Aimen Dean: an AQ insider who spied for MI6

[davidbfpo]

A balanced review from WSJ; the second paragraph says:

His memoir, “Nine Lives,” should dispel doubts about the essential truth of his tale. Detailed and weird, it contains enough verifiable fact, and enough idiosyncrasy, to establish, as his co-authors Tim Lister and Paul Cruickshank write, that “there simply wasn’t another informant inside al-Qaeda like him.” Mr. Dean’s book is a major contribution to the literature of espionage, and a rare book to say something original about contemporary jihadism.

Link:https://www.wsj.com/articles/nine-li...eda-1533078183

[davidbfpo]

The Quilliam Foundation, a counter-extremism group (UK based), has a twenty four minute podcast interview with Aimen Deen and this is an excerpt:

Eight years undercover do really take their toll on you. I became diabetic during that time. The stress of a double life is too much. You are constantly on the move, monitoring cells, infiltrating organisations that want to do harm to others. So you do not have a normal life whatsoever. So I remember, when my identity was compromised in 2006, in the beginning I was angry and I thought it was a terrible calamity, a few months later I realised what a relief it was. Because I finally started to feel at ease – that I do not have to look over my shoulder all the time…

Link:http://journal.quilliaminternational...y-in-al-qaeda/

[davidbfpo]

A review of the book via the Changing Character of War Programme @ Oxford University; which starts with:

Dean’s account is more than the story of a Generation X traveller lost in a post-modern world – it is a gripping description of his trajectory from a young Mujahedeen overlooking Sarajevo to an early joiner of Al-Qaeda and ultimately informer for Britain’s intelligence services that makes this book a worthy and touching read.

Following the link at the bottom you get the full two page review:http://www.ccw.ox.ac.uk/blog/2018/12...-florence-gaub

[davidbfpo]

Discovered, rather late, that Aimen Deen has another taped interview (32 mins). Their explanation:

So… there was a choice between either the British, the Americans or the French. As far as the Americans were concerned… my defection took place around December 1998, and in August 1998, I was just lucky to escape with my life from a cruise missile attack by the Americans against the camps… So I thought basically that it would be extremely difficult to work with people who just a few months ago pressed the button, trying to kill me. So I thought, ‘forget the Americans’. As far as the French were concerned, basically, it meant that I would have to learn another language – a language I don’t like the sound of at all…not to mention that the French are rude, and aloof and arrogant…

Link:http://ournal.quilliaminternational....t-of-al-qaeda/

[davidbfpo]

In the last week Aimen Deen has given two interviews to British newspapers. This one is open to read: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeands...s-for-al-qaida

The second is behind a pay wall and is slightly different: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thin...n-doesnt-work/

[davidbfpo]

An interview in May 2020, available as a podcast and in a transcript. The intro states:

n this episode of Changed My Mind, Aimen Dean talks to academic Thomas Small about what triggered him to join al Qaeda and then leave the terrorist organisation. Decades on, he reflects on why it remains difficult to stop others following in his footsteps.

Link:https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/cha...maker-mi6-spy/