The trail to al Qaeda's most wanted



A 36-year-old Dane called Morten Storm says he was the man who led the CIA to Anwar al Awlaki, the al Qaeda cleric killed in a U.S. drone strike in Yemen last year. And he says he did it with a computer thumb-drive that secretly contained a tracking device.

Among the evidence he's produced: recorded telephone conversations, passport stamps showing multiple trips to Yemen, correspondence with Awlaki, and a recording of a conversation with an unidentified American - who acknowledges his role in the pursuit of Awlaki.

The Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten has published details of his story over the past few days, after reviewing documents and tapes of the conversations Storm provided. The Danish Intelligence Service PET won't confirm or deny Storm's account; CNN has yet to reach American officials for comment.


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In fact, he helped run a UK-based enterprise called Storm Outdoors -- on which his instructor's profile speaks of his time "living with the Beduins in the Deserts in the North of Yemen."

Read more: U.S. drone killing of American al-Awlaki prompts legal, moral debate
There is firm evidence that Storm, a former biker and petty criminal, moved within jihadist circles after converting to Islam in the late 1990s -- becoming known as Murad Storm.

One video clearly shows him at a rally of militant Islamists in London in 2005, listening to a speech by the extremist preacher Omar Bakri Mohammed. According to Jyllands-Posten, Storm was by then on the radar of the PET because of his links with Islamist militants.

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