About the book at the International Spy museum for about an hour and a half. I will be brief, but as you know, as we follow the media even in these days, the rising concern about the young men going to the middle east in search of jihad or adventure and finding themselves caught up in extremism and violence and in many cases converting either to extremist causes or becoming disillusi disillusioned and resulting in them becoming a problem when they return to the west. There was a 1949 book called the god that failed that was about people that embraced c embraced commune ism and tonights story is a story of conversion and empany and conversion again and then loss of faith. I think you will find it fascinatin fascinating. The story is one that was developed initially by our then historian dr. Mark stout and i will introduce them and he will introduce our speakers. Mark developed this story having encountered the individual of interest in of all things, now pay attention, particularly you older people on facebook. Anything can come out of facebook rather it is Academic Research or discoveries from the spy museum. It will involve a complicated, involved case involving the equities of the cia. I made the choice not to recuse byself, i have to be the Museum Director but to give mark and his associates the lead and let them develop the case and let the case take them where it may. That is what mark and his successor dr. Hoyton have done. Tonights case is going to be presented and mark will introduce the speakers and handle the q a. Mike was our historian and now directs the Master Degree Program and the Global Securities and Intelligence Program at John Hopkins School of arts and science. He had 15 years in the federal government as an analyst and has degrees from stanford and harvard and coauthored three books and published a number of articles. Help me welcome mark stout. Mark . Well, thank you very much. I am be brief. I am honored here to introduce morten storm, paul cruickshank, and tim lister for the book lamp of agent storm my life inside al qaeda and the cia which is just coming out in the United States launch it is a remarkable book. If you look on the back you will see this from me. A few words about the authors starting with tim. Tim joined the bbc out of college and worked in the middle east for a number of years and in 1996 moved to cnn and spent a number of years there with cnn international. He specialized, not exclusively though, in terrorism. In 2011 he was at an obscure village and i am told he was in eastern ukraine. Paul cruickshank is a cnn terrorist analyst and investigative reporter. His website said he is out of new york but from what i can tell he roams the world as much as tim. He has degrees from cambridge and john hopkins university. He is a great reporter and did great scholarly work on alqaeda. I just sent off a book chapter that draws in part in his work. It is a real pleasure to be with him this evening. And last and certainly not least is morten storm who you will be seeing on this screen. Morten is coming from an undisclosed location in the uk. Morten you can come on out. Here we go. I wont say too much there we are but i will not say much about mortens study but he contributed to our struggle against violent jihadism and the alqaeda network. I have been study violent jihadist for 20 years since the russians invaded in 1994 and i will say i am only aware of two other cases even slightly, and i empicize slightly, like morten storm at all. The first is collins who was an american who converted to islam and became radical and went to fight along the arab jihad and deradicalized when he heard about people he thought understood his faith in egypt were blowing up women and children. He wrote a book in 2002 called my jihad. The other is omar samari. He got involved with jihadist extremist and thought it would be a good idea to embezzle money from them, realized how adaption dangerous that was and went to the france government and worked with them. In the late 1990s he fell out with his insiders and wrote a book later on. Both of these individuals did their work in the to be here. The palm tree isnt necessarily real behind behind him. But mortens story is exceptional. We have never seen a story like this with somebody who has gone so deep inside the world of alqaeda and come back to tell the tale not in a courtroom or guantanamo bay. But someone who has been at the tip of the sphere in the important targeting operations since 9 11. So this journey has been so rewarding and we have learned so much from him. He has exceptional insight and experiences and one hell of a story to tell. Yeah, as we worked with morten we found out his rolodex was something else. He knew so many people over the last 1015 years all over the world. He was everywhere and met all of these people and then there came the moment where he decided he could not deal with it anymore. There were all sorts of reasons we will get into later on. It wasnt an instant moment. He is not alone in that. We will try to work through the story with some of the incredible volume of physical evidence he brought to us rather it was recordings, emails, visa stamps and everything that helps substantiate his account of what happened to him. He visited denmark, talked to his family, talked to a lot of people that knew him and built a picture and it is a complicated picture of a guy who was into all kinds of bad stuff as a kid. Isnt that right, morten . You are so kind. He was a baker and boozer and found islam at the age of 21 on the coast of denmark. He was the true jihadist for nearly ten years before he decided in about 2006 it wasnt for him anymore because it moved beyond where he was comfortable. But his contacts were gold dust for the western Intelligence Agency and he was introduced to the cia. You said his mentor from 2006, a friend and mentor and those connections we had became interesting to the cia and other western intelligence services. He began the campaign of terrorism in the west inspiring lone wolf attacks. He was behind the underware b b bombing and others. Underwear it was about the betrayal that was necessary were our security. Morten, introduce yourself, buddy. Hi, guys. Thank you very much for coming. Thank you for the International Spy museum, maxed out, paul and tim you guys are super stars. Sorry for all of the trouble i have given you for two years. I want to say thank you for the management, the whole team and anyone involved in this. Thank you so much. And what can i say . I never imagined to be in a position where i can sit and talk to an audience. I am delighted. I hope once you leave the room you will have information that benefits you and an understanding into how radical islamics think and also a chance for everyone to learn about life. Thank you. Thank you, morten. And tim, if we can go to the first my life is in danger. People around me obviously have been taking very good care of my safety for me and my family. I want to also thank gavin from eden intelligence. He is here and he is sitting next to me. There are good people around me who are taking care of me. Thank you so much. What we are going to do is play a video and just to set the scene here. This is may 2005. This is grove square in london outside the u. S. Embassy. There has been controversy because there is talk about the koran being decimated and there is angry in the street. He came down with a proalqaeda support that is very radical. You will see morten appear on screen on the righthand side of the video. [inaudible video playing] kill, kill, the usa, the crowd is chanting as they burn the american flag. How did you get to this point . How did you grow so angry . I am laughing but shaking my head in the disbelief that i did this. What drove me to that stage was frustrati frustration. As a devoted muslim, i looked at the world differently and the muslim countries led me and these people to hate the west and the western views and the western democracy on where it lies. What you saw there was sincerity from my heart. I am looking at these people and at that time it was empty barrels but many are active now and fighting in syria. Many in the video are fighting with isis in syria and iraq and perhaps involved with atrocities there and the mindset carried them in that trajectory. Your story ended up differently obviously. Lets go back in your story. You group in denmark, right . You had a troubled childhood, got involved in biker gangs. Tell us how you discovered islam. What happened there . I felt that i was a young troubled young man with no direction in my life. I didnt have parents to guide me throughout difficult times or good times. So the only thing i felt a necessity to was to belong to something. And the Motorcycle Club was one of the reasons or things you can belong to. I then later discovered that it wasnt what i wanted to do with my life. I was i started to question life as if there wasnt life after death. And i went into i had a lot of muslim friends and went into the Danish Library in my town where i picked up the life story of the profit mohammed. I wanted to know about the culture and religion of many of my friends. But that book attracted me so much. It was so appealing to me. It just spoke to me. And i could not let it out. I could not let it go. Each page i read i needed to complete another one. I ended up staying from the morning to the time they closed in the late afternoon. When i left i was a different person from the time when i entered. And soon after that you end up in the top left hand corner of the screen there. You will see the centers of learning in the arab world right there. Tell us about your experience in yemen as a muslim convert, you converted and decided to embark to yemen. Tell us about that experience and the islam that you were being taught there. That is right. When i converted to islam, i was considering that all muslims have differences, but we were all muslims so it wasnt a big deal. Then i went to yemen and studied there and in it the most intense institution on earth. We had People Living here that were disconnected from the big towns. I was living among 2, 000 students studying the koran, learning arabic and i founded what was to be the fundamentalist version of the religion. You guys were right you preached and everybody else was wrong. You came back to london in 2000 or just before and were part of what was then called the london scene that was a growing radical, culdren there where you met the shoe bomber and others. Men going toward the more jihad mindset. What made them go more towards that mindset, morten . Throughout the studies we came to the conclusion the jihadist is one of the most noble acts you can do as a muslim. If you die in fighting or having the intention while dying you die as a martyr. So the obligation was clear something must be done. And considering the islam countries were all occupied either directly or indirectly by the western regimes who didnt honor the jihad. This was particularly when it came to jihad. Tim, how far did events elsewhere in the late 90s and early 2000s inflame your passions . Where were those events . And the people you were with did you find there was a pattern to their backgrounds . To the sort of people they were . Yes. For the first question as for the conflict zones at that time we had somalia, jihad versus the christians and there was a little bit going on. Just a few years before many friends went to bosnia to fight as well. So the jihad was real. So to most of them there was no motive. Those people who drove them to afghanistan and other places did i answer the question . The sort of people you met what were they like . Obviously i met and came across interesting people. Some of whom have met bin laden in person. Some were going from yemen to afghanistan to meet up with the training camps. One of my friends was a body guard for a high up figure. And when i went to europe i met people at mosques and all over the United Kingdom i met people who were common muslims. At that time, the most radical groups were running the show for the jihadist societies. And just prior to 9 11 he returns to yemen and meets people with close ties to alqaeda. He is in a barber shop on the day of 9 11 and sees the images of the towers coming down. Describe the events of that day and the mosque you went to and what happened next. Describe the atmosphere with the people you were with that day. Is there a picture up there . We dont have. Describe it. What happened was i came back to yemen for my second time and at that time i had an invitation from bin laden two months before and he invited me to go over but i had tho bring my wife and she was pregnant with my first son and i didnt want to leave her or bring her. So i declined coming to afghanistan. And a few months later we had 9 11. I was standing in the barber shop with a friend of mine. The friend had been to new york and we saw one tower falling and he said i have been there. I have been to that place. And i said wow. And then suddenly there was another terrorist. I turned on the radio and america was under attack as rightly stated. We went to the mosque to hear what was going on. This mosque was run by a permanent scholar who was a very political man and still is. I remember he was saying that by the grace of Allah America has been attacked and we expect 50,000 people to be killed and we should all give gratitude to allah. The whole mosque did that. Quite extraordinary to hear that here in the United States. You were swept up in that atmosphere there and then in the weeks that followed obviously there was a plan for the United States to go into afghanistan and george w. Bush made a speech that had a particular affect on you. Can you describe that . Yes, so i never saw the people jumping out of the buildings and all of that. We didnt have tv. We considered the tv to be forbidden so i could only hear what i heard on the radio. I remember bin laden saying it wasnt me. I didnt do it. But this is a permisiable way of lying. So i just didnt know that. What happened was the Bush Administration said this is a crusade against the evil. And he was talk about the taliban and alqaeda. He said you are with us or you are with the terrorist. So george w. Bush didnt leave space for anyone to be in between. And for a devout muslim there was no option. Even though i might have disagr disagr disagreed, which i didnt, but i could not align myself with disbelievers. So there was no choice. But we chose to be on the side with moral support and alqaeda. And just a couple years later you are here in london and protesting, when you turned up to the demonstration you thought the plan was going to be and storm the United States embassy. But there was frustration with some of the leaders that they were talking the talk. You wanted to walk the walk eventually. You in 2006 travelled to yemen where you met with an american cleric who had been interviewed by the fbi and the United States and was mentioned in the 9 11 reports and was living and teaching back in yemens capital. Tell us about pemeeting him and what he was like. I went back to yemen in 2006 with my son with intention of making permanent immigration to the muslim land. As you can see on the radio, my attitude to the west was deep and i understood there was no way i could live in the west. So my only option was to migrate where the muslims were and that was yemen. I was introduced to australia muslim and invited to go up to this house and each lunch and th then i was not that much aware of him because i needed to take all of my lectures in arabic. Once he started talking and i was talking he had this noble way of talking and was very calm. He thought about it, he considered things before he said them and when he said something he referenced the koran and everything he said made sense. It was like wow, then i was quite surprised. We then suggested that we should do weekly study circles where he obviously had to deliver the lectures and they were planned from that meeting. I am sorry. You had study circles and many of the study circle session were in your house. Some of iraqis most famous youtube hits and video tapes are actually first given in your house in a small study circle of a dozen or so westerners, many who gravitated toward leadership roles in alqaeda affiliates around the world. You have this front row seat and became close to him and he became like a mentor figure to you. And tell us about that a little bit. It was all over the muslims in the world. In indonesia and africa even. That is how far he reached from that point and active world leaders. Among the prominent guides of today, who is an american convert on the fbis mostwanted list now, and he is in somalia now. In that group we had many prominent figures. A danish convert who went to somalia and cut the head off of a somalia prisoner. And they were killed in syria for a year and a half. So there were people that were sincere. What was the most attraction of him to all of you . What made his method resinate . What was it about him that drew this following in yeman and obviously around the world . Yemen i think the west muslims saw him as the English Speaking bin laden. I think that is the way they started to see he wasnt a show off. He didnt do it for collateral. So he was a much more devoted he didnt have a really Bad Reputation of being in the other sects so he could not do that character assassination of him. Just after 9 11 he gave this famous interview in which he reputated 9 11 on behalf of muslims when he was close to here. What do you think changed him over the following years . Was it a personal animosity toward the United States . A philosophical inevitablely given the circumstances and invasion of iraq. What changed him so much in such a short time . It was both of them. He had a score to settle with the American Government and believed he was wrongly accused of being tricked into this. He hated americans and the American Government. Secondally, something that was supposed to happen anyway. And that was because of religious studies. He became more religious and devout and engaged and he was focused on the growing. In reality, the obligation of the establishment of the islamic army down in the south of yemen, which according to record, there would be an army of 10,000 soldiers from the south of yemen and that i