I just got this crazy call from Italy,” said the man on the other end of the phone. Dave Bitkower, assistant US attorney for the Eastern District of New York, had just been contacted by the FBI. Mahairas explained that the Italian authorities had a man in custody who claimed to be a member of al Qaeda who had killed American­ soldiers. Ten years after the September 11 terrorist attacks, al Qaeda and its affiliates were more active than ever in plotting against Americans, including on US soil. Spin Ghul was one of the terrorists the nation’s counterterrorism investigators had been trying desperately to locate.