November 6, 2006

By Brian Fishman

Al‐Qa’ida’s Spymaster Analyzes the U.S.  

Intelligence Community

On August 6, 2006 Al Jazeera broadcast a video in which Ayman al‐Zawahiri

claimed that al‐Gamaa al‐Islamiya (Egyptian Islamic Group—Gamaa Islamiya))

had joined Al‐Qa’ida.  The video also included Muhammad Khalil al‐Hakaymah—a

player in Egyptian Islamist movements since 1979—swearing allegiance to Al‐

Qa’ida on behalf of the Egyptian group.   Despite al‐Zawahiri’s star power, al‐

Hakaymah’s claims were subsequently disputed by members of al‐Gamaa al‐

Islamiya, which had formally renounced violence in 1997.  Al‐Hakaymah’s bayat to

Al‐Qa’ida corresponded with the publication of his book, The Myth of Delusion, a

detailed dissertation designed to demystify the U.S. intelligence community.  Arab

observers, in and outside of Egypt, have since speculated that Al‐Hakaymah will

play an increasingly significant role in Al‐Qa’ida because of his expertise on the

United States security community and disillusionment with Gamaa Islamiya’s

non‐violent approach.  Since releasing Myth, al‐Hakaymah has circulated a brief

exhortation to individual jihad entitled Toward a New Strategy and a tactical

handbook entitled Fighting Alone.

Introduction

Muhammad Khalil Al‐Hakaymah’s treatise The Myth of Delusion is an exhaustively

researched dissertation on the structure, practices, and weaknesses of the U.S.

intelligence community.  It highlights the community’s historical mistakes and

contemporary weaknesses in order to demonstrate that Al‐Qa’ida can successfully

operate against the U.S.  Myth, however, is not a doctrinaire call to action, but a

notably non‐ideological effort to understand U.S. intelligence capabilities and

intentions.  It is a prime example of jihadi open source intelligence gathering.   

Al‐Hakaymah’s study reflects Al‐Qa’ida’s increasingly refined

understanding of the U.S. social and political structure.  Although al‐Hakaymah

makes numerous factual mistakes, his report indicates that Al Qa’ida has evolved

from studying U.S. security tactics and electoral politics to more sophisticated

analyses of U.S. bureaucratic structure and weaknesses.  Whereas security

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planners have tended to think of bureaucratic limitations as internal problems that

may limit our ability to detect, prevent, or respond to an attack, we must now

consider that Al Qa’ida will actively attempt to exploit these weaknesses.

Despite this scholarly approach, al‐Hakaymah often misstates facts and his

subsequent analysis is frequently faulty.  He seems unable to distinguish between

credible and bogus sources.  Al‐Hakaymah’s reliance on unreliable sources is not

always beneficial, as some websites that provide inaccurate information are also

highly derogatory towards Muslims generally.  

As Americans debate intelligence reform, it is important to remember that

Al‐Qa’ida uses open source documents for intelligence on U.S. weaknesses.  We

should be cognizant of Al‐Qa’ida’s work, but must not allow the group to hamper

efforts to understand and address our strengths and weaknesses by limiting

public discussion of reform.  All sides in this debate must behave responsibly, but

ultimately we have more to gain from public debate than Al Qa’ida has to learn.   

Describing the Community  

Al‐Hakaymah’s survey of the Intelligence Community is relatively accurate.  He

mentions fifteen U.S. intelligence agencies (there are 16) but focuses on three in

particular: the National Security Agency (NSA), the Central Intelligence Agency

(CIA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).  For example, he writes:

“The FBI has sixty branch offices in the United States and Puerto Rico, in addition to

fifteen branch offices in other countries.  More than twenty‐two thousand men and women

work for the FBI, including 9,400 Special Agents.  The FBI’s annual budget is about one

and a half billion dollars.”

That al‐Hakaymah’s numbers are not precise (the actual number of Special

Agents is closer to 12,000) is not important.  His numbers are in the ballpark and

he understands the basic role of each organization.  He notes the NSA’s SIGINT

priorities and describes the CIA’s mission as, “infiltrating other countries’

intelligence services, receiving foreign intelligence agents, and exchanging

intelligence information with friendly countries.”

Al‐Hakaymah understands—better than many Americans—the historical

firewall between foreign intelligence gathering and domestic crime‐fighting,

which makes him suspicious of the FBI’s increased presence overseas:

“The question to be asked is: If the United States has a CIA office in its Embassy in Cairo 

for espionage operations and information gathering and recruiting of agents, then what is 

the need to have an FBI office in the same Embassy and in the same country? What is the 

FBI office in Egypt doing, since it is a similar service to the Egyptian State Security 

Intelligence Service?” 

brian.fishman@usma.edu 
Intelligence, Policymaking, and a 9/11 Conspiracy

Al‐Hakaymah believes that U.S. intelligence agencies are the most critical threats

to Al‐Qa’ida.  He also believes that the intelligence community, in concert with

neo‐conservatives, uses the intelligence bureaucracy to manipulate U.S.

policymakers to achieve its political objectives. Al‐Hakaymah’s peculiar 9/11

conspiracy theory supports this thesis and demonstrates al‐Hakaymah’s

weaknesses as an analyst of the United States.

Myth includes an impressive amount of research on the history of the neo‐

conservative movement, although most of the data is culled from secondary

sources.  Al‐Hakaymah describes the formation of the Heritage Foundation, the

famous “Team B” analysis of Soviet nuclear stockpiles, and the high‐profile role of

neo‐conservatives appointees within the Bush Administration.   

Despite this research, al‐Hakaymah’s conclusions are generally rehashed

conspiracy theories that reflect a deep misunderstanding of the U.S. government.  

He is likely using Middle Eastern intelligence agencies—which often serve as

operational arms of domestic political factions— as a model for understanding the

U.S. community.  Just as U.S. analysts often fail to understand Al‐Qa’ida, al‐

Hakaymah’s analysis of the United States is also flawed.

The disjointed, irrational 9/11 conspiracy theory al‐Hakaymah describes is a

prime example of his poor understanding of the United States.  Al‐Hakaymah sees

the 9/11 attacks as the culmination of a decade of secret warfare between Al‐

Qa’ida and the U.S. intelligence community.  He happily recounts the assertion by

Michael Scheuer, former head of the CIA’s Bin Laden unit, that Al Qa’ida sources

inside Pakistan’s intelligence services alerted Bin Laden to the 1998 cruise missile

attack on his training camps in Afghanistan.  This illustrates the central political

purpose of Myth: to demonstrate that U.S. power is limited and can be defeated.   

Myth’s oddest passages describe 9/11 itself.   Although the facts informing

al‐Hakaymah’s analysis are taken directly from the 9/11 Commission Report, his

scenario describes U.S. intelligence officials helping organize the 9/11 attacks in

order to seize control of the U.S. nuclear arsenal.  Al‐Hakaymah interprets

President Bush’s movement in Air Force One on 9/11 as an effort to prevent this

mutiny by personally taking control in key locations.   

It is not clear what purpose, if any, this story has for Al‐Qa’ida, except to

inflate the importance of the intelligence community within the U.S. government.   

Al‐Hakaymah does not seem to have invented this theory—he mentions

numerous information sources—which further demonstrates his inability to

distinguish credible information sources.

Intelligence Failures

Despite asserting the intelligence community’s power to control U.S. politics, al‐

Hakaymah always returns to his central message, which is that U.S. intelligence

brian.fishman@usma.edu 
agencies are vulnerable.  The CIA’s penetration by foreign intelligence agencies is

one of his favorite topics. Perhaps most interestingly, he is quite honest about

Israeli Mossad’s penetration of U.S. intelligence.  Despite the standard jihadist

assertions that the U.S. and Israel work in concert, al‐Hakaymah explains that the

U.S. is just as concerned about Israeli spies as those from other countries.  He also

points to the Aldrich Ames incident and the FBI’s inability to find the perpetrator

of the 2001 Anthrax attacks as evidence that U.S. intelligence can be defeated.

Al‐Hakaymah also analyzes the faulty U.S. intelligence regarding Iraq’s

WMD program and relationship with Al Qa’ida.  He describes the Department of

Defense’s decision to stand‐up the Office of Special Plans as a new analytical

intelligence unit before the invasion of Iraq and asserts that it relied too heavily on

Iraqi exiles such as Ahmed Chalabi.  Al‐Hakaymah describes the tension this

office created with existing intelligence agencies.

Post 9/11 Strategy

Al‐Hakaymah strives to understand how 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq will change

the U.S. intelligence community.  He explains the oft‐heard criticism that the

intelligence community depends on technical collection capabilities rather than

HUMINT and implies that the U.S. will refocus on HUMINT in the post‐9/11

period.  He has clearly read the memoirs of retired CIA officers and describes in

detail U.S. tradecraft for recruiting and operating spies.

Al‐Hakaymah is quite proud that 9/11 forced the U.S. to reorient its

intelligence community and smugly recounts the FBI’s attempts to bolster its

personnel levels.  He describes an exodus of disillusioned, older intelligence

professionals being chased out by younger, more ideologically charged officers.

Al‐Hakaymah is particularly interested in the intelligence community’s lack

of Arabic translators and explains that translators must be Americans citizens in

good financial status, and able to pass a lie detector test.  Al‐Hakaymah is

unnervingly interested in lie detectors; he describes their limitations and how they

work.  Although he never makes such a claim, al‐Hakaymah may be considering

how an Al Qa’ida supporter would infiltrate the intelligence community.

Al‐Hakaymah understands the move to create smaller, more maneuverable

military units and the doctrine of preemption.  His clearest political prediction is

that the U.S. will invade Iran, and he describes purported CIA contacts with

Iranian dissident groups, including the Mujahidin e‐Khalq and Kurdish groups.

Al‐Hakaymah is aware that many in the West believe that moderate

Muslims are the only antidote for his violent vision of Islam.  This is the only

section of Myth where al‐Hakaymah abandons his detached analytical prose,

choosing instead to viciously condemn Arab regimes for supporting U.S. policy to

capture “hearts and minds.”  Al‐Hakaymah predicts that the U.S. will recruit

brian.fishman@usma.edu 
Islamic groups that reject violence, including the Muslim Brotherhood.1   He also

accuses the U.S. of using humanitarian aid to curry favor in the Arab world.

Al‐Hakaymah’s analysis of U.S. efforts to bolster social bulwarks against Al

Qa’ida in Arab states is insightful.  He understands that the U.S. might promote

religiously extreme—yet less militant—groups as a buffer to groups like Al‐

Qa’ida.   American planners should be aware that Al‐Qa’ida understands this

strategy and will likely take steps to mitigate its effectiveness, perhaps by

infiltrating sleeper agents into such organizations themselves.  This analysis may

also explain al‐Hakaymah’s bitter departure from Gamaa Islamiya—he believes

that their pledge of non‐violence makes them a potential tool of U.S. intelligence.

Intelligence Gathering

Most of the Myth of Delusion focuses on organizational and strategic issues, but al‐

Hakaymah also provides his readers with a detailed analysis of U.S. surveillance

techniques.  Besides detailing numerous electronic surveillance tools, he explains

three methods the U.S. to identify voice communications between terrorists.   

The first method al‐Hakaymah describes is to troll a vast database of voice

calls to identify key words, including: Koran, jihad, Hassan al‐Banna, the doctor, etc.  

The second method is to match known voice prints to individuals in non‐Arab

countries, such as Afghanistan, Pakistan and Chechnya.  The third method is to

monitor all Arabic phone calls in a non‐Arabic speaking country.

Al‐Hakaymah warns readers to be extremely careful of using cell phones.  

He argues that although U.S. intelligence cannot track all electronic

communications, using such tools is not worth the risk.  Al‐Hakaymah attributes

Somali warlord Mohammed Aidid’s success resisting U.S. military pressure in the

early 1990s to his reliance on human communication networks.

Conclusions

Al‐Qa’ida has generated numerous visionary ideologues dedicated to strategic

planning.  These thinkers have long surveyed Western texts for insight on the

United States and the West generally.  Al‐Hakaymah does not aspire to be a

preeminent ideologue, rather Al‐Qa’ida’s premier spymaster.  In late September,

al‐Hakaymah posted a document online urging Al‐Qa’ida to develop a more

formal intelligence structure for the long war ahead.  

The Myth of Delusion is akin to Al‐Qa’ida’s National Intelligence Estimate of

the U.S. intelligence community.  It is a tool for Al‐Qa’ida’s senior leadership, and

judging by Ayman al‐Zawahiri’s show of support for al‐Hakaymah, it is likely

being read at the highest levels of the Al‐Qa’ida organization.

 

1

 It is not entirely clear where al-Hakaymah is getting his information, but it appears to be from the article 

Hearts, Minds, and Dollars by David Kaplan. The article is available here:

http://ics.leeds.ac.uk/papers/vp01.cfm?outfit=pmt&requesttimeout=500&folder=2027&paper=2283

brian.fishman@usma.edu 
Appendix:

Brief biography of Abu Jihad Muhammad Khalil al‐Hakaymah

Name:   Abu Jihad Muhammad Khalil al‐Hakaymah

Age:   45‐50 y/o

Place of birth: Aswan, Egypt

Family: Married, at least three children (one man, two women).  His

son may be in an Iranian prison.

Education: Holds a Masters degree in Social Services

Al‐Hakaymah joined al‐Gamaa al‐Islamiya in 1979 near Aswan.  Like many

other Islamists in Egypt, including Ayman al‐Zawahiri, he was arrested in 1981

following the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat.  After being

released from prison, he resumed violent activities and was arrested numerous

times, reportedly once alongside Dr. Omar Abdul Rahman (the blind Sheikh) who

is imprisoned in the U.S. for his role in the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center.

Al‐Hakaymah traveled to Saudi Arabia and then Pakistan in the late 1980s

to fight against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.  He may have spent time in

Britain in the late 1990s, some sources report he was even jailed there.  After 9/11,

al‐Hakaymah fled Britain and is likely somewhere along the Afghanistan/Pakistan

border.  Reportedly, he is no longer welcome in Egypt.2

There is an ongoing debate about how senior Al‐Hakaymah was within al‐

Gamaa al‐Islamiya.  At the very least, he was a leader in the Aswan region.  Based

on the strong condemnation of his announcement with Ayman al‐Zawahiri, it

seems likely that he has overstated his importance to the overall movement.

Al‐Hakaymah ran the Promise Keepers website at www.althabeton.co.nr,   

until it was taken down recently.

 

2

 Sources: http://www.almaqreze.com/bayanat/artcl032.html 

brian.fishman@usma.edu