7) Playing Offense; The inside story of how U.S.

terrorist hunters are going after al Qaeda

By David E. Kaplan; Aamir Latif; liana Ozernoy; Laurie Lande; Monica M. Ekman
U.S. News & World Report

"After 9/11, the gloves come off."

-GOFER BLACK, former director, CIA Counterterrorism Center

And the brass knuckles came on. America's frontline agents in the war on terror have hacked into
foreign banks, used secret prisons overseas, and spent over $ 20 million bankrolling friendly
Muslim intelligence services. They have assassinated al Qaeda leaders, spirited prisoners to
nations with brutal human-rights records, and amassed files equal to a thousand encyclopedias.

But the war is far from over. Last week, Osama bin Laden's top deputy exhorted the faithful to
strike at western embassies and businesses. The injunction, from Ayman al-Zawahiri, came on
the heels of bombings in Morocco and Saudi Arabia and caused the United States to close
diplomatic posts overseas and increase the homeland security warning level from yellow to
orange. Al Qaeda, one FBI veteran explained, "has one more 9/11 in them."

With all the headlines about the latest attacks and warnings, however, it is easy to miss the
amount of damage America's terrorist hunters have inflicted on bin Laden's ragtag army. U.S.
News has retraced the war on terror, starting in the very first weeks after 9/11, to examine in
detail how Washington and its allies launched an unprecedented drive, led by the Central
Intelligence Agency, to disrupt and destroy bin Laden's operation. Interviews were conducted with
over three dozen past and current counterterrorism officials in a half-dozen countries; the
magazine also reviewed thousands of pages of court records and analytical reports.

The story-part detective yarn, part spy tale-is one of unsung heroes. It is a story of nameless
CIA analysts who matched tortured renditions of Arabic names with cellphone numbers around
the globe, of Pakistani soldiers killed while smashing down doors of al Qaeda, of Jordanian
interrogators who wore down some of bin Laden's craftiest killers. Much of this has not been told
before. A windfall of intelligence has led to a newer, more profound understanding of bin Laden's
secret network, intelligence officials say. They have built up dossiers on his followers from a scant
few hundred before 9/11 to over 3,000 today. They have identified the core group's sworn
membership, now thought to number only 180 true believers. And bin Laden's personal fortune,
investigators say, is all but gone.

There's more. The investigators have unearthed a secret history of al Qaeda, discovering
documents in bin Laden's own hand, along with records identifying donors to the terrorist group.
They have forced captured operatives to help target their comrades-even listening in as a
terrorist made a phone call that led to the assassination of a top al Qaeda leader.

On the run. Al Qaeda's wounds run deep. Over half of its key operational leaders are out of
action, officials tell U.S. News. Its top leaders are increasingly isolated and on the run. Al Qaeda's
Afghan sanctuary is largely gone. Its military commander is dead. Its chief of operations sits in
prison, as do some 3,000 associates around the world. In the field, every attempt at
communication now puts operatives at risk. The organization's once bountiful finances,
meanwhile, have become precarious. One recent intercept revealed a terrorist pleading for $ 80,
sources say.

If the global war on terror has a nerve center, it is the CIA's Counterterrorism Center. At first
glance, the CTC looks unremarkable, packed with the cubicles, gray desks,, and desktop PCs that
make up just about any government office in Washington. A hint that its work might be somewhat
out of the ordinary is offered by signposts that mark the corridors. One weJI-trodden intersection
lies at the crossroads of Bin Laden Lane and Saddam Street.