Messing with the Enemy

Clint Watts

• Publisher: Harper
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9780062796011
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Terrorism
• Index: Politics & International Relations

A former FBI Special Agent and leading cyber-security expert offers a devastating and essential look at the misinformation campaigns, fake news, and electronic espionage operations that have become the cutting edge of modern warfare— and how we can protect ourselves and our country against them. Clint Watts electrified the nation when he testified in front of the House Intelligence Committee regarding Russian interference in the 2016 election. In Messing with the Enemy, the cyber and homeland security expert introduces us to a frightening world in which terrorists and cyber criminals don' t hack your computer, they hack your mind. Watts reveals how these malefactors use your information and that of your friends and family to work for them through social media, which they use to map your social networks, scour your world affiliations, and master your fears and preferences. Thanks to the schemes engineered by social media manipulators using you and your information, business executives have coughed up millions in fraudulent wire transfers, seemingly good kids have joined the Islamic State, and staunch anti-communist Reagan Republicans have cheered the Russian government' s hacking of a Democratic presidential candidate' s e-mails. Watts knows how they do it because he' s mirrored their methods to understand their intentions, combat their actions, and coopt their efforts. Watts examines a particular social media platform— from Twitter to internet Forums to Facebook to LinkedIn— and a specific bad actor— from al Qaeda to the Islamic State to the Russian and Syrian governments— to illuminate exactly how social media tracking is used for nefarious purposes. He explains how he' s learned, through his successes and his failures, to engage with hackers, terrorists, and even the Russians— and how these interactions have generated methods of fighting back. Shocking, funny, and eye-opening, Messing with the Enemy is a deeply urgent guide for living safe and smart in a super-connected world.

1

Omar and Carfizzi

“That’s him, or at least one of his friends.”

I stared at my phone on a wintry Boston night in January 2013, scrolling through my Twitter account. For the past several years, I’d watched terrorists chat with each other and pundits banter and commiserate on my feed, expressing their views on the current state of global jihad. Rarely did the two communities converse, instead expressing themselves in parallel worlds.

“Aslam Awan lived in the UK for 4 years,” the tweet read, tagging my handle, @selectedwisdom, and linking to a Telegraph news article. The name Aslam Awan meant nothing to me. But someone in Somalia had sought me out on Twitter to bring this story to my attention. I had a sneaking suspicion that it was Alabama-born-and-bred American terrorist Omar Hammami, someone I’d been monitoring for years, or one of his close associates.

Like many other counterterrorism experts, I opined on the travails of al-Qaeda and its followers on a blog. Mine was called Selected Wisdom.com and had an accompanying Twitter account. By 2013, I’d just finished my second stint at the FBI, counterterrorism had become a hobby rather than my job, and the blog was a distraction from the daily grind in Boston.

Writing on my own meant that I could focus on what I deemed important, pressing issues, rather than the pet projects of poorly informed bureaucrats checking their time in the Pentagon or narrow FBI investigations completely devoid of the bigger picture. On the internet, too, I had an audience. Far more people read what I wrote in late-night blog posts than had ever consumed the analysis I did for the government. Serving as a contractor for countless Defense Department and intelligence community projects, I had written up massive research studies that littered the shared drives of the U.S. counterterrorism community. If they were read, they were routinely dismissed or forgotten amid an endless sea of similar reports pontificating on the strengths and weaknesses of Osama bin Laden and his legions. I don’t really blame the U.S. intelligence agencies or the special operations folks scattered around the world for ignoring the countless tomes of analysis they’d purchased. They received far more content than they could ever possibly read, comprehend, and utilize.

Freed from the bureaucratic constraints of Washington, left to my own devices, and with the internet as my playground, I could broaden and deepen my study of terrorists. I had access to many more sources, could choose what I studied, and, most important, could actually engage with the enemy. For lack of a better word, I could mess with extremists half a world away—observe their debates, gauge their commitment to terrorist principles, and poke them with queries—all from a laptop at home.

The World Wide Web is and will remain the fastest and best way to be in touch with America’s enemies. All of them go to cyberspace to connect with one another and attack us. The internet provided a virtual safe haven for al-Qaeda, its affiliates, and its splinter groups. As terrorists flocked to social media, analysts and researchers outside of intelligence agencies no longer needed classified reporting to know what terrorists were up to. All we had to do was log on and watch. Online, jihadis posted their violent acts for all to see. These young men might have wanted to hide their real identities, but they worked hard to achieve notoriety as online personas. Interacting with counterterrorism experts like me on the internet lent them legitimacy and made them look fearless, elevating their international brand. I had some special knowledge of the Horn of Africa and its terrorist groups, so I spent a good deal of time observing and narrating the trajectory of the Twitter-savvy and notoriously violent Somali terrorist group known as al-Shabaab. One of my most devoted readers on the subject resided in Somalia and happened to be one of America’s most wanted terrorists.

As terrorist recruits go, the whiter the terrorist, the weirder the story—and Omar Hammami definitely fit that mold. Born the son of a Syrian American father and an American woman, Omar grew up in one of the least likely places to produce a terrorist recruit fighting in the Horn of Africa: Daphne, Alabama. Omar was an exceptionally bright but contrarian kid, and his path to violent jihad twisted and turned through stops in Toronto and Cairo before reaching Mogadishu in 2006. By his account, he was immediately met and assessed by one of al-Qaeda’s most notorious operatives, Fazul Abdullah Mohammed. Fazul, as he was commonly referred to in counterterrorism circles, once served as personal secretary to Osama bin Laden and orchestrated al-Qaeda’s operations throughout the Horn of Africa, including the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

Having passed an initial screening, Omar joined a sizable cadre of fellow foreign fighters from around the world seeking to establish an Islamic state in a country torn apart by decades of war. While Hammami’s fighting against the Ethiopian army wasn’t particularly remarkable, what he did on social media proved to be groundbreaking. Omar used YouTube to launch a new music genre: jihadi rap.

War by war, only gonna make our black flag soar.

Drip by drip, shot by shot, only gonna give us the death we sought.¹

Omar’s charisma and American roots allowed him to do something few other members of al-Shabaab—or, at the time, even al-Qaeda—could do: connect with vulnerable young Western recruits who were on the fence about making a treacherous trip to join a terrorist group. Omar told the jihadi foreign fighter story like few others, connecting with two important audiences: potential terrorists and the counterterrorists who chased them. A few American jihadi fanboys surely admired Hammami, but in many ways his principal audience was nervous national security strategists. I suffered through more Pentagon PowerPoint counterterrorism briefs showcasing Omar’s rhymes than I witnessed foreign fighters joining al-Shabaab. But the broader message of these videos and its implications were clear. Jihad’s “me” generation was migrating to social media in a big way—YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter were the future of violent factions far and wide.

Al-Qaeda and, by extension, al-Shabaab coveted Western recruits both for their propaganda value and their operational utility. Americans like Omar, the Californian Adam Gadahn (known in al-Qaeda ranks as Azzam the American), and later the Yemeni American Anwar al-Awlaki struck a chord with potential American recruits in ways Arabic-speaking clerics couldn’t. Operationally, American recruits without criminal records can easily infiltrate back home, avoid setting off counterterrorism trip wires, and execute spectacular attacks in the United States. Known in the terrorism business as “clean skins” for their innate ability to slip past Western security, Americans were critical for an al-Qaeda being challenged and chased on all fronts. Guys like Omar helped bring fresh clean skins into the jihadi ranks and inspired those at home who were unable to get to places like Somalia, Yemen, Iraq, or Pakistan but were willing and able to perpetuate violence locally. As Omar’s star rose, key al-Shabaab leaders promoted him into speaking roles at Shabaab rallies and in social media videos. Each public appearance suggested to potential recruits that not only could a Westerner come and join the group, but they ultimately could lead the jihad as well, be the next bin Laden, perhaps. Omar’s name was getting bigger, and so was his ego.

The second rule of Western terrorist recruits is that the whiter the recruit, the bigger a pain in the ass he will become for the terrorist group he joins. When terrorists’ campaigns sour, divisions grow in the ranks, most often between the idealistic foreign fighters drawn in by online discussions who seek Islamic purity and local recruits motivated more by money, survival, power, kinship, and clan. In 2012, Shabaab’s leader, Ahmed Godane, orchestrated a Mafia-style power grab from rival Somalis in the leadership council by publicly declaring allegiance to al-Qaeda without full group consent. He purged the group of challengers through imprisonment or death, all while the group retreated from the Somali capital, Mogadishu, into the country’s interior. As is usually the case when times get tough, disgruntled middle managers began to question the boss. Omar, high from his social media following, was principal among these dissenters, having fashioned himself the newest great visionary for global jihad. He offered al-Shabaab’s dictatorial emir, Godane, unsolicited constructive criticism and a new vision for mending divides in the terrorist group. Omar, a typical American, thought al-Shabaab’s leadership ignored the perspective of its followers and should pursue a more inclusive approach.

Godane received Omar’s recommendations like any Somali warlord might from an American in the ranks: as a direct threat to his rule. In a scene that could have been pulled from a Godfather movie, Godane followed a playbook he’d used with other challengers. He sent emissaries to retrieve the young American for a follow-up meeting. Knowing he was likely about to be imprisoned or murdered, Omar, a YouTube star of global jihad, went on the run. That was where I came in.

* * *

A key lesson from my U.S. Army and FBI time mirrored the famous Wayne Gretzky quote “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.” I’d watched repeatedly during my first professional decade how ladder climbers ran from one hot topic to the next, seeking fame, fortune, or promotion. I arrived at the Combating Terrorism Center, at West Point, in 2005, and quickly saw how counterterrorism analysts were mostly chasing the latest conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. When asked which areas I’d like to research, I thought back to the wise words of one of my favorite Army sergeants: “If you’re not the lead dog, you’re just sniffing the lead dog’s ass.” Following the Iraq or the Afghanistan conflict from American shores meant I’d end up making PowerPoint slides for other PowerPoint slide makers who’d deliver them to the lead dog for a cursory glance. No, thanks—I’ll work on something else.

I was lucky to have a great graduate school professor, Dr. Philip Morgan, at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, who specialized in Africa and had stoked my interest in the region. When the opportunity to study terrorists in the Horn of Africa arose and few jumped at the chance, I volunteered. Mostly by default, I began studying Somalia and its terrorist groups, visited Kenya for some research, and co-authored a large study on the region. In 2010, when I began writing at SelectedWisdom.com, al-Shabaab and its fractious clans featured heavily in my analysis. Over several years, Omar Hammami surfaced time and again in my writing, but one of my Twitter counterterrorism pals, Andrew Lebovich, noticed that Omar had been silent toward the end of 2011.

Only a month after al-Shabaab formally pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda, in February 2012, Omar posted a YouTube video claiming that al-Shabaab had turned on him. Lebovich and I noted this as an unprecedented turn in jihadi circles. Bringing Omar’s troubles into the light was an amazing opportunity to undermine al-Qaeda’s and al-Shabaab’s recruitment of Westerners. We wrote a paper on Omar’s troubles, considering possible explanations for how this once triumphant American jihadi hero might have fallen on such hard times at the hands of his own terrorist group.²

Throughout the spring and summer of 2012, Omar would pop up randomly on YouTube, pleading for his life. A Pastebin file upload containing his autobiography accompanied one of these videos. The first half of the twenty-eight-year-old’s autobiography was the story of his radicalization and recruitment into violent jihad; it was a terrible, unedited volume, but nonetheless revealing. He gave an insider’s account of Somalia, Shabaab, and his terrorist acts. Above all, the autobiography provided a first-person account of the disastrous consequences of naively joining a murderous terrorist group in a war-torn country. Hammami’s narrative described al-Shabaab as a deeply fractured organization lacking in resources at the foot-soldier level and rife with mistrust. Omar acknowledged that foreign fighters questioning al-Shabaab leaders were murdered by their peers.

Omar’s revelations were an information coup for those wanting to dissuade others from joining terrorist groups. I combed through Hammami’s dribble and put together my own listicle, entitled “6 Reasons NOT to Join Shabaab: Courtesy Omar Hammami.” I meant it partly as a joke, but also as a way to seriously use Omar’s own words to explain to potential terrorist recruits why they might reconsider joining. These included Hammami getting a waterborne illness, his poor treatment by trainers and fellow foreign fighters, and the possibility that he was about to be murdered by his own boss. My Hammami listicle got some good laughs from the counterterrorism punditry, and the usual online terrorists gave me some guff, but then I got a phone call.

“You know he reads your stuff.” J. M. Berger, one of the world’s foremost experts on extremist groups of all types and sizes, had been chatting with Omar Hammami on Twitter via direct messages.³

“Really?” I said. J. M. described how Omar, despite being on the run, still found time to tend to his narcissism by Googling himself and evaluating all the positive and negative press he received in the international community. Terrorists, much like modern U.S. presidents, ironically, have a high proclivity for narcissism. But this still struck me as shocking. The writing I did in my free time, pecking away on my laptop, was being read almost instantaneously by an American terrorist trying to escape an al-Qaeda affiliate.

After a few days, I forgot about Omar almost entirely. I was busy; I had a day job, bills to pay. Omar went mostly silent on social media as well, so my writing about him ceased. That is, until I received the Twitter post on the evening of January 5, 2013. The Awan tweet, along with some other social media pings, suggested that he might become active again. Sure enough, @abumamerican returned to life shortly thereafter, ending several quiet months. Omar was alive, and he wanted to talk.

It was late at night, and I was watching my phone. I had one of America’s most wanted terrorists itching to tell the world his story. I knew he needed attention. He craved attention. He loved it.

I’d spent the past decade in counterterrorism: two FBI stints, dozens of U.S. special operations projects, research in the Horn of Africa not that far from where I suspected Hammami was hiding out. I’d had hours and hours of counterterrorism training. Seminars in interview and interrogation tactics. Thousands of hours poring over academic studies and terror group communications. I’d submerged myself for years in intelligence analysis drills and taught ma...