Into a Raging Blaze (16 page)

Carina shut her eyes and listened. Jamal told her about his father. Sometimes he was allowed to accompany him to the law firm at the weekends. He was just a little boy, ten years old, and he would sit in an armchair and wait while his father worked at his desk or spoke on the phone. When he got bored, he would wander around the quiet, cool rooms in the small office and examine things. He remembered that difference between inside and out, the cool rooms and the white midday heat pressing against the shutters. They didn't leave Egypt until three years later. In the afternoons, they would normally run errands in the city center. Sometimes his father would meet colleagues at Al-Azhar University and drink coffee with them while Jamal sat and listened or played nearby. His father was kind, but apparently a lot of people didn't like him because, as a lawyer, he had taken on several clients who criticized Mubarak. The phone began to ring at night. One day his father found his office had been torn apart. They stopped going to the university and drinking coffee—it was too dangerous, they explained to him. Even his uncle, Akim, was threatened; after a gang of militiamen broke in at night and assaulted him and his wife, he went into hiding. Everyone was afraid. Jamal remembered how his parents sat up late at night talking, how his mother told him to come straight home from school, how she cried when she thought he wasn't watching. It became dangerous to remain in Cairo. Few came to visit.

Early one morning, they had gone to the coast. They stayed in their uncle's house for a few days. Jamal remembered vacation by the coast; he remembered the sea. But this was no vacation. Everyone was subdued; they didn't say much to each other. Then, without really understanding what was going on, Jamal traveled to another country with his parents—Sweden. It snowed. He remembered the
snow and the little apartment they lived in, which was close to a forest, and how quiet and dark it was.

“I'm looking forward to going to Cairo with you,” he said into the darkness.

They could wander around the Khan el-Khalili bazaar, he said, sit in the cafés on the west bank of the Nile, visit a restaurant that he knew did fantastic grilled lamb. He would take her to Tahrir Square.

She thought about the boys playing in the heat.

He held her in a way he hadn't done before. She shut her eyes and let herself be overcome by sleep. She was looking across Cairo; it spread out before her as far as the horizon—the long wide avenues, the tall buildings, the bridges, the bustle of people. She could see the Nile. She heard the rumble of traffic.

Carina stroked Jamal's back. She just needed to feel him there, beside her. Things felt more possible when they were naked together and she could feel his thin, strong arms around her. She just wanted to throw everything aside and make love with him, wipe out everything except for them. The room was dark but it was enough to hear his calm breathing.

16

Stockholm, Friday, September 30

Bente pushed open the glass door and stepped into the office. At this time on any normal Friday, the entire floor would have been dark—workstations empty, desks tidy. But the Counterterrorism branch was simmering with hustle and bustle—buzzing voices, ringing phones, chattering keyboards. Around her were colleagues working at computers, standing in groups and talking, or on the phone. The room was shrouded in an atmosphere of concentration. It was just after eight in the evening. Counterterrorism was planning several operations within the next twenty-four hours and was also working at top speed to analyze the intelligence, assess the threat.

One of the chief analysts, an expert on the Salafist movement, hurried past her, breathless. “I'll be right there!” he shouted. “Two minutes.”

She moved past a group of people standing and examining surveillance footage on a screen and hurried to the frosted-glass door behind which Kempell and some other men and women had just disappeared. Twelve hours earlier, no one had known who Jamal Badawi was. According to Swedish records, he was a civil servant at the Ministry of Justice, with an address and phone number in the Stockholm area. He had undergone background checks, like all government officials; he was on the tax register, like all Swedish citizens. He barely existed.

They had missed him. The truth that would never reach the Swedish media was that they would never have seen the threat in time if it hadn't been for the Brits.

Kempell had informed management right after the meeting with Wilson, and the Head of the Security Service had given the go-ahead just hours later for Counterterrorism to direct all necessary resources at Jamal Badawi and Carina Dymek. The message was clear: management saw a threat against the government. They saw a media meltdown, headlines screaming that the Security Service had missed a terrorist threat against Sweden once again. The smallest hesitation would be interpreted as weakness. It was necessary to act.

A liaison had already been set up with London, with Wilson. Certain British resources had also been put on standby in Cairo and Brussels, MI6 had informed them. During the day, intelligence had begun to stream in from GCHQ, the Joint Terrorism Analysis Center, MI5, and other parts of the British counterterrorism apparatus. It was good raw data that immediately gave them a detailed overview of Badawi's contacts in Cairo.

Green had called her in the afternoon. He was happy to see the prompt Swedish response. He looked forward to their successful cooperation. She could hear his thoughts: What did I tell you? I was right.

Green had a team ready to strike, if necessary, he had said. She politely declined the offer and thanked him for the generous British support.

They're small fry, Green had continued. Let them lead you to Cairo. She promised to bear it in mind.

Roland Hamrén, Head of Counterterrorism, was young and energetic, someone who had enjoyed a stratospheric rise through the organization. Management had given him operational responsibility for the Dymek/Badawi case and asked Counterespionage to provide support. Kempell was sat beside him, silent, alert. This had been a bad day for him. Counterterrorism was in charge now; they owned Badawi and wouldn't be giving him back any time soon. The Salafist analyst slipped through the door just behind Bente and slid into a chair.

Hamrén cast an eye toward the door to reassure himself that it was closed. He began in Swedish. “Okay. Welcome.” He looked
around the table. “We'll shortly review the situation. Lots of new information is coming in constantly. Our objective during the next few hours is to develop a clearer assessment of the threat. Thanks to the valuable help we have received from our British friends”—he nodded briefly toward Wilson, who was sitting a few chairs away and smiled back, presumably without having understood a word that was being said—“we have better intelligence to work with. Hopefully, we can stop any potential criminal acts.”

He stopped, and switched into rapid English with a strong Swedish lilt. “Some of us are well acquainted with the Muslim Brotherhood; others here may be less familiar with the organization. I therefore want us to spend a few minutes looking at the background of the threat scenario we have. We have a guest here from London.” He turned, smiling briefly, to an older man with dark, curly hair. The man had been sitting quietly, leaning back, throughout everything, but now appeared to come to life. “I gather you are an expert on the Muslim Brotherhood and have studied the organization for several decades. We're glad you could come in from London at such short notice. George, you have the floor.”

The stocky man rose smoothly to his feet and moved toward the projector screen at the end of the room. According to what Hamrén had told Bente earlier, he was one of MI6's authorities on pro-violence Islamism. She had never seen him before.

“Thank you,” he said with a wide and relaxed smile. “Okay.” He leaned over an open laptop on the table and brought up his presentation. “I'm going to try and give you a brief overview of the Muslim Brotherhood and, in particular, a collection of people within the Brotherhood that we now call the Ahwa group, which is our current focus.”

A presentation appeared on the projector screen behind him:
Jihadist network within the Muslim Brotherhood—threat assessment
.

He sat down in the empty seat closest to the screen.

“You're all familiar with the Muslim Brotherhood. But, put simply, for those of you with less experience of working on this organization, the Brotherhood was founded in 1928 in Egypt by Hassan
al-Banna, and is currently the group that has been in existence and active for the longest out of all Islamist groups. It wasn't originally founded as a political party; it was a
dawah
, a missionary organization. Their goal was to recruit and cultivate orthodox, committed Muslims, and they did that through preaching, helping the poor, and performing other community services, and through its followers constantly striving to lead by example, as good Muslims. They saw their own conservative interpretation of Islam as the only true one, and their fight for Islam as a liberation struggle against the British and against Judaism. During the first half of the twentieth century, the Brotherhood was an organization which used peaceful methods to recruit members, even as they used violence and guerrilla tactics against what they perceived as a Western oppressor. The organization at this time was therefore”—he clicked and brought up a new slide—“accepting of violence, anti-Western, anti-imperialism, anti-Semitic, and pro-sharia.”

He stopped for a moment so that everyone could take this in.

“I'll come back to that in just a moment.”

New slide: an old black-and-white photograph, taken seconds after the attack on Nasser, the then president of Egypt.

“This is 1954. The Brotherhood had grown over the years into a movement of the people, but came into conflict with the Egyptian elite and the country's president, Gamal Abdel Nasser. Nasser was a military man and saw the Brotherhood as a rival power. He wasn't interested in sharia law but wanted support from the Soviets instead, which upset large parts of the Islamic elite, including the Muslim Brotherhood. In October 1954, the organization attempted to murder Nasser, but the attack failed. Instead, the assassination attempt led to the organization being crushed by the Nasser regime. Thousands of members of the Brotherhood were executed or forced underground or into exile. I'm mentioning this because it is crucial to how the Brotherhood developed and makes it possible to understand why there is a threat today.”

New slide: a black-and-white photograph of a man with a serious face and large, slightly bulging eyes, dressed in traditional Egyptian kaftan and fez.

“Sayyid Qutb. The Brotherhood's leaders drew completely different conclusions from their experiences under Nasser. Some started to suggest that the organization had made a mistake in its use of violence, and thought that they should proceed with caution in a more considered manner. Others,” he raised his hand and pointed at the picture, “like Sayyid Qutb, were radicalized, and drew the conclusion that the only way to respond to non-Muslim society was through jihad. Qutb, as I'm sure you know, is one of the main ideologues responsible for the militant Islamism that inspires al-Qaida and other similar terrorist groups.”

He changed the slide.

“Throughout the twentieth century, the development of the Brotherhood increasingly became that of a political organization. During the latter part of the twentieth century, you can see how the Brotherhood was clearly split in two: the radical, jihadist faction, inspired by Qutb, and the more moderate, conservative wing that wanted to reform the Brotherhood into a purely political organization. In 1984, they put up their first candidates in Egyptian parliamentary elections. Those encouraging a cautious nonviolent approach were the leaders of the organization at the time and enjoyed success in the elections. But they gained many opponents. So, to summarize, we can see a clear development of the Brotherhood. Firstly, their interpretation of Islam, from rigid and militant to rather more flexible and open to changes in society. Secondly, the organization's methods, from violent opposition to colonial powers to a peaceful political struggle in the Egyptian parliament. You can even see how the Brotherhood developed from its early organizational form, with underground cells, into a political party in opposition to the controlling power. The group also grew from existing only on a national level in Egypt to become an international organization with branches and mosques across the world. Most jihadists, however, thought the organization had betrayed its founders, and so they broke away. Several of the groups that have emerged from that branch are the ones we know of today.”

He looked across at Hamrén, who nodded. New slide.

“Today the Brotherhood consists mostly of conservative members who think the organization should primarily involve itself in missionary work. These people are clear in their anti-Western sentiment. Then there are liberal politicians who want to modernize the Brotherhood. Beyond those two groups, there is a small, but significantly more militant, Salafist group that explicitly supports armed jihad. The Brotherhood contains all these different movements and, as you'll understand, there has been deep internal schism for a long time. When the Arab Spring brought the revolution in Egypt in February this year, the Muslim Brotherhood was thrown into an entirely new political situation. Their archenemy, Mubarak, and his regime were gone from power and the ban against the organization was lifted. The conditions for the organization to achieve political power were dramatically improved. There was a possibility for them to take on a dominant role in Egyptian politics. But, to get there, they also began, at least outwardly, to speak the same language as the West. The Brotherhood's leaders started to talk about democracy and human rights and so on, and said little or nothing about Islam and sharia. This caused outrage among their radical members. They believed the Brotherhood was going in completely the wrong direction—that it had lost its soul, that it had sold out to Western imperialists.”

“Okay. And the threat assessment?” said Hamrén.

“A growing band of members are rejecting the increasingly pro-Western policies adopted by the organization. Several of them have left the organization for the Islamist al-Nour party and other similar groupings in Egypt. But some have chosen to stay within the Brotherhood, and it is this group that especially interests us. We have spent quite some time studying them, trying to understand their motives and how they behave compared to the rest of the organization. This group is completely different from the rest of the Brotherhood,” continued the MI6 analyst. “Those people we have been able to tie to the group have a clear Salafist orientation, inspired by Qutb and pro-violence Islamism. These people believe the current development of the Brotherhood to be a betrayal of Islam. They are
radical in their faith and see violent resistance as the only effective way to protect the Muslim world from Western influence. But they are careful. They work in the long term and only through personal recommendations, all to keep strangers out and protect themselves from infiltration. This is a case of a loose network within the Brotherhood. But what is interesting is that, unlike other jihadists, these people haven't left the Brotherhood; rather, they want to use the organization like parasites. The circle consists of people who began organizing themselves within the Brotherhood at the start of the millennium. There has been a secret, parallel organization in existence since 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq. The network has no official name, but we call it the Ahwa group.” He looked around and quickly added, when it appeared that no one understood why MI6 called the group that, “They're named after the word for a traditional Egyptian café—an
ahwa
. We know that several of them meet in an apartment associated with a café in the older part of Cairo. We can get you some coordinates later.”

“But surely it has to be assumed that the leaders of the Brotherhood are aware of these people,” said the Salafist expert from the other end of the table.

“They are indeed aware of these people. But it's not as certain that they know these people are connected together in a network, or that they understand the scope of the network. The Brotherhood's head office and shura council outwardly deny that they have members who are jihadists, while simultaneously trying to deal with them internally. The most vocal individuals have been excluded. But most of those we have identified as being connected to the Ahwa group are careful. By not standing out too much, these people have been able to work undisturbed. It's important to understand that what we are talking about isn't a separate organization, but rather a group of people brought together because they believe in the same thing, which is that the Brotherhood in its current form is too weak and that they must return to Qutb's pro-violence ideology, encompassing an armed struggle against the West and unbelievers, the reinstatement of sharia, and so on. They've been able to
take advantage of the organization's network and resources. They've even managed to avoid our notice. As recently as a year ago, we considered them to be little more than a debating society—an extreme wing of the Brotherhood, but not a real threat. Now we see things differently.”