Double agent jihadi: To his extremist ‘brothers’ he was a Muslim convert hungering to commit atrocities in Britain. In truth, he was a spy for MI5. In a new book he blows the cover on his terrifying double life

HERO

From the Daily Mail:

As we raced through the desert in a cloud of dust, I knew I was on my way into the lion’s den, about to put my head in its jaws. I was in the lawless, fly-blown state of Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula, and, Kalashnikov in hand, being driven to meet one of Al Qaeda’s top figures, a man tipped as the successor of Bin Laden. 

To the fighters I was with, I was Murad al-Danmarki, a brother jihadist. Later that night in January 2012, after being greeted as a trusted friend, I was asked to go one step further in my commitment to the cause and take an oath of allegiance to the Al Qaeda leader Nasir al-Wuhayshi. 

With no choice, I intoned: ‘I will be true to Leader of the Faithful, and will fight Allah’s cause.’ It was done. This ginger-haired, white-skinned Westerner — a one-time juvenile delinquent, biker gang member and jailbird, now a convert to Islam — was a signed-up member of Al Qaeda, dedicated to the destruction of kuffars [infidels], particularly in the U.S. and Britain. 

Except I wasn’t. For five long years I had kept up this pose as a militant jihadist. In reality I was a spy, working undercover for Western intelligence agencies. I’d seen enough videos of brutal executions by Al Qaeda to know my fate if discovered — a savage and slow beheading or crucifixion, my body left hanging for days. 

Avoiding such a grisly end depended on keeping sharp. In London, Luton and Birmingham, where I operated, there were so many radicals on the streets I could not let the mask drop for a moment. Even my wife, Fadia, had no idea who I really was, nor my children.

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