Ali Soufan, a former FBI supervisory special agent, is the author of The Black Banners: The Inside Story of 9/11 and the War Against al-Qaeda (WW Norton, 2011).
Former FBI agent Ali Soufan, who wrote a definitive history of the early years of the U.S. fight against al-Qaeda, addressed a Washington Institute Policy Forum.
On September 20, 2011, Ali Soufan addressed a Washington Institute Policy Forum in New York as part of the ongoing lecture series sponsored by the Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence. Mr. Soufan's comments drew from his just-released book The Black Banners: The Inside Story of 9/11 and the War Against al-Qaeda.
Ali Soufan was on the ground in Yemen on September 11, 2001, investigating the October 2000 al-Qaeda bombing of the USS Cole as an FBI supervisory special agent. A few hours after the attacks, as he prepared to board a flight home to join the investigation, he was instructed to stay in Yemen and interrogate al-Qaeda operative Fahd al-Quso, then in Yemeni custody. Mr. Soufan is now chief executive officer of the Soufan Group LLC. A former FBI counterterrorism agent with extensive experience interrogating al-Qaeda operatives, he also serves as executive director of the Qatar International Academy for Security Studies.
