September-November 2003: CIA Informant Uncovers Bosnia Network Sending Al-Qaeda Fighters to Iraq

Abdurahman Khadr is a CIA informant (see November 10, 2001-Early 2003) and has been posing as a prisoner in Guantanamo so he can inform on the other prisoners there (see Spring 2003). But in September 2003, he leaves Guantanamo because the CIA gives him a new assignment, to infiltrate al-Qaeda-linked groups in Bosnia. He is given a brief training course in undercover work and then sent to Bosnia on a false passport. US intelligence believes that Bosnia has become an important pipeline for al-Qaeda volunteers who want to fight in Iraq. Khadr spends time at the King Fahd mosque, a large Sarajevo mosque which the US believes is a center of al-Qaeda activity. He becomes friendly with a suspected recruiter for al-Qaeda operations in Iraq. The CIA then wants him to follow the pipeline to Iraq and inform on al-Qaeda operations there. But Khadr considers Iraq far too dangerous. He is a Canadian citizen, and he contacts his grandmother in Canada and has her go public with part of his story so he will not be of use as an informant any more. In November 2003, he returns to Canada, after the CIA fails to give him most of his promised salary for his informant work. In February 2004, he contacts Canadian reporters and tells them his full story about being a CIA informant. His father, Ahmed Said Khadr, was a founding member of al-Qaeda, and his family disowns him when they find out about his involvement with the CIA. [PBS Frontline, 4/22/2004]