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Amir

The pseudonym John Kiriakou gives the Muslim, ethnically Arab domestic officer sent on temporary duty to Pakistan to help with the Abu Zubaydah hunt — the colleague who drove them into India by GPS, drank the roadside tea and had diarrhoea for six weeks, and invented the textile-baron cover story on the spot.

Amir is the pseudonym John Kiriakou uses for the colleague who worked beside him through the operation that captured Abu Zubaydah in 2002. Amir was Muslim and an ethnic Arab, a domestic officer on temporary duty to Pakistan who had never served overseas before — and who was, Kiriakou says, thrilled to be part of it and “very much into the spirit of things.”[1]

The tea

That enthusiasm had costs. Halfway along the road between Lahore and Faisalabad, where the motorway turns into a dirt track, tea sellers pitch tents and travellers stop. Amir always got tea from them. Once he brought Kiriakou one with milk in it, and Kiriakou refused it — “do you have any idea how long that milk has been sitting out?” Amir drank his; Kiriakou threw his away. Amir had diarrhoea for the next six weeks, through the entire operation.[1] Kiriakou’s own view of the matter is that being ill in Pakistan is simply part of the job: on many days you are expected to work fourteen, sixteen, eighteen hours with a raging fever, and you should be prepared for it.[2]

Driving into India

On their first drive to Faisalabad, Amir insisted on using one of the new handheld GPS units — devices the size of a large walkie-talkie. Kiriakou kept saying they were heading east; Amir insisted they were heading west. Then the unit announced: approaching international border. They had driven into India, and turned around under the gaze of Indian border guards coming out to see who was arriving down the dirt track — adding an hour to the trip.[3][4]

Textile barons

Amir’s most consequential improvisation came when the estate agent selling the Lahore safe house asked what the cash buyers did for a living. Exhausted and without a cover story, Amir said: “we’re textile barons.” Kiriakou agreed that yes, they were textile barons, and the agent — assuming they owned the factories outside town — blessed them for employing everyone in that part of the country.[5]

It was Amir who drove with Kiriakou through Lahore twice in the small hours before the raids, rehearsing the route by landmark — shoe advertisement, traffic policeman, British school, McDonald’s — because the city had no street signs.[6][7] On the night itself the two of them watched from the roof of the Faisalabad safe house, and it was to Amir that Kiriakou gave his estimate beforehand: “I think we’re going to catch somebody. I don’t know if we’re going to catch him. I’m going to call it 50-50.”[8]

See also

References

  1. ↑ John Kiriakou's Dead Drop, 2026-02-23 · Transcript
  2. ↑ John Kiriakou's Dead Drop, 2026-02-23 · Transcript
  3. ↑ John Kiriakou's Dead Drop, 2026-02-23 · Transcript
  4. ↑ John Kiriakou's Dead Drop, 2026-02-23 · Transcript
  5. ↑ John Kiriakou's Dead Drop, 2026-02-23 · Transcript
  6. ↑ John Kiriakou's Dead Drop, 2026-02-23 · Transcript
  7. ↑ John Kiriakou's Dead Drop, 2026-02-23 · Transcript
  8. ↑ John Kiriakou's Dead Drop, 2026-02-23 · Transcript

Sourced from John Kiriakou's on-record public statements. See his profile for the full body of his interviews, podcast appearances, and short-form video.

Categories: People