Iyman Faris

Iyman Faris (a.k.a. Mohammad Rauf; born June 4, 1969) is a Pakistani American who served for months as a double agent for the FBI before pleading guilty in May 2003 of providing material support to Al Qaeda. A United States citizen since 1999, he had worked as a truck driver and lived in Columbus, Ohio. As of September 2003, Faris is the "only confessed al Qaeda sleeper caught on U.S. soil."

Faris was detained in Ohio two weeks after Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was arrested in Pakistan on March 1, 2003. While installed as a double agent for the U.S. government, Faris sent messages to his terrorist commanders by mobile phone and email from an FBI safe house in Virginia. A senior Bush administration official said, "He was sitting in the safe house making calls for us. It was a huge triumph."

His name has sometimes been mistranscribed or reported as Lyman Harris.

Iyman Faris was born in 1969 in Azad Kashmir, Pakistan. Faris came to the United States as a young man in 1994 on a student visa but never enrolled in school. In 1995, he married Geneva Bowling. Faris became a U.S. citizen in 1999.

He returned to Pakistan the following year, in 2000. His father had just died and his five-year marriage was ending. His ex-wife later said he had suffered from hearing imaginary voices and sudden bouts of believing that somebody was choking him.

Faris admitted to having met Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. While in the region, Faris was asked to investigate the possibility of using an ultralight aircraft as an "escape plane" for bin Laden. He used an internet cafe in Karachi, Pakistan to research planes, buy cellphones and 2000 sleeping bags for training camps.

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