As we talked, the group’s spokesman and another man took notes on everything I said. When I asked why, Abssi told me the notes were only for the group’s internal records. “We won’t publish them,” he assured me.
Abssi and his deputy had read many of my stories, from September 11 to Morocco to Iraq and the London transit attacks. The deputy was taller than Abssi and muscular, with a shaved head and dark, serious eyes. Abssi had said that all the fighters at his camp were Palestinian, but I could tell from their features that some of the men we’d seen outside must have come from North Africa or from the Arabian Gulf. I tried to talk to the deputy in Moroccan Arabic, but he told me no, everyone here is Palestinian. He was indeed Palestinian, but some of the others weren’t.
“Didn’t anybody try to stop you when you worked on the el-Masri case?” the deputy asked.
“No, actually,” I answered. “And as you saw, the story was in the paper.”
“And what were the consequences for those who kidnapped and tortured him?”
“That’s not clear yet. But at least this man had a chance to tell his story.”
“Sister Souad, do you think there is a free press?” Abssi asked. “The press is never free.” He looked at me as if seeking confirmation.
I thought that his calling me “Sister” might be a sign that he was beginning to trust me. I sipped my tea and thought about how to answer. “Sheikh, I don’t know what your definition of a free press is, but I’ve never been stopped by the Washington Post or the New York Times from writing things the way they were. In fact, that’s why I’m here: to give you a chance to tell your side of the story about all these accusations against you.”
He smiled. “That’s a smart way of bringing up the interview again,” he said and took a date from the package.
I looked at the dates. “It’s interesting that you hate the Shia and Iran so much,” I said. “But then you eat their dates.”
“What?” Abssi asked and glanced at his deputy. The deputy looked furious. I suddenly had the feeling I’d said something I shouldn’t have. Fakhr looked at me and raised his eyebrows.
Abssi picked up the package and read the small type: “Made in Iran.” He called for the man who’d brought the tea. “Don’t ever bring these dates again,” Abssi told him.
A little boy, about five years old, entered the room and ran to the deputy. “Baba, can I go and play with the other children?” he asked.
“Yes, habibi, go. I need to finish my meeting here,” the deputy said. When the boy had left the room, the deputy turned to me. “Tell me, Sister Souad, are you married?”
Here we go again, I thought. Since my first trip to Iraq, during nearly every interview with people from the radical or jihadist scene, the marriage question popped up.
“Why? Are you looking for a second wife?” I asked him.
All the men except him started laughing, even the one who had been pointing the gun at me. That man had been glowering at me since the meeting started.
I looked at Fakhr. He had covered his face with both hands. What was wrong now?
Abssi turned to the deputy. “I’m not sure my daughter would allow you to take a second wife now,” he said. He had tears in his eyes from laughing so hard.
Now I got the joke. “Oh, he is your son-in-law, and the boy is your grandson? Masha’Allah!” I tried to hide my embarrassment.
The deputy said he had no more questions. Abssi and the other men were still laughing.
“I’ve answered your questions and endured your tea interrogation,” I said, looking at Abssi. “Now I have a question. What about our interview?”
“I will discuss it with my advisers and get back to you,” Abssi said. “But I can tell you one thing for sure, we all haven’t laughed like this in a long time.”
Abssi, his deputy, and the man who had pointed the gun at me left the room through the doorway behind me, while the spokesman and the other man who had been taking notes accompanied us through the same doorway we’d come in.
As soon as we had passed the military checkpoint outside the gate of the refugee camp, Fakhr told me he’d been shocked and worried at the beginning when he saw the setup with the weapons and the black flag. “I swear, I thought they wanted to do something to you,” he said. “This looked very alarming.” Then he shook his head and started laughing. “You and your colleague, you are crazy, the way you talk to these guys. I will call you Team Crazy.”
I called Michael and told him we were on our way back. When we arrived, he was waiting nervously in the hotel lobby. “Is all well? I began to feel bad, but you insisted that I shouldn’t go with you,” he said upon seeing us.
I told him that this group must indeed have links to a bigger network. The note taker, the spokesperson, the new guns, and the discipline of the guards all suggested a high level of organization and generous funding. I suspected they were linked to Al Qaeda.
Abssi’s spokesperson called later and said they were still thinking about the interview. He told us to be patient. He made it clear that they would be very unhappy if anything we’d discussed appeared in print.
“We do monitor the New York Times,” the spokesman told me. “It’s your choice. If you keep your word and don’t publish anything before we agree, you might have the chance to get an interview. But if you break our agreement, we will never speak to you, and others won’t, either.”
I understood that this was a test. We had no guarantee that he would agree to give the interview, and some journalists might still have gone ahead and printed what I’d learned from the tea meeting. But Michael and I suspected that if we broke the agreement, we would be blackballed within the global jihadist network we were trying to understand. We decided we didn’t want to risk losing all our contacts.
I flew back to Frankfurt, and Michael returned to New York. We decided to do as much other reporting as we could, talk to our sources in the West, and gather details about Abssi’s life. I checked in with Abssi’s spokesman, Abu al-Hassan, every few days, in case the interview was granted.
“He actually would like to do it,” Abu al-Hassan told me in one of these conversations. “But his deputy is strongly against it. You know, your future husband.” He laughed.
I told him that we had gathered all kinds of information about Abssi from documents and Western government officials. “We will keep our promise and not publish anything of what was said during the tea meeting,” I told him. “But tell your boss that one day we will do a story, and it would be unfortunate if it were one-sided.”
Three days later, my phone rang. I recognized Abu al-Hassan’s number.
“As’salam alaikum,” I said.
“Wa’alaikum as’salam, Sister Souad.” The voice was Abssi’s.
“Sheikh?”
“Yes. I decided to give you the interview. Regarding your security, you will have my word that there will be no harm against you from our side.”
“What about my colleague Michael Moss? Can he come to the interview as well?”
“The American? That’s his decision.”
“Can you also guarantee that he won’t be harmed?”