Have People Heard Of Morten Storm, The Fat, Goofy Ginger Who Was The CIA's Inside Man In Al Qaeda?

(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. “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. His successes, Storm says, soon attracted the attention of the CIA. Hans Jorgen Bonnichesen is the former head of the Danish intelligence agency, known as PET. “There’s no doubt that he was a very valuable agent and has access to some of the sources they really want to get access to,” he said. A Dane who looks every inch like his Viking ancestors, Storm was exactly what the intelligence community was looking for at the time — a double agent with an al Qaeda Rolodex to match. The CIA denied repeated requests for comment on Storm’s story. Likewise, officials in Denmark have never confirmed or denied his claims. “By almost sheer luck to some extent that he had been to the many places; he had met all the right people,” Magnus Ranstorp, one of Scandinavia’s top counterterrorism experts, said about Storm. “I don’t think that there are many people like him that have all those different dimensions. He was the real deal,” Ranstorp said.

Like everyone, I’ve been obsessed with “double agents” ever since I saw Goldeneye. So as soon as I saw the headline about a CIA/Al Qaeda double agent on CNN, I immediately clicked. I was prepared for some grizzled looking Arabic dude who could kill me 50 different ways with his pinky. NOPE! Just some dorky ginger who looks like me in a fat suit/me in 6 months. Honestly just started howling the second I saw him. THAT’S who was the Ace up our sleeve? I suggest going to read the article but the entire thing is like something out of a bad comedy. Fat ginger dude decides he feels like doing some jihading, heads over to the Middle East, inexplicably ends up rubbing elbows with the bad of the bad in Al Qaeda. Then one day he gets mad at them, because they won’t let him jihad, so he googles “contradictions in the Quran” and realizes Oh shit maybe I shouldn’t have jumped all in on this terrorism thing. So he calls the CIA and becomes like the most important agent in the world even though he’s just a big idiot. That’s 100% a role I can see Jack Black or Kevin James playing. If this script came across their agent’s desk they’d be like PERFECT! But nope, this happened in real life. Far cry from all that Homeland espionage shit. Just some dude who stumbled into the wrong room and ended up in the CIA.

PS – I’m 100% buying this book and reading it. That’s a little trick I do maybe two times a year. Buy a book that’s kind of about current affairs but also interesting then bring it up at every single chance you get so people think you read.