Gabr, Al-Qaeda and North Hatley

My Tenuous Connection with al-Qaeda

“I would like you to meet Dr. Coleman. He is the man who can solve all problems!”

These words were carefully enunciated and delivered emphatically by Saad Gabr. I held out my hand to the robed man before me. He was wearing a burnoose, a caftan, and like Gabr, sported the five day growth of stubble that Allah is said to admire. We were standing in a near gymnasium sized room inside the lakeside estate Mr.Gabr called home. The walls were draped with oriental carpets over which brass framed photographs were hung at intervals. Many of these pictures featured rows of uniformed men standing at attention and supporting emphatic mustaches. A long table, stretching down the centre of the room, and covered with red and gold tablecloths supported plates of assorted pastries sitting at three foot intervals between two liter plastic bottles of Pepsi cola. Paper cups and plates were also available. Tasseled red and gold cushions covered the seats of  high-backed carved wooden chairs that lined the walls. There were perhaps forty of these chairs. I had the impression that I might be in a tent, as there were no obvious windows. I presume they were hidden under the wall hangings. Many robed men milled about, chatting, inspecting the photographs on the wall and sipping Pepsi, but no women were to be seen. Adding to the desert-like atmosphere, the room was stiflingly hot and airless. I poured myself a paper cup full of lukewarm Pepsi, thinking this a poor substitute for an oasis. Perhaps being in a room with so many Arabs had put these thoughts in my mind. The man I had just been introduced to didn’t extend his hand for shaking, but instead bowed slightly while murmuring something unintelligible. His shakable hand was busy with worry beads anyway. I withdrew my own hand as he turned away, leaving me with my host to look at.

Mr. Gabr had a round face and very short hair. In fact, the hair on his head was scarcely longer than the Arafatian stubble that covered his face. It was grizzled, streaked with grey, and intermittent.  Mr Gabr liked to stand very close when he chatted, and since he was quite short, I had to bend my neck to look him in the eye. Taking a break, I gazed up at the succession of elaborate gold chandeliers, each fitted with about a dozen bulbs that lit the room brightly. Light fixtures were clearly a favorite of Mr.Gabr. The exterior of his house was covered with ornate golden lights that also marched along the whole length of the high wall that encircled the Gabr compound. As the room filled with guests, I looked carefully for General Zia ul-Haq, the president of Pakistan. He had been advertised, but was not yet in evidence. I did see several of the dark-suited Canadian protocol officers who had presumably driven down from Ottawa for the occasion and who now stood stiffly, whispering together. I prowled around a little, at one point looking into a doorway nearly obscured by rugs at the far end of the room. About twenty women sat on chairs lining the walls in the dimly lit isolation unit. All eyes swung toward me as I looked in for a moment before stepping back hastily.

When I had arrived I had been unsure what the occasion promised and equally unsure of why I had been invited. Mr. Gabr was something of a mystery man. We first became aware of his presence in 1977, when buildings in our little town had been sold one after another. First the Laundromat and then a grocery store were discovered to be locked, their windows whitewashed. These properties were followed by the hardware store, the Hob Nob restaurant, and then the Baptist church. North Hatley is a small village of about 800 souls that burgeons to perhaps 1500 when the summer visitors arrive, so these closures were both obvious and somewhat alarming. Nothing was done with these properties and they stood vacant, over time crumbling somewhat from neglect. Was our village to become a ghost town? At the height of Mr. Gabr’s purchasing, he had added more than 35 residential houses and farms to his list. What was going on? Our town was making the national news regularly, as speculations flew regarding the motives of this Arab, who had built himself a huge lakeside retreat, and bought as much of the town as he could. When asked by a local contingent to explain his plans, he would only say evasively, “Gentlemen, have patience and you will be repaid with interest.” No one was sure what this might mean.

Revelations came at regular intervals. Remarkable things happened. One summer evening a gaudy wedding took place at his house. The bride was said to have arrived on a white stallion (Arabian of course). The townsfolk were brought to their windows and then into the street as a fireworks display took place over the lake. No one had ever seen anything like it, except for a man who had been to Montreal the previous week. An international fireworks competition had taken place over the St. Lawrence River, with a new display mounted by competing countries each evening, for a week. Mr. Gabr had hired the winner to entertain his guests. Rumors continued to fly. Mr. Gabr gave every impression of having unlimited cash. King Faisal of Saudi Arabia was said to have been seen in his company, as was Pakistan’s General Zia.

When I was a graduate student studying marine biology at McGill University, I elected to collect my research animals from the coral reef that lies just off the west coast of Barbados. I made this decision after first considering the alternative. This was an ice flow called T3 that was inside the Arctic Circle and slowly revolving around the North Pole. It took me about four seconds to make this choice. McGill has a marine lab in Barbados and graduate students shared accommodation with a team of McGill engineers. I got to know some of these men while we played bridge in the humid, cricket-chirping, frog-croaking, sultry atmosphere that was evening in Barbados. We sat at a table on the laboratory veranda, dealing cards, drinking rum and at intervals mopping our faces in the tropical heat. In this setting, redolent with the scent of frangipani blossoms, we exchanged details of our daily research activities. I learned that a Dr. Bull was in charge of the engineering team that used an adapted naval gun to try to shoot satellites into orbit. We would hear the deep booms of this gun sometimes. A few years later Bull moved this high altitude research project  (HARP) to a spot in Quebec, not far from North Hatley. Of course Mr. Gabr, checkbook still at the ready, bought the property and the big guns that were now much more sophisticated. Bull eventually went to jail for a while, convicted for selling arms to South Africa. When he emerged from prison he arranged to sell some of the big guns he had begun his career with in Barbados to one Sadam Hussein of Iraq. These “super guns”, code named Project Babylon, were supposed to be able to hit Israeli targets from Iraq with both ease an accuracy. Before this transaction got off the ground however, Dr. Bull, opening his Brussels apartment door to a mild knock, was greeted by several silenced bullets to the chest. Some say he was assassinated by the Israeli Mossad, but his family is more suspicious of the CIA.

Hawksbill turtle is a “delicacy” I have since read is only eaten by “hardened west indians and desperate men.”  Our cook in Barbados served it up about once a week for the six months I was there. Needless to say, when I shared turtle stew at the marine lab with Bull and his men, I never saw any foreshadow of his violent end. We picked at the turtle together, comrades in a type of adversity. His death left Gabr in complete control of the big guns.

Gabr sent his son to a boarding school near North Hatley. This was the basis for my unexpected connection with the Arab mystery man, because I was young Gabr’s teacher and housemaster at this school.

“Over this matter there can be no negotiation!” were the words Gabr used in a heated conversation with the headmaster. It had come to his attention that young Yasser was attending anglican chapel services for 20 minutes each morning before the start of classes. Being muslim he was far from enthusiastic about this aspect of the schedule.

“Yasser will be excused from this practice,” he announced with finality. But the head master was almost as pig-headed as the gun salesman, and so stuck to his. It was left to me to attempt a smoothing of the waters and unruffling of feathers.

My first meeting with Gabr took place in a long black limousine that was parked outside the school under the fluttering Quebec flag. The chauffeur had approached a passing school boy who had subsequently come to find me. Walking as casually as possible I made my way to the limo and, ducking my head, climbed into the back seat. There I found belligerent unyielding eyes that stared through me from beneath a headdress. Settling down, I interlaced my fingers over my crossed knee, took a deep breath and looked back into those eyes. I could guess what was coming.

“Mr. Gabr,” I began, “I go to chapel each morning as well, and I have to admit to you that I rarely think of Jesus. I gaze out of the window, I look at the swaying treetops, I enjoy the music, I think about my day ahead. In short, I use the time for meditation. Yasser might easily do the same.” There was a period of silence while Mr. Gabr mulled this over. He wanted his son at the school, but it was also important to save face. Time passed, and I was just about to speak again, when the matter “over which there could be no negotiation” dissolved. He accepted the meditation concept and I became “the man who can solve all problems.”

It was in the spring that I received an invitation to the reception in Gabr’s compound. He  would send a car for me. The same black limo arrived and I was driven the fifteen miles to the lavish house beside the lake.

“Dr. Coleman,” said Gabr, smiling broadly and ushering me into the tent-like expanse. “I have asked you here because you are an educator and today is a great day for education.” I smiled back at him. “Will you have a glass of Pepsi cola?”  I looked at him blankly for a moment before my eyes swept the cavernous room. “Have you ever wondered why the people who invented mathematics, described and named the stars, and were the first humans to organize their lives in what was to become the cradle of civilization itself, have done nothing but fight and play backgammon for the past millenium?” I felt I should choose my words carefully, and so luckily said nothing for a moment. Mr. Gabr continued. “Don’t answer that question! It is something I can contemplate, but you cannot.” He grinned, displaying an impressive expanse of teeth. Then he began describing how he was going to build the most elaborate and costly university in the world, right there, beside the lake. With the scholars he would assemble, he would educate muslims and reestablish the place Arabs deserved at the frontiers of both the arts and sciences. I was shown a large blueprint that hung on the wall, precariously held in place by pins pushed into the carpet. Here was the floor plan of his dream. I noticed a glass atrium four stories high in which large trees soared. I thought of the twenty below zero winters and wondered for a moment about the heating bills. I studied the plans and, searching for something to say, remarked that there didn’t seem to be any bathrooms. Mr. Gabr looked past me at the plan and said, “This is the vision, this is the plan in principle, the details will be pursued in due course.”

As the room filled with caftan swathed men I sipped my Pepsi, ate a few very sweet tart-like items and gazed about. It was now nearly full of unidentified, but putative dignitaries. But the protocol officers had apparently made the drive from Ottawa for nothing, because General Zia was a no-show.  Perhaps this realization galvanized Gabr into action, because we were suddenly all ushered out into the October afternoon for the laying of a cornerstone.

The wind came in short bursts, blowing leaves about and causing the Arab robes to alternately flap and then plaster against legs. I clutched my jacket, turning up my collar. A slab of concrete was slathered with mortar, balanced on its edge and then, because it threatened to fall over, propped up by a couple of concrete blocks placed strategically on either side. The cornerstone took its place at the edge of what looked suspiciously like a parking lot. We stood there in a wind that took Mr. Gabr’s words away with it. What I did hear was presumably arabic, so I missed nothing. General Zia ul-Haq, president of Pakistan, was seen in North Hatley with Mr. Gabr on another occasion in 1982, much to the excitement of the press, but he apparently couldn’t make it to the laying of this cornerstone.

Just over the river from the school where I taught, there is an actual university. I knew the man who was in charge of the buildings and grounds of this sprawling campus. A few days after attending the cornerstone laying ceremony, he told me an intriguing story. Apparently a black stretched limousine had pulled up near where some of his workmen were making repairs to a frost damaged flagstone walkway. Two “Arabian looking” men had emerged from the car. Could they possibly borrow one of the flagstones for a day or two? They were quick with a hundred dollar bill and visibly fingered its companions who were cosily packed in a bulging wallet. A deal struck, the stone had been wrestled into the trunk of the limo by these two men who wore dark suits and had very shiny shoes. Two days later, as promised, the stone had been returned. I couldn’t resist making the trip to Gabr’s Islamic University site. The stone had disappeared from what was now revealed to actually be a parking lot. It had presumably been erected “in principle.” The details would be “pursued in due course.”

Then, in 1987, as mysteriously as Mr. Gabr had arrived, he disappeared. It turned out that when making many of his property transactions in town, only down-payments had actually changed hands. After a period of time and some legal wrangling some of the properties reverted to their previous owners. Others, we read, presumably paid for in full, passed to something called the SAAR charity foundation where ownership was transferred to Yakob Mirza, described as a friend of Gabr’s. The stores and restaurant reopened, and the dark age into which the town had slipped for ten years was over. Life and normality returned to the village. The panoply of lights atop the wall surrounding Mr. Gabr's compound went out and rusted.

Two years later, as I glanced across the crowded expanse of one of London’s Heathrow air terminals, I spotted a familiar face. The five day’s growth of stubble was in place the way Allah likes it, the headdress flowed, and the caftan robe billowed. I walked quickly his way.

“Why Mr Gabr,” I began. He jumped like a scalded cat and whirling about took a step back, staring at me through eyes that seemed fearful. “Where are you living these days?” I heard myself say.

“Why, in North Hatley of course,” he said emphatically, and scuttled away at high speed, I presume to board his flight. Later I heard the rumor that he fallen fatally into the hands of the Mossad to join Dr. Bull.

The other day, and twenty odd years post-Gabr, I was reading a book review that described the existence of far-flung al-Qaeda sleeper cells. A thought struck me: could Gabr have been an agent of al-Qaeda? If so,his "sleeper cell" had been strangely awake. Did he really die with the impact of an assassin’s bullet? I decided to “Google” him. Oh Google, diligent handmaiden of the research challenged, you are so useful if not always totally accurate. Here were all the "facts" in an instant. Gabr turns out to be alive, but more about him in a moment. First the “friend" Yakob Mirza. It turns out that security agents are investigating him and SAAR, sniffing for links to al-Qaeda and the organizers of the September 11 terrorist attacks. The SAAR mission has been permanently shut down. And General Zia, what was he doing with Gabr? It is known he was providing military and financial assistance to the Afghan mujaheddin while they battled the Soviet troops in Afghanistan. Gabr was ready and willing to help him with the purchasing of some of those “super guns.” This may explain the cars with Russian diplomatic plates that were seen in North Hatley on more than one occasion. The KGB were keeping an eye on Gabr.

I learned something of Gabr’s history. He was more than just linked to the Muslim Brotherhood. He apparently orchestrated a movement in the 1950s that plotted against president Nasser of Egypt. Ten activists are said to have been involved. Eight were caught and hanged, one died in custody, while one escaped. The escapee was our Mr. Gabr. He is supposed to have then made part of his fortune reselling decommissioned Egyptian army weapons or in other reports, by selling Nazi armor taken from Rommel’s army.

Gabr’s current whereabouts are secret, but I learned through Google that he did agree to an interview with a Canadian TV journalist in 2004. The meeting took place in Dubai where Gabr admitted that his chief reason for moving to Canada was to acquire Dr. Bull’s big guns. He would not talk about Pakistan’s nuclear program or his role in the war in Afghanistan. He did admit that he had been scheduled to fly with Zia on the trip the president took that resulted in his death in a fatal crash. Gabr sees himself as a marked man. But who has him in his sights? The CIA, the Mossad, MI5, perhaps even a disillusioned al-Qaeda? A lifetime of twisted dealings have left him with few places or people to turn to.

And what of the Islamic University, to be built “in principle” on the shores of Lake Massawippi? When his abandoned house was searched, the plans for the Saudi Arabian, King Abdulaziz Islamic University, where currently more than 80,000 students are enrolled, were discovered. Architectural drawings for this university in Jeddah had been borrowed by Gabr. These were plans, at that time, for the largest scaled construction in the world! I had missed the point a little when I wondered about the bathroom placement and worried about heating the atrium.

I suppose Gabr may have been a type of confidence man really, playing one Arab ruler against another and snatching up whatever fell out in the shuffle. In his retirement he has decided to set straight details of the origin of the universe. There was no Big Bang. Gabr instead sees "a targeted multi-track spinning and rotation of hydrogen molecules according to a divine plan" as the actual answer. So he has gone from possible al-Qaeda operative and certain arms dealer, to run-of-the-mill crank. Still, I got a kick out of being introduced as “the man who can solve all problems.” I only wish he had gotten in touch with me prior to 9/11. I could have given him some good advice