Jordanian al-Qaeda detainee
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The Jordanian al-Qaeda detainee was the subject of John Kiriakou's first-ever interrogation, conducted without training when he arrived as chief of counterterrorism operations in Pakistan. Rather than play good cop or bad cop, Kiriakou simply had a conversation. The man explained he had gone to Afghanistan in 2000 to open an orphanage for parentless children, and joined al-Qaeda because it funded the orphanage generously and asked nothing of him; he never carried a weapon. In another telling, Kiriakou gives the same story slightly differently: the detainee said he had gone to Afghanistan three years earlier to volunteer building an orphanage, having previously worked at an orphanage in Jordan. Asked to trace his escape route from Tora Bora, he gave detail so precise, a village, a man with a Toyota, a night in a barn, that Kiriakou, who already knew the "rat lines," knew he was telling the truth. Asked why, the man said, "I'm your prisoner; what good would it do for me to lie to you?" and then offered to invite Kiriakou into Islam and be his godfather in the faith; Kiriakou declined, thanking him but citing his own Orthodox Christian faith. He was released to Jordan as a non-combatant.

See also

- Economic roots of terrorism
- Abu Zubaydah Capture
