Agent Storm: Inside Al Qaeda for the CIA (CNN)
Interesting interview of Morten Storm, a Danish convert to Islam who claims to have volunteered as a double agent for the CIA and the PET after he became trusted by Anwar al-Alwaki but later disillusioned with Islam. He takes credit for setting up al-Alwaki with a European wife as part of a CIA honey trap, and for contributing the intel that delivered al-Alwaki’s death. He alleges the CIA would not pay him the $5 million bounty, so he co-wrote a tell-all book with CNN contributors/terrorism analysts Paul Cruickshank and Tim Lister.
(CNN) — Two worlds. Two identities and the ever-present, very real risk of death.
That was the life of Morten Storm, a radical Islamist turned double agent, who’s now lifting the lid on some of the world’s best-kept secrets.
His life is the stuff of spy novels, and he talks about it in his book: “Agent Storm: My Life Inside al Qaeda and the CIA,” co-authored by CNN terrorism analyst Paul Cruickshank and Tim Lister. Both men are CNN contributors.
He also recently sat down with CNN Senior International Correspondent Nic Robertson.
“I had these different names. I had different personalities,” Storm said. “I was Morten Storm, Murad Storm, Abu Osama, Abu Mujahid.”
He was so trusted by senior al Qaeda leaders he once fixed one up with a European wife, all the while — Storm claims — working for Western intelligence agencies.
“For half a decade, I moved back and forth between two worlds and two identities — when one misplaced sentence could have cost me my life,” he writes in the book. “Traveling between atheism and hardline Islam, English and Arabic.”
“It’s some kind of schizophrenic lifestyle,” he said.