Agent Storm: Inside al Qaeda for the CIA

(CNN) -- Two worlds. Two identities and the ever-present, very real risk of death.
That was the life of Morten Storm, a radical Islamist turned double agent, who's now lifting the lid on some of the world's best-kept secrets.
His life is the stuff of spy novels, and he talks about it in his book: "Agent Storm: My Life Inside al Qaeda and the CIA," co-authored by CNN terrorism analyst Paul Cruickshank and Tim Lister. Both men are CNN contributors.
He also recently sat down with CNN Senior International Correspondent Nic Robertson.
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"I had these different names. I had different personalities," Storm said. "I was Morten Storm, Murad Storm, Abu Osama, Abu Mujahid."
He was so trusted by senior al Qaeda leaders he once fixed one up with a European wife, all the while -- Storm claims -- working for Western intelligence agencies.
"For half a decade, I moved back and forth between two worlds and two identities -- when one misplaced sentence could have cost me my life," he writes in the book. "Traveling between atheism and hardline Islam, English and Arabic."
"It's some kind of schizophrenic lifestyle," he said.
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Growing up
Storm's remarkable journey began rather unremarkably in Denmark, in a town called Korsor.
It's a place with plenty of places for a young boy to play and Storm remembers, fondly, his time in the forest and on the beach. He also remembers struggling with the absence of his father.
Storm started getting into trouble early. As a teen, he committed armed robbery and got into fighting, feeding off the adrenaline of both.
"Boxing for me was a way of getting out my aggressions," said Storm, who didn't limit his fights to the ring.
By his 18th birthday, he'd landed himself in jail. After he got out, Storm joined the Bandidos, a biker gang, working as its muscle.
His life was going nowhere good -- and fast.
Finding 'truth'
Storm's trajectory changed after he found a book on the life of the Prophet Mohammed in the tiny religion section at the Korsor library.
"It changed me. It spoke to me, that book. This is the truth," he said. "I found the truth."
Storm became Murad Storm and traveled to Yemen, where he learned Arabic and a strict uncompromising interpretation of Islam.
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He named his son after Osama bin Laden.
Storm dove head first into the world of jihad, traveling with his Danish friend, journalist Nagieb Khaja, who wanted to shoot a film about mujahedeen in Yemen. . .

Link to full CNN Story

I haven't heard much about this until now and my feelings are mixed further given this is a CNN story.

We all know the US CIA tries to play god in these situations controlling things from all angles so stories like this are not a surprise. What I am left wondering right now is; this is what they have presented to us to form an opinion, what has been left out?
What secret plots did they try to manipulate that are not for public consumption? How many plans went bad? How many infiltrations into groups like this are there? Was this mans identity even released for fear of blowback from his cover being detected by us, the USA people?

I can't help but fear, as I listen to CNN playing in the background, the cries of people during the Senate meeting to "Stop the Madness" and "Stop creating more Extremists". Things have gone terribly wrong here in the USA and the utter discontent for the masses pleas delves us further into segregated angry groups.

When will the cork pop or this bubble break? More war will equal more investments and more debt, we as a people are suffering in so many different ways and to add insult to that, much could of been avoided. We have the technology to fix many of the issues that are at stake right now, unfortunately greed has once again been taken as a priority.

AB

Story tonight on CNN. Should be interesting.

Watch "Agent Storm: Inside al Qaeda for the CIA" Tuesday night at 9 p.m. ET.

a reply to: AnteBellum
Just wanted to drop this link to a audio interview with this man from cbc The Current

"By the time Morten Storm began to doubt extremists, he was in Al Qaeda's highest circles but working for the other side - the CIA. We've just been through a weekend with news of yet another ISIS beheading. The most-wanted-terrorists have new names, new affiliations ..Morten Storm's experiences offer insight into their world and the world of those trying to stop them. " click the listen button at www.cbc.ca...

I am blown away by this story for one major reason: the fact that this guy was not recruited, but basically approached Danish intelligence and they were like "oh hai. You're not radical anymore? Come work for us." What kind of intelligence agency are they running over there? Obviously the CIA got involved because of the successes the guy already had, and the inroads he had made in Danish intelligence. So that part I understand. Assets are recruited for their access, sure. And this guy had that access, but the article and video make it sound like it was super easy. Hopefully that wasn't the case. But perhaps this was before the idea of terrorism really gained a hold on the lives of everyday people, and there was not a whole lot of ways to get information. You just have to be super careful if you are an intelligence agency and you are approached by someone.

I would be willing to bet that you couldn't do something like this with US intelligence. If you send an email to the addresses available on say the CIA website, they will probably never get back to you, primarily because there are probably a lot of nutters sending crazy messages all the time. You wouldn't know who to contact, and even if you did, you wouldn't know how to contact them. I think that perhaps this guy went through a source, possibly a journalist, and he somehow established his bona fides. It is a fact that there are many cool stories like this that aren't known to the public since they remain classified. There must be, whether they are exactly like this or are simply stories related to the war on terrorism that are highly interesting.