With the assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani, the world found itself teetering on the edge of a conflict, the scale of which has only been threatened a few times since 1945.
Aimen and Thomas kick off Season 2 looking at who Soleimani was, his role in defeating ISIS, as well as the place of privatised espionage and drone technology in modern warfare.
THOMAS: Well, hello! Dear listener, we're back. I'm Thomas Small, your co-host, with me as ever is… Aimen Dean. If you’re new to the show go ahead and binge listen to every episode of Season One right now. It'll give you a lot more about Aimen’s amazing backstory and my… my less amazing one. [Laughs]
AIMEN: Excuse me! [Laughs]
THOMAS: [Laughs] And you'll also hear us tell the whole story of the War on Terror, from behind the scenes. And discuss the issues involved in that war in a different way, really, from how you usually hear them discussed. Or… You could just start right here.
[THEME MUSIC]
THOMAS: Hi Aimen, how are ya?
AIMEN: Hi Thomas. I'm still alive.
THOMAS: [Overlapping] Still alive!
AIMEN: [Overlapping] I’m still alive.
THOMAS: [Overlapping] Oh! I’m so glad to hear it. Not only alive, but in fact celebrating a new birth. I believe you have a son now.
AIMEN: Indeed. Now I have one of each…
THOMAS: Aw!
AIMEN: [Overlapping] …and they are delightful. But also, they come with the usual tax of sleepless nights.
THOMAS: [Laughs] Well, I imagine that your life as a spy also led to several sleepless nights.
AIMEN: [Laughs] Indeed.
THOMAS: In fact, frankly given the threat that you constantly live under of assassination and other such things, have you really ever had a good night's sleep?
AIMEN: Before the kids? Yes. I always had good night's sleep.
THOMAS: That’s not true. You’re lying. You once told me that you couldn’t sleep until you had endless audiobooks playing in your…
AIMEN: Exactly! That’s the source of my, you know, wonderful sleep. [Laughs]
THOMAS: [Laughs] So Aimen you know, here we are, series two, season two of Conflicted… Season one, it seems, was rather appreciated. In fact, we have been nominated for Best Independent Podcast at the ARIA awards – the Audio and Radio Industry Awards. Can you believe it?
AIMEN: I was… I was surprised, to be honest.
THOMAS: I'm sure that we owe any, any adulation we are receiving… we owe to you, dear listener, for sticking with us through these extremely complicated stories which we will now continue with a whole new series of Conflicted.
[PAUSE]
THOMAS: If you are starting here, then I’ll do a quick recap. In season 1, we told you the story of The War on Terror from 9/11 onwards. And we did it through the prism of Aimen’s life story. Aimen joined Jihad as a young man. He fought in Bosnia. He fought in the Philippines. He ended up in Afghanistan where he swore allegiance to Osama Bin Laden, becoming an Al-Qaeda terrorist. Couple of years later, he decided terrorism wasn’t really his thing. So ,he left and was given an option: you go to prison or you join MI6. He joined MI6, they trained him up and sent him right back to Afghanistan as a double agent inside Al-Qaeda. Which he was for eight years until Dick Cheney outed him [Laughs] and he had to flee the embrace of MI6 and go into the banking sector. One form of terrorism for another.
AIMEN: [Laughs]
THOMAS: Was that fair?
AIMEN: Oh yeah. [Laughs]
THOMAS: [Laughs] This season we'll be looking at another swathe of history. But before we go back in time, we want to start with a bang in the present.
[NEWS CLIP STARTS]
BBC NEWS PRESENTER: Iran says it will take revenge for the US killing of its most powerful military commander. General Qasem Soleimani died when his convoy was hit with a US drone at Baghdad airport.
[NEWS CLIP ENDS]
THOMAS: So Aimen… who was Qasem Soleimani?
AIMEN: Well, sometime if you ask this question in Iran, people will tell you, well, you should say, or you should ask, who Qasem Soleimani wasn't, because he was so many things. He was the leader of the Quds force.
THOMAS: So, the Quds force is part of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. And I think it's important – it's, it's usually known in the press as the IRGC. And people think that the ‘I’ stands for Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. That's not true. It is the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Which I think indicates what its purpose is. And the Quds force within that corps is an elite group of fighters who are devoted to spreading the Islamic Revolution beyond the borders of Iran.
AIMEN: Well, if you remember, we talked in the previous season about the civil war within Islam. And we talked about the fact that, you know, the entire Islamic world is divided between those who believe in the modern nation-state and those who don't. Whether they are on the Shia side or the Sunni side. So, on the Shia side, you have the Iranian nation-state. But people always forget that Iran is actually two Irans. One Iran is the nation-state and one Iran is the revolution.
THOMAS: So Qasem Soleimani was devoted to spreading the second Iran, the revolutionary Iran.
AIMEN: Exactly, because the Quds Force transcended borders and national identities. They didn't believe in the modern nation-state.
THOMAS: And so, what are some of the things that Quds force did to project Iranian power and the revolution?
AIMEN: Let's put it this way: The Al Quds force, you know, might be 20 or 30,000 Iranians, but there are 280,000 non-Iranians who actually are fighting under the banner of the Al Quds force.
THOMAS: Afghan mercenaries, other sort of other mercenaries. All Shia, some Sunni?
AIMEN: No, no, all Shia. And we are talking here about bigger than just Afghan mercenaries and Pakistani mercenaries. We're talking here about all of the Iraqi militias like Asa'ib Ahl Al Haq and Hezbollah Iraq. And then you have Hezbollah in Lebanon. You have the Houthis in Yemen.
THOMAS: All of these proxies around the region, they're sort of, in a way, they're members of the Quds force. And Qasem Soleimani was their commander.
AIMEN: To put this into perspective, 280,000 active troops fighting for Iran in the region. That's more than the standing armies of the UK, Sweden, and Netherlands combined.
THOMAS: So why was Qasem Soleimani assassinated by the Americans and why now?
AIMEN: Okay.
THOMAS: And he's been, he's been in the IRGC for decades, I guess, and the commander of the Quds Force since 1998. So why now?
AIMEN: Well. You know, ironically, I did encounter, not Qasem Soleimani personally, but I did encounter his influence when I was, you know, basically spying for the British intelligence services. So, when I was stationed within the Gulf after the 9/11 attacks and the movement of Al Qaeda from Afghanistan into Iran, especially many of his leaders relocated to Iran. So, I did encounter Al Quds Force influence when they hosted the commanders that were giving us instructions. The Al Qaeda commanders who are giving us instructions in Saudi and Bahrain and Kuwait and other places to attack American and Saudi interests.
THOMAS: You mean these commanders were in Iran at the time …
AIMEN: Yeah
THOMAS: … or they were with you in the Gulf?
AIMEN: No, no. They were in Iran. They were hosted in Iran. Abu Hamza Rabia who was the head of the external operations for Al Qaeda he's quite famous. He's the one who masterminded the assassination attempt against Hosni Mubarak, the president of Egypt at the time, in Addis Ababa in 1995. And he is the one who actually was responsible for planning the 7/7 attacks in London.
THOMAS: So, he was being held under house arrest in Iran with someone like Qasem Soleimani’s knowledge, and coordination even.
AIMEN: Total coordination. Because Qasem Soleimani saw these people as perfect, useful people. They want to attack Saudi Arabia, they want to attack America. How about basically we give them safe haven? They’re in Iran, and let them, let them do whatever they want to do. Let them wreak havoc in the region.
THOMAS: Just so… what I want to know, actually Aimen is: what, you know, what has the assassination of Qasem Soleimani achieved?
AIMEN: A former senior US intelligence official just told me that killing Soleimani is the equivalent of hacking into the military service of a belligerent nation and disabling them and, you know, wiping them out completely. Soleimani was always electro-phobic or electronic phobic. He believed the Israelis and the Americans were trailing him. So he never wrote any phone numbers. He never wrote any plans. He never basically, you know, put his plans together in written form, whether paper or online. And…
THOMAS: He was a walking hard drive, this guy.
AIMEN: Exactly. He was the ultimate hard drive, the ultimate brain, of Iran’s external operations.
THOMAS: So...
AIMEN: Iran’s revolution.
THOMAS: So, by wiping him out, basically, America has just formatted the hard drive of the Quds Force.
AIMEN: They have set them back 10 years.
THOMAS: Hmmm.
AIMEN: They have set them back 10 years. So, taking him out was a shock. You know, just look at the Iranians to this day, they are still in shock that the Americans were so bold to do it. And that's why when people say, you know… You remember the “World War Three” trending.
THOMAS: Yeah.
AIMEN: And I was thinking ‘guys, come on, world war three…’
THOMAS: This isn't going to lead to world war three?
AIMEN: No, it’s simple. Because the Iranians, they do not want to war, especially a direct war with the Americans, because they know it will only take 72 hours for all of their military hardware to be destroyed.
THOMAS: Yeah. I mean, everyone has to remember that even though it seems these days, with good reason, that American power is in decline, when push comes to shove, the American military can pretty much destroy any country, especially a second-tier country.
AIMEN: Exactly… And that's why wiping him out… This is important because he was the engine of Iranian aggressive expansionism in the region in Iraq, and Syria, and Yemen, and Lebanon, in Bahrain.
THOMAS: Not only that, a lot of analysts have suggested that he was actually being groomed to replace the Supreme leader Khamanei when the Supreme leader dies.
AIMEN: Not only that… he was actually groomed to become the newly elected president of Iran. You know, once Rouhani is, you know, the current one, basically finishes his term. [Overlapping]
THOMAS: So, this assassination has some serious consequences for Iran… politically, militarily, geopolitically. [Overlapping]
AIMEN: Exactly. It is their Chernobyl moment.
THOMAS: As we know, there have been these protests rocking Iran since early October with a sort of ferocity and an extent that has never been witnessed before. The regime has been cracking down, killing people in the street. We haven't heard much about it because they've done a good job of silencing the media and shutting off social media, but it is happening. Instead of World War Three are we perhaps seeing the second Iranian Revolution in as so many as 50 years?
AIMEN: I don't think if… This is my analysis: that if Iran descends into chaos, it's not going to be a revolution or an overthrow of the regime because they have the IRGC. It’s going to be another Syria… it’s going to be a civil war.
THOMAS: Oh God.
AIMEN: You know… As much as many people basically wish for a toppling of the regime, the regime will not topple because it’s an ideologically committed, driven regime. It’s going to be a civil war. Another point I want to make: many people objected, especially in the West, objected to what's happened based on two reasons. First, it was Trump, and they say: ‘Oh, Trump, the idiot. He's starting another war.’ They don't understand that the killing of Soleimani was engineered by none other than Mike Pompeo.
THOMAS: This is the American Secretary of State. But since when two secretaries of state organize the assassination of foreign generals? That's very odd.
AIMEN: Well, he is not organizing the assassination… He is actually putting it as a policy forward. And remember, he was the former head of the CIA.
THOMAS: [Laughs]
AIMEN: So, Mike Pompeo has a beef with the Iranians – that's well known in DC. And also, basically he believes that Iran's aggression in the region needs to be checked. For him, the killing of Soleimani is pushing back against aggression. [Overlapping]
THOMAS: I.e. It's not causing the third world war, it's preventing it.
AIMEN: It's preventing it because, you know, the two forces in the region, the Sunni and the Shia forces, basically are colliding. And therefore, to rebalance the conflict, you have to push back against Iran because they were being aggressive the six months prior with the oil tankers and the attacks and the ballistic missiles and you know, arming of the Houthis and the, you know, blockading the Strait of Hormuz, you know, or threatening to blockade the Strait of Hormuz. So therefore, it was important. So, when people were saying: ‘This is Trump, he's the idiot, how could he have a strategy? He doesn't know anything.’ It wasn't Trump. It was Mike Pompeo.
THOMAS: Former head of the CIA, who we assume knows one or two things about the way the world works.
AIMEN: Exactly.
THOMAS: So, I return to my original question. Why now? If, if Soleimani has been involved in this kind of activity, anti-American activity, for 15 years, 16 years, 17 years, why on January, 2020 did the president say ‘okay, take this, this guy down’?
AIMEN: So many things happened during that time that really led to that moment. Because first, Qasem Soleimani had a low profile in 2003, 2004. But then it's the American invasion of Iraq that really propelled Al Quds force into prominence. So in 2006, was a pivotal year for Qasem Soleimani. First, there was a decision taken by the Iranian leadership that the Americans have overstayed their welcome in Iraq and they need to leave in order to make place for Iran’s hegemony in Iraq. The second thing is the Israeli war with Hezbollah in 2006, in Lebanon.
THOMAS: So, Hezbollah is an Iranian proxy allied with the Quds Force overseen by Qasem Soleimani. And in 2006, it initiated a fighting war with Israel which lasted about a month I think… in the summer. [Overlapping]
AIMEN: 33 days.
THOMAS: Yeah, 33 days in the summer.
AIMEN: So… So, for Qasem Soleimani his involvement in first of all instigating the beginning of the Shiad resistance to the American presence in Iraq in 2006 by supplying… First of all, by establishing Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq which is the foundation of the PMUs or the Popular Mobilization Units.
THOMAS: So, these are Shia militia groups armed by Iran, coordinated by Iran that are within Iraq, agents of Iranian foreign policy?
AIMEN: Absolutely, they are the IRGC of Iraq. They are the Hezbollah of Iraq.
THOMAS: I see.
AIMEN: Basically. So, when, you know, he established that and then gave them sophisticated IEDs that were targeting American armoured personnel carriers and American tanks, which basically led to the deaths of hundreds of American soldiers and the maiming of thousands of them.
THOMAS: I think most people remember, who were around then, remember these IEDs that were targeting American soldiers in Iraq, or British as well… you know, coalition soldiers in Iraq. But I'm not sure people then realised that they were being directly funded and coordinated by Iran.
AIMEN: Manufactured in Iran. Because they were so sophisticated, you know, they worked basically with infrared sensors and you know, a video imaging targeting. So, they were absolutely amazing in their own sophistication.
THOMAS: Okay. But you've taken us back to 2006. I'd like you to answer the question: why now? Why in 2020 has Qasem Soleimani been assassinated?
AIMEN: Because there are milestones. So, 2006 was a milestone here.
THOMAS: What was the next milestone?
AIMEN: The next milestone is 2011.
THOMAS: 2011 with the Arab spring and Syria?
AIMEN: Absolutely.
THOMAS: There is now evidence, hard and fast evidence, that Qasem Soleimani, as representing the Quds Force, was on the ground in Syria at the outbreak of the conflict there. Really moving it towards civil war from the very beginning.
AIMEN: Absolutely. I mean, the defence… The Syrian defence minister himself, Ali Ayyoub, was talking and giving an interview. He said: ‘I knew Qasem Soleimani. I met him and from the beginning in 2011 we planned to counter the uprising of the Syrian people.’ And the first battle was the battle of Baba Amur in Helms in 2011. Which basically was the first armed clash, you know, of the Syrian Civil War. So, you know, after six months it was peaceful. But then of course, basically the Assad regime you know, during the peaceful period killed more than 8,000 protestors. So of course, basically it was inevitable that it will turn into a civil war.
THOMAS: So, 2011 Qasem Soleimani plays a role in the destruction of Syria. So why 2020?
AIMEN: Again, another milestone is 2015. [Overlapping]
THOMAS: 2015.
AIMEN: Yeah, the outbreak of the Yemen War, which we talked about extensively as well as the Syrian conflict.
THOMAS: It does seem that Qasem Soleimani has been behind the scenes of Series One of Conflicted the whole time. [Laughs]
AIMEN: [Laughs] He was behind Al Qaeda’s relocation to Iran, he was behind, you know… [Overlapping]
THOMAS: In every great sequel at one point, you know, someone rips off the mask and says ‘I was there the whole time.’
AIMEN: Exactly. I mean, the man was really a pivotal, you know… He was a pillar of the terror in the region. Because, you remember when we said, basically there are three tectonic plates moving on in the region, moving in in the region, basically, colliding. So, you have the modern nation state, and you have the Shia political and militant Islam, and you have the Sunni political, and militant Islam – all of these plates basically joining together. So when you have three plates, tectonic plates colliding, what's going to happen?
THOMAS: [Overlapping] Earthquakes.
AIMEN: Volcanoes, and earthquakes, and seismic shifts. So, Soleimani, you know, was basically moving between the three plates, basically organising this chaos.
THOMAS: So, Aimen, why 2020?
AIMEN: Because he overstepped. That's really… That's it. Because in the six months prior to his death, he escalated so much.
THOMAS: What did he do? [Overlapping]
AIMEN: Beyond America's endurance. And beyond the region’s endurance. One, he escalated by attacking oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz several times, you know, in May and June and June, you know, so he continued to attack and seize oil tankers.
THOMAS: And then there was that famous drone strike of the oil facility in Saudi Arabia. People probably heard about that.
AIMEN: Not only that, like you're talking about the largest producer of oil in the world. You know, you're talking about a country that produced 12% of the world’s oil every day. So, when you attack it with 26 cruise missiles and drones [Overlapping] ...
THOMAS: 26 cruise missiles, I don't think that's what was reported?
AIMEN: It was 26, a combination of cruise missiles and drones.
THOMAS: That is, that's an enormous strike
AIMEN: In one facility alone, 17 explosions. 17 explosions and actually it was so accurate, it was because there was an insider job. Someone placed tracker beams from members of staff who are actually Shia and belong to the IRGC in secret. They are [Overlap] ...
THOMAS: Working for Aramco in Saudi?
AIMEN: Working for Aramco in Saudi.
THOMAS: It's really cold war stuff. My God.
AIMEN: Exactly. They placed tracker beams basically to guide the drones and the cruise muscles to hit their targets with precision accuracy.
THOMAS: I'm very glad that you brought this up because I want to move away from the politics…
AIMEN: Yeah.
THOMAS: … and just go to the nuts and bolts of how someone is assassinated in this way. So obviously as, as you've established, he escalated beyond America's endurance. So, Trump said: “go”. Probably a long-planned assassination strategy was put into effect and a missile from a drone just came out of the sky and obliterated him. But how does that happen? Literally take us into your knowledge of how that kind of thing happens on the ground. What would have America had to do to kill Soleimani, in that way when they said “go”.
AIMEN: Well, when you have targeted assassination, we have to go back into the beginning of the decision. So basically, the decision was taken that Bin Laden must go, Baghdadi must go, you know, Imad Mughniyeh who was the military commander of the Hezbollah during the 2006 war where he was killed
THOMAS: In Damascus. I was there when that happened.
AIMEN: Exactly. In 2008, that was a very sophisticated attack by the Mossad and where they placed a bomb basically in his car seat. You know, obliterated him. So, it was very sophisticated.
THOMAS: So, someone decides this guy needs to go.
AIMEN: Exactly. So, the process is like this: you decide this person is the person I want to get rid of. So, this is your strategy. So how do you go about it? First of all, you have to establish pattern. You have to establish…
THOMAS: But how do you do that? I mean, you literally have to tail them so that you follow their life. You find what? He wakes up at six, he has a boiled egg for breakfast. He shags his wife at seven, he has a shower.
AIMEN: [Laughs]
THOMAS: How is that? How does that who, who's doing this?
AIMEN: Well, when you are a country like America or Israel, you have an army, of intelligence assets on the ground, and in every single country.
THOMAS: You mean CIA agents?
AIMEN: More than that. CIA agents, defence, military intelligence agents, for the Pentagon, the Pentagon have their own intelligence capability: the DIA. Not many people know about it, but it exists.
THOMAS: The DIA is the defence intelligence agency, which is American military intelligence. It's like a CIA inside the Pentagon.
AIMEN: Indeed. Then you'll have the Mossad, and then you have a network of regional assets that helps you. We will talk about that later, what I call basically the privatization of intelligence. This will be another episode. We will talk about how [overlapping]
THOMAS: It's actually this episode, and we're going to get there in a second. [Laughing] So I'll... Let me, I'm in charge of what episode.
AIMEN: Okay. So, so basically you have a a network of privateers, you know, private intelligence.
THOMAS: They’re freelancers, mercenaries. This is Star Wars stuff. This is Han Solo and Greedo shooting out in the Mos Eisley Cantina.
AIMEN: Exactly. The Mossad, the CIA, you know, MI6, the French intelligence, even countries from far away, China, Russia, all of these organizations have networks of people who cooperate, and these people are privateers, intelligence collectors who sell information to those who pay.
THOMAS: They do sound like pretty shady individuals. How are they trustworthy? For example, I can imagine one of these privateers being hired by one government to get some intelligence, but then just selling that intelligence to a rival government. Do they work for rival governments and are they trustworthy?
AIMEN: I work with teams that sometime basically work for competing governments. You know, these are teams in Syria.
THOMAS: They're not your employees. They have other people they work for.
AIMEN: Exactly. I just hired them between now and then for whatever project that, you know, comes across my way from whatever government around the world basically that asked the question, you know, or, you know, have the inquiry. So, the problem here is that: you can't control these people on the ground so much because basically they are living in hellish circumstances. They are living in a war zone, man. I mean, it's a war zone. They don't know if they will survive to the next day and if they are found out in Syria, they will be, you know, a head shorter and six feet underground.
THOMAS: Have you ever, ever lost one of your contractors? Have you ever had to face that rather tragic reality?
AIMEN: Not while on the job, but basically over the years I always, you know, almost like I know three or four times a year, we hear about the deaths of these people due to … It’s collateral damage basically, I mean, bombs falling from Russian airplanes, you know, the regime basically shelling of the villages where they are based. Sometimes they lose family members and many of them end up making good money from the work we give them, that they end up basically moving on to Turkey and from there, possibly to other European countries.
THOMAS: I see. So, America has lots of these in Iraq, the American government says to one or two of them: trail Soleimani or maybe even infiltrate within the, within his bodyguards … [Overlapping]
AIMEN: It’s more than that.
THOMAS: … Become a bodyguard
AIMEN: Soleimani because of his constant movements across Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Turkey, other places. So, what happened is you don't tell him in the classic way, get someone and that's it. No. So basically what you have is that you have what we call basically points on the map where whenever he appears, someone would alert you. So basically, you know, Baghdad, Beirut, Damascus, these are the three weak points in Soleimani’s itinerary. So, you have assets in Beirut who can alert you. They are working in the airport that Iranian VIP is coming and based on the protocol, who picks them up? What car comes? All of these things you can deduce from that, from the repeated nature of that, that this must be Soleimani.
THOMAS: Okay, fine. So, on the morning of the assassination, you know, how does the reaper drone operator who's probably sitting in Utah or something, how does he know that when he pushes the button, the missile is going to get Soleimani?
AIMEN: Several things. First, the American intelligence just learned that he is on a flight from Damascus. Coming to Baghdad. It is a commercial flight so they can shoot it down.
THOMAS: But that's about a 45-minute flight, 50-minute flight.
AIMEN: Exactly.
THOMAS: So, you can imagine like, you know, red klaxons are going [Thomas making siren sounds].
AIMEN: Exactly.
THOMAS: The countdown starts.
AIMEN: Exactly.
AIMEN: But remember, the decision has been taken that he will be killed. And remember that for the several months before that, they would have known about his movements too, but there was no decision to kill yet. There was the planning to kill, the decision has been taken that if certain escalation happened, we will kill him. But until then, the trigger never took place. There was no trigger yet, but the attack against the US Embassy, the attack that killed an American contractor in Kirkuk in Iraq just a few days prior. So, when they happened, now they are going to wait for the next time they know his movement and then take him out. So now they are aware of his movements. He is leaving Damascus airport coming to Baghdad and therefore the Reaper was just waiting. And what the Reaper does is that it has a facial recognition software in it.
THOMAS: This is like stuff out of a Marvel movie. They're just looking at our faces and sort of Thomas' and Waitrose, Thomas's and going into the pub. [Laughs]
AIMEN: Yeah, I think they can't see inside the small buildings, but no, I mean, of course if Soleimani is stepping out of the airplane and then he is moving into a car and while he is on the tarmac, the drone can actually just look at his face, detect his facial features and …
THOMAS: I thought that there needed to be something on the ground, either near him or attached to the car or something. Some, some electronic device that tells the drone where he is. That's not the case?
AIMEN: That's not the case. In this case, basically, they made it easy for the drone because he was a VIP who was taken immediately from the plane stairs into a car and being driven. So, this protocol has been done many times before, so the Americans already knew his protocol. So that's why it was easy for them to recognize that it's him, and then to target him and kill him.
THOMAS: So, what kind of missile was it?
AIMEN: Hellfire.
THOMAS: And a Hellfire missile, what kind of damage does that missile do?
AIMEN: Oh wow. It obliterate a car, easily.
THOMAS: So, I mean, something like: how many people died in that attack?
AIMEN: I think there were about nine people because, you know… [Overlapping]
THOMAS: We’re talking about vaporisation here.
AIMEN: Exactly.
THOMAS: I mean, I saw a picture of his maimed, mangled body after that, basically. I mean…
AIMEN: Why didn't you share it on social media, Aimen?
THOMAS: [Laughs] Well, I mean, it's out there. But you know when I saw this, the first thing that came to my mind is that he died when his car was targeted the same way when he planned and orchestrated and gave the order 15 years earlier, almost to the day, 15 years earlier in February of 2005, to kill the former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri. While he was in a car, his body was thrown out of the car, he was maimed. So it felt as if karma, it looked, you know, when they say karma is a bitch, and looking at that in a photo of him mangled like this because his car was attacked and the same way that he ordered another decent, good human being like Rafic Hariri to be killed this way, and I was thinking, you know, that's it. You live by the sword. You die by the sword, you live by the bomb, we die by the bomb. [Laughs]
THOMAS: Well, Aimen. It's always fascinating to hear your insightful comments about these things and you know, just to veer towards a different topic now, the reason you know about these things is because you actually are, to some extent, one of those private practitioners of espionage in the 21st century.
AIMEN: Indeed. To some extent, yes.
THOMAS: So, tell us about this world.
AIMEN: I know we're talking here about, you know, an exceptionally, not just, I'm not going to say secretive, but I would say a fascinating world where you have a lot of former spies continue to be spies, but in a very different manner. They are no longer basically answerable to one single government. Sometimes they are answerable to several governments, because basically they sell their services.
THOMAS: It's a private sector job.
AIMEN: It's a private sector job. What's happened is of course, when you are working in espionage and then you move into working for the banking sector, which basically when I was there, I was a financial investigator into the, you know, the money-laundering and terrorism finance world. As well as security. So then when you are in these jobs, you create a, a network of contacts. You see, espionage is not just only about what you know; it’s who you know. And when you have a massive network of people, friends all over the world, basically, especially in the hotspots centre…
THOMAS: [Interrupting] And to be blunt, these are all bad guys. You have a big Rolodex full of bad guys that you can call.
AIMEN: Oh no. Basically every manner. Bad guys, good guys. You know, neutral guys. People talk about sometimes people who are, even some of them, royalty. You know, you have people basically sometime who are teachers, people basically who are taxi drivers.
THOMAS: And what unites them all is a thirst for money.
AIMEN: Yeah, the desire. You know, why we don't call it the thirst for money. We call it the desire for a better life.
THOMAS: I see.
AIMEN: [Laughs]
THOMAS: So, they're all mercenaries to some extent.
AIMEN: Yes.
THOMAS: Intelligence, mercenaries.
AIMEN: You see, what does intelligence, I mean, just just to give you an idea…
THOMAS: Frankly, I know so little about it. I don't know. [Laughter]
AIMEN: Just to give you an idea and I give the listener an idea. You know, one of the best sources, if you are landing in a city, and you want to know a lot about the city that you landed in, for example, basically I remember I landed in Sao Paulo and I was there investigating Hezbollah finances because Sao Paulo is an important financial hub for Hezbollah. Not many people know that, but it is the case. So, when I land there, you know the most important thing is to find a taxi driver who speaks English. So that's the first thing. The second thing is that when you sit down and talk to them, the taxi drivers know more about the locations of people in the city than anyone else.
So, he will tell you all, “yeah, Shia Lebanese people basically they have, you know, a mosque. They are in this particular neighbourhood. Oh yes. They, you know, they do have a particular get together, you know, in this area or this area. I heard about them.”
THOMAS: Taxi drivers are great sources of information.
AIMEN: Exactly. And actually, even terrorists use them as a source of information. For example, the Bali bombers, when they landed …
THOMAS: The Bali bombers, yes. They landed in 2002. [Overlapping]
AIMEN: Yeah. In 2002. So, when they landed there, it was a taxi driver who told them where the Americans and the Australians go for parties. So basically, taxi drivers are a great source of information. Do not discount them, basically as just people who talk nonsense all the time. No, they see things the average people don't. And as a result, we and the terrorists basically utilize them without them knowing, poor things, for information.
THOMAS: What I want to know is, why would a government need to hire you? I mean, governments have James Bonds, you know, they have guys they can call up and say, leave the girl, put on your tuxedo…
AIMEN: [Laughs]
THOMAS: … You know, fly to Baghdad and assassinate that guy, or find out this or that. You know, and HQ gives some magic watches and amazing Aston Martin cars with ejector seats. I mean, governments have these sort of guys, so why do they need you? I mean. No offense, but you know …
AIMEN: [Laughs]
THOMAS: That's not your lifestyle. I know you very well. You're a good boy.
AIMEN: Okay? What does intelligence, but really, most of the intelligence gathered around the world, I'm talking about the human intelligence here rather than the, we talked about it before and season one, signal intelligence and other forms of intelligence, basically, you know, eavesdropping and all of that and electronic, and surveillance. But if you look at the human intelligence, most of it has gathered, really, in restaurants and hotels. Really.
THOMAS: But by freelancers like you, not ... I mean, why would a government hire you or someone like you?
AIMEN: Okay, so let's take an example like Syria. What do you think the survivability is of a white blonde agent going in for the first time into Syria without that much support from local people?
THOMAS: So, Daniel Craig touches down, he walks off the tarmac, everyone says, “I think that guy might be a British spy.”
AIMEN: Exactly. His life expectancy would be measured in minutes. Let's put it this way. So, so what you need then is a local, because you can't put your own people at a stupid risk like this because they will be known immediately. I mean you can't just land in, in a tuxedo.
THOMAS: I'm actually always wondered when I'm watching James Bond movies, look out for the guy in the tuxedo.
AIMEN: Exactly. So, you can't just land in, and even basically if you were, you know, very normal clothes. It's still, casual or whatever. Still you are recognizable as foreigner, so therefore, and even if you send people who are of Syrian origin or Arab origin from your own, but you have to send them slowly, you have to send them gradually and you have to integrate them into society. It takes months.
THOMAS: So...
AIMEN: But what if you need something now?
THOMAS: What if you need something now?
AIMEN: Yes. Therefore, basically you look for people basically who run networks, these privateers and there are quite few of them. I know these private intelligence companies and sometimes they must create as research groups, or research offices. What they do for you, you come to them, you know, let's say basically they have an office in Beirut, or Amman, or Istanbul, and you go to them and you say, “Oh, okay. These are pictures of individuals we are interested in Syria. We want to know where they live. We want to get the exact coordinates. We want you to get close to them, so switch on your wifi and basically find out their IP addresses and all of that.” So, you know, I want to know what caused the drive. Take a video, take a photo. So I would say, “okay, no problem at all. I'm in that office in Beirut.” So basically, I call my, you know, friends, let's say in Adlib or in Raqqa in the past, or in Deir ez-Zor, or in Damascus.
THOMAS: All Syrian cities.
AIMEN: Yup, exactly. So, I called and I say, you know, my friend inside Syria, “who do we have? Let's say in the city of Deir ez-Zor in Idlib, and he would say basically why we have quite few. I have this guy, this guy, this guy, and this guy. Do they have motorcycles or cars? Motorcycles. Okay, perfect. I need motorcycles. Okay, fine. I need…”
THOMAS: Just ordering up, a kind of a menu.
AIMEN: Exactly.
THOMAS: Of intelligence. [Laughs]
AIMEN: I'm going to send you by either Threema or other, you know, I'm not going to mention other apps, but in certain apps, I’m going to send you basically four pictures of four individuals who are seen in that vicinity. You know, these are what they are known by. This is their Kunya, or the aliases. I want information on them within two weeks. So, within two weeks I would receive full information with fresh photos, fresh videos. I know the exact coordinates of their houses, who they're married to, if they're married, where do they go to pray, what cars they're driving. So perfect. And then I hand over this. Now, if that government wanted to do it on their own, they would have to send someone to find them fast and basically that someone would be at risk. But because the individuals we tasked for this are locals who wanted to do it for money and they have no idea actually, who is the ultimate Tasker,
THOMAS: [Interrupts]
AIMEN: Who is the one who actually, they have no idea. They just know that this is the target. This is what you need to collect. Need-to-know basis. So, then we'll collect all the information and then based on the information, that government will decide either to liquidate…
THOMAS: [Laughs]
AIMEN: ... or to extract. I mean, there are certain, even EU governments did it.
THOMAS: Liquidation. Woah.
AIMEN: Liquidation even. I know, governments did this.
THOMAS: I should really press you on which governments, but I don't think you'll tell me.
AIMEN: No, but I know sometimes what happened is, you know, some governments even installed live feed cameras. For example, one of the secrets not known actually is that these privateers, these individuals inside Syria placed a live feed camera for more than 16 months outside of the main ISIS court in Raqqa photographing everyone going and coming, and that live feed was in a 24 hours basically beaming into one of the European capitals.
THOMAS: For what purpose?
AIMEN: For basically facial recognition. Just going and coming. People basically going into the court and to ISIS court. So, they identified the judges, their commanders just …
THOMAS: But I don't understand. I can understand, you go into an ISIS court, you can see your face, but you know, you don't come out with your head so …
AIMEN: [Laughs] Well you start to come out with your head, but the execution happened in the public square…
THOMAS: Very pleasant. So, this privatization of espionage that you're talking about, to some extent, you know, I've seen Casablanca, I've seen these movies. I mean, to some extent, governments have always employed freelancers on the ground. But would you say in recent years, decades, even the privatization of espionage has gone up in a way like governments in general outsource to the private sector these days. Are they outsourcing to the private sector in this regard as well?
AIMEN: Yeah, I mean, basically. [Overlapping]
THOMAS: Why? Why did it change?
AIMEN: First in Iraq, we started to see the privatization of armies. You know, we have Black Water. We had EGIS, we had G4S.
THOMAS: These are American security consultants. [Overlapping]
AIMEN: American, British, everything you can imagine.
THOMAS: They’re providing mercenaries on the ground.
AIMEN: South African even, the Maltese. I mean basically, you know, registered in Malta but they are private companies, even basically people from Nepal basically being recruited to go and fight in other Wars. So that's already happened. But the privatisation of intelligence, I’ve never seen it like this before. In the past, it used to be like this: you want to spy on a certain country. You have your own embassy staff in that country. You form really good relationship with businessmen, civil servants, military officers, law enforcement agencies. So, they cultivate all of this and they get the intelligence. However, these days, because the source of the greatest and the gravest security threats happen in places where there are no embassies anymore.
THOMAS: This is a consequence of really the Arab Spring, the War on Terror in general, the nation-state has been weakened throughout the region, and therefore nation-states and the embassies that are meant to dialogue with those nation-states just aren't where the real power lies, in many cases.
AIMEN: I mean down to war zones. I mean, basically this is the problem with gathering information in a war zone for example…
THOMAS: Not just war zones. I think it's important they’re civil war zones.
AIMEN: Exactly.
THOMAS: It’s not that it's a nation-state fighting a nation-state. These are non-state actors within governments, within states, transcending state borders moving. You can't just anymore throw some swanky embassy party, don your tux, handout some champagne, and talk to your Soviet counterpart. You can't do that anymore.
AIMEN: So, places like Afghanistan, Syria, Libya. You are basically at the mercy of people who have strong connections inside.
THOMAS: … these non-state actors.
AIMEN: Non-state actors, basically people basically who have, you know, a small company with a title, or managing director or CEO, or whatever. Basically, I'm a private individual, but I'm a private individual with a massive phone book. And this phone book includes lots of people on the ground there who will do anything for a buck or two because basically they are desperate. They are in a war zone.
THOMAS: So, you say that we started to see this developing in Iraq.
AIMEN: First, and then Syria, Yemen, Libya, Afghanistan. These are the places now where a lot of intelligence, especially Syria, a lot of intelligence is gathered by private individuals. Well, private groups together basically forming these intelligence gathering networks. I mean, basically, when people say data in the West, what Mark Zuckerberg and you know, the owner of Google is doing, you know, data is the new oil. Data is the new wealth. That's in a very crude way what is happening on the ground in Syria and Yemen and Libya. And to some extent, even in Turkey, among the refugee communities. That's what's happening. Data information is so important. And this happened and I've seen it myself. People sometime risk their lives to go and collect the mobile phones and the laptops off a bomb site in Syria. If a site is bombed and this site belonged to either Al Qaeda [Insert Group Here] or any of their affiliates or ISIS, they will go and collect all of these because this can be sold for two thousand, three thousand dollars. Because they contain addresses, phone numbers, email addresses of people within Syria, in Turkey, outside, in Europe, in the Gulf, in the Arab world, which means that every phone have a treasure trove of intelligence. So young city people go collect them very quickly.
THOMAS: It's like mining. They're mining for the gold of post-terrorism atrocities. [Overlap]
AIMEN: Exactly. Then these phones and devices, they make it into Turkey where then they are sold to brokers. And these brokers, people like myself and others.
THOMAS: These espionage privateers, aren't they criminals? Isn't this illegal?
AIMEN: Are you saying I’m a criminal?
THOMAS: Far be it for me to say that a former Al-Qaeda bomb maker might be a criminal …
AIMEN: [Laughs]
THOMAS: But I don't understand. Surely this isn't legal. Is it that governments turn a blind eye to this stuff because it's so useful to them?
AIMEN: No, it is perfectly legal because basically, first of all, you know. Imagine. Let's say you, Thomas Small, you have friends in Syria, don't you? Yes. Okay. So basically if I come to you, I’m government, I come to you, Thomas, and I say, Thomas, I know we have heard a rumour of know, basically a coup in Damascus or something like that, you know, there was a coup within the intelligence, and we are trying basically to ascertain is it true or not? Can you tap into your local people that are basically and see what they have heard? And I mean, basically you say yes, of course. And we would say, okay, we want detailed report and you know, then I push an envelope to you basically with five, $6,000. And I say, this is for your trouble. And also, you can basically send gifts, your friends there in Damascus, but we need, really good, juicy information.
THOMAS: So, you…
AIMEN: Come back to me and you say, yes, we found out this, this, this
THOMAS: Ok, that doesn't sound so illegal. But you know, come on. Sometimes you're going to be asked maybe to do something illegal or certainly immoral. How do you navigate the thorny moral swamp of private espionage?
AIMEN: That is where you have layers and layers of different levels of commitments. So basically, for example, you know, I wouldn't do any, how can I say assassination, engineer any extraction.
THOMAS: Why now?
AIMEN: Because basically, there is so much, you know, legality issues behind this. You're right, in a sense, because you know, if you just kind of, my work, my work is information gathering. That's it.
THOMAS: [Laughs]
AIMEN: You know? So, what they do with that, what the governments do with that after that, I mean, that's their own business.
THOMAS: Have you ever been in a position where you, you heard, saw on the news or heard through your, through your networks, of a strike against a facility or a strike against a person and you thought to yourself, “Hmm. I know how they knew where that guy was.”
AIMEN: Well, to some extent, yes. I'm not going to say no. It does happen, but sometime you're wondering. Because sometime you pass this intelligence basically to a particular government, but then the Russians come and destroy it, and then that's when you know that definitely it wasn't the government that supplied the Russians with it. Why? Because they are enemies. They are not talking to each other whatsoever. So then how did the Russians know about that? Because if I knew about it. If I knew about it, if my sources on the ground confirmed that this is a weapons storage facility for Al-Nusra…
THOMAS: Al-Qaeda
AIMEN: Yeah, Al-Qaeda. Then basically the Russians would have their own privateers, possibly the same privateers who I have, might have been tasked by the Russians.
THOMAS: Hmm.
AIMEN: It's a murky world.
THOMAS: Very murky. So back to Qasem Soleimani then. He is often credited. Let's play devil's advocate here. So obviously, you know, you weren't a huge fan of Qasem Soleimani. You probably smiled to yourself when you found out that he had been assassinated.
AIMEN: Smiled? I danced in the house!
THOMAS: Danced in the house. Let's imagine, I mean, there are some people who say that Qasem Soleimani is a hero because he played such a vital role in the destruction of ISIS.
AIMEN: Well, first of all. Okay. Soleimani did not defeat ISIS. Let's put this a myth to rest. It was the American firepower, from the sky raining on ISIS that ended them. Because the Iranians and the Iraqi militias did not have the capability to just take cities and then hold them because they couldn't. Because only the American precision firepower, massive overwhelming firepower that did that for them. So, you know, what Soleimani provided is boots on the ground.
THOMAS: Shia militia men.
AIMEN: Exactly. But Soleimani wasn't doing it out of the goodness of his heart. He was taking advantage that, “Oh, this is the chaos through which I can create a massive unregulated army.” He wasn't recruiting men to join the Iraq army. He was recruiting men to join a revolutionary Iranian-backed army.
THOMAS: And he recruited tens of thousands.
AIMEN: Hundreds of thousands.
THOMAS: And they still exist. I mean, even though Soleimani might be dead, but they exist –– what's going to happen to these Shia militia who, who actually feel perhaps, more allegiance to Iran than Iraq?
AIMEN: Well, that is what the protests happening right now in Iraq is about. Is Iraq going to end up like Lebanon, having a state within a state. I mean, Hezbollah in Lebanon being a state within a state, having a private army, private welfare network, private finance, private everything.
THOMAS: Which would suit the Iranians very well.
AIMEN: Exactly. So, in other words, it is a very weak nation-state. So, the protest in Iraq right now, gathering momentum and not only Sudanese. But also, many, many Shia Arabs who do not like the idea of Iraq becoming just another province for Iran.
THOMAS: But we can understand why the Shia of Iraq think that caused Qasem Soleimani was their saviour. Because ultimately ISIS is coming, you know, down the road. And anyone who's going to fight ISIS is probably your friend.
AIMEN: And we can say the same thing about Al-Qaeda in Yemen. Yemenis in the South will view them basically as the saviours against the Houthis. At the end of the day, we cannot basically just sit there and cheer packs of wolves fighting each other. And ignore the fact that lambs need to be saved. So, because they are fighting each other over who will eat the pack of lambs.
THOMAS: So, who is the shepherd here? Is it, with this newly muscular America and President Trump is America once again, playing the role of the shepherd, trying to fight the wolves off the sheep, the lambs, whatever? I'm screwing up your metaphor.
AIMEN: I mean, I just had to have a very difficult time picturing Trump as a shepherd, basically with his stick and a turban over his head. [Laughs]
THOMAS: I've heard some of these Jeffrey Epstein revelations.
AIMEN: [Laughs]
THOMAS: I don't have a hard time imagining that.
AIMEN: But, can I tell you something? Yes. America is playing to some extent, basically, the role of the shepherd. But the role of the shepherd as a whole is played by the nation-states. We come back again, Thomas into the question of what do we want? Do we want the modern nation-state to prevail because they are the best guarantors of safety, security, stability, prosperity in the region, or do we want trans-national ideology built on revolutionary ideas, perpetual revolution that will keep shedding blood on, and on, and on, until they build their empires on mountains of skulls and oceans of blood.
THOMAS: Well, I think we know how America would answer that question. It sides with the nation-state. As long as the nation-state buys into America's hegemonic role as chief shepherd of the sheep. Now, that really brings us to what series two of Conflicted is going to be all about. In the first series, we focused more narrowly on the War on Terror and the modern history of the Middle East. In this series, we're going to widen the scope of our investigation out a bit. And we're going to tell a slightly larger historical story. It's what has been called and indeed was called by George Bush Senior, just at the end of the Cold War, America's new world order. America's attempt to create an everlasting, prosperous and peaceful world and really lies behind so much of what we see in the headlines today.
[OUTRO MUSIC]
THOMAS: you've been listening to Conflicted with me. Thomas Small and my good friend, Aimen Dean. Conflicted is a Message Heard production. It's produced by Sandra Ferrari, Jake Warren and Jake Otajovic, edited by Sandra Ferrari. Our theme music is by Matt Huxley. New episodes of season two of Conflicted will come out every other week on Wednesday, so tune in.
This season, we're trying something a little bit different. We want to hear more from you. Dear listener, what did we get right? What did we get wrong? What topics do you want to hear us chat about in future episodes? We've set up a Facebook discussion group. You can find the link in the show notes or search “Conflicted Podcast Discussion Group” on Facebook to join in the group. We'll post early access to episode teasers, recommend further reading for people, looking to go deeper into episode topics as well as running exclusive giveaways. Each week we'll be giving away some recommended reading to one lucky listener. All you have to do is join the group. This week's book is The Twilight War: the secret history of America's 30-year conflict with Iran, an excellently written and researched account of US-Iranian relations from the 1979 Iranian revolution onward. Join our Facebook group before the 19th of February and you might just win. You'll hear from us soon in two weeks’ time.