If God wills it.
“Inshallah,” the Saudi echoed.
The war inside America against the military and intelligence community began right there, with two men over tea in a courtyard garden.
10
Abu Musa al-Matari left Kosovo with a new direction. While he did not even know the name of his new benefactor, he did know the man had been vetted by ISIS leadership and met with their approval. He couldn’t imagine how the Saudi could possibly obtain the information he promised to pass along, and he didn’t understand or even trust the Saudi’s motivations. But even though al-Matari had gone to Kosovo with great skepticism, he returned to Syria more excited than ever, and ready to embark on a new mission.
After more consultations with his leadership, he knew this plan would go forward.
Finding potential jihadi recruits in the United States of America was not difficult. Finding potential jihadi recruits in the United States of America who were not on any U.S. government watch list, not already under surveillance, and who had documentation that would allow them to drive, travel, survive a passing encounter with American law enforcement, while simultaneously possessing the intelligence, language, and social skills necessary to serve in an operational role for the Islamic State’s Emni branch… now, that was tricky. Still, Musa al-Matari knew that for this operation he needed cleanskins — operatives with no ties whatsoever to his organization or any history of radical behavior.
Cleanskins were hard to find, but al-Matari had the infrastructure in place to find them.
The average American has no clue who the American government has caught pledging allegiance to and even planning attacks on behalf of ISIS in America. Musa al-Matari knew. He could recite the latest stats from the FBI, stats reporting that of all the cases of people inside the United States being charged for illegal activities on behalf of ISIS, seventy-eight were United States citizens, eight were lawful permanent residents. Five were refugees, and of those with no U.S. residency, most were on student visas.
Almost a third had at least some college, eighty-seven percent were male, and the average age was only twenty-one.
Seventy-two percent of those caught by the FBI for working with ISIS had absolutely no prior criminal history.
Most cases involved material support, and al-Matari couldn’t easily draw from this large group of ideological supporters for a cell of direct-action operators, but there existed a sizable portion of men and in a few cases women who actively sought to travel to the Middle East to wage armed jihad on behalf of the Islamic State.
And there were so many more out there. The FBI had found only the tip of the iceberg.
Dearborn, Michigan, for example, had a significant Muslim population. While ninety-nine percent or more would have nothing to do with al-Matari’s aims, it was certain the town nevertheless possessed hundreds of disaffected young men who would take up arms against the infidels. Still, al-Matari couldn’t just grab an unemployed man off the street and send him to D.C. to kill a Pentagon official. No, the integrity of the entire operation would be jeopardized by using recruits more suited for armed conflict in Iraq, Syria, and Libya than political assassination in the United States.
No, he had to choose extremely carefully.
After weeks of searching and consulting with his team of online recruiters, he chose seventy names, men and women located across the United States who had both expressed the will and been found by the recruiters to possess the right raw materials to make a potential operative.