[Aimen Dean](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aimen_Dean), born Ali Al-Duranni is an al-Qaeda operative turned MI6 informant for eight years before being exposed. In this book he recounts all the different "lives" that he lived. Like most memoirs I found it great, especially for audiobook listening. Right off the bat, clearly Dean is an incredibly talented human being. He did well in everything he touched. He knew the Quran by heart at age of 12. He went on to be at the "elite" bomb making camp for Al-Qaeda. When he decided to switch sides, he became the top spy for MI6 (not an exaggeration). The book is fascinating. I'm glad we have him on our team. ### Qutb's influence In this book I learned about Sayyid Qutb, the OG Jihadist thinker, who founded Muslim Brotherhood and established the concept of Jihad as armed resistance to western/secular values. A lot of modern Jihad is downstream from him. Dean was influenced by his writings in his youth. ### Bosnia as the intro to Jihad This is Dean's first stop, at the age of 15. Like any adolescent thrown into war, he's amazed by the sheer magnitude and stupidity of destruction. Unlike most adolescents who "die for their country", it's apparent that he really hoped for a martyr's death. The yearning for martyrdom reminds me of the Japanese level of commitment to personal sacrifice. This is as opposed to General Patton's view of "I don't want you to die for your country." Narrowly, I feel like it's an [[Adaptive belief systems|adaptive]] system because each individual wants to fight more. But broadly I believe it actually backfires because you create a society that is devoid of hope and striving for a better future. What's the point of building a good life for you and your society if you can [[Wireheading|wirehead]] your way to 72 virgins? ### Checnya and financing a war What I learned here is how the money comes into these systems. They all, invariably come from some type of NGOs. Of course! They couldn't act like a business, because then they would have to *make* money. Since war is an effort that destroys value, you can finance it one of the three ways * A nation state via taxation (most nation states) * A rogue group who seizes resources (ISIS) * Volunteers and funneling NGO money (a lot of Al Qaeda) It's clear that the first is much stronger than the other two, as we've seen since the Napoleonic army. But to do that, you have to have the will of the people with the aim of the war. In terms of how well a modern society mobilizes for war: * Broad legitimacy, stable government (best). Fighting for survival. Israel post-Oct 7. Ukraine. Allies during WWII. * Narrow legitimacy, stable government (second best). Ostensibly fighting for survival, but there are doubts. An authoritarian government controls channels of communication in order to over-project the society's will. Nazi Germany, Russia in the Ukraine war. * No legitimacy, rogue actors (much worse). The resources just won't be mobilized. To fight a war for every soldier you need N people who grow crops. ### Derunta camp [Derunta](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darunta_training_camp) was bomb making central in Afghanistan. It was interesting to hear about the day-to-day lives of terrorists in these camps: training, making bombs, listening to sermons and prayers, and like the rest of fighting men, thinking about food and sleep. In Derunta, Dean invents (with others), a cyanide based WMD called Mubtakkar. This is his big claim to fame in Al-Qaeda circles and how he has credibility. This is also where doubts start creeping in for Dean. He starts seeing some true psychotic, sadistic people. Some daylight opens between his belief of the right and duty of Jihad to preserve the Muslim identity, to the sociopaths who come to these camps with a thirst for blood. Dean is also well-versed in Quran and Hadiths, so he can "keep up" with a lot of the preachers. Dean starts having doubts about what the preachers are saying, not (just) because "hey, you're preaching to kill bunch of innocent people", but because the preachers are relying on hadiths with doubted veracity. ### Reliability of Hadiths Hadiths are saying that are attributed to Mohammed, but are not written in the Qur'an. It is similar to [Oral Torah](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oral_Torah) in Judaism. Unlike Oral Torah which was institutionalized in one go, Hadiths vary in origins and [reliability](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadith_studies#Reliability_of_hadith). So a lot of "is Islam a peaceful religion" relies not only on questions around who is interpreting it, but also what Hadiths you're taking into account. Because Dean is very well-versed in Islam, he doesn't take the preachers' words at face value. It all exacerbates his doubt. ### Time at MI6 After the 1997 Embassy bombings, Dean wants out. He's on his way to Qatar, where he gets pulled in. Luckily, he got himself a "get out of jail free" card by downloading a lot of Al Qaeda data into a thumb drive. He gives it to the authorities, and the authorities in turn give him his choice of western agencies to spy for, between the French, English and American. Dean was at MI6 for 7 years. He spied both inside the communities in the UK, as well as in Bahrain and even Afghanistan. The way that he conducts himself "in the field" is interesting, as is his sociological observation of Muslim communities in Europe. He sees that while the immigrant generation appreciates the European values and opportunities, the generation after seems disillusioned and lost, and the Islamists pounce on that. What struck me (and Dean) is how professional MI6 agents are about everything they do. The relationship between an operator and an operative is a unique one. It's deeply personal: the operative trusts the operators with his life, and his motivations go beyond the transactional. But in reality, the profession dictates that it must be somewhere between a colleague and a transactional one, operatives are called literally "assets". From all Dean's recountings, MI6's approach seems like threading those lines in a moral and effective way. ### The Outing [This](https://time.com/archive/6677574/the-untold-story-of-al-qaedas-plot-to-attack-the-subway/) is the article that outs Dean. The chain is, as far as I can figure out, MI6 -> CIA -> White House -> White House Staffer -> Ron Suskind -> Ron Suskind book -> Time Magazine. He wasn't named in the book, but there was enough information to triangulate. Goddamn staffers. ### Fighting Radical Islam Dean finishes with a prescription on how to fight radical islam. He insists that the way to do it is to empower moderate islam and accept it in communities, and the fight against radical islam must come from within moderate islam. ### Summary Dean had a fascinating life (or nine lives). We get to go along for the ride, and on the way we get deep look on how come jihadists [[Everyone thinks they're the good guy|believe they are the good guys]], as well as the intricacies of spycraft. This book makes for a great audio listening, as most memoirs do. #published 2025-03-16 ![[Images/Nine Lives.png|200]]