KiriPedia Kiripedia The Free Encyclopedia of John Kiriakou's World

Colonel Khaled

The ISI chief in Lahore who worked alongside John Kiriakou through the Abu Zubaydah operation — a man who had never wanted to be a soldier, who spent their first meeting drawing Kiriakou's portrait instead of taking notes, and who explained the spliced telephone wires that nearly derailed the hunt.

Colonel Khaled was the ISI chief in Lahore during the March 2002 operation that captured Abu Zubaydah, and John Kiriakou’s principal Pakistani partner in it. Kiriakou distinguishes him from Major Khaled, the ISI chief in Faisalabad, and introduces him with unqualified warmth: “he was a very good guy.”[1]

The portrait

Khaled had never wanted to be in the military. His father was a general and forced him into it; what he had wanted was to be an artist.[2] Kiriakou discovered this at the end of their first meeting. Sitting in Khaled’s office asking for a safe house and fifteen or twenty of his men, he watched the colonel writing furiously throughout and assumed he was taking notes. At the end Khaled tore the page out of his notebook and handed it over: it was a portrait of Kiriakou.[3] Kiriakou told him he was really talented. “Alas, my father would not allow me to go to art school.” — “Well, look, you’re a colonel. You landed on your feet.”[3]

The wire on the pole

Khaled’s local knowledge broke the operation’s most frustrating dead end. A telephone number the Americans were certain about traced to an address in Faisalabad where there was nothing — and where nothing had ever been. Kiriakou insisted it must be a mistake. Khaled laughed: “Oh my friend, you haven’t been in Pakistan very long. This is very common.” When land is legally divided into building lots, each lot is assigned a telephone number and the wire on the pole is live whether or not a telephone exists. People who cannot afford a line climb the pole, splice the wire, run it to their own house, and the bill goes to the owner of the empty lot.[4] Khaled sent for a Pakistani technician, who climbed into the Medusa’s head of wiring at the top of the pole, took one wire in his hand and followed it hand over hand down the pole and along the alley to a house. It brought tears to Kiriakou’s eyes, he says, because he knew then that they were going to get him.[5][6]

The night itself

Khaled stayed with Kiriakou through the aftermath. When al-Qaeda sympathisers began driving past Faisalabad Hospital and firing on it while the wounded prisoner was in surgery, Kiriakou told him that if they realised how lightly armed the Americans were they were dead, and asked whether he could get a helicopter. Khaled made one call; twenty minutes later a helicopter landed in the hospital car park.[7] He accompanied the party to the military clinic outside Lahore, then went back to the safe house with his men, leaving Kiriakou at the bedside.[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