(Daily Mail) Handcuffed and with a hood over his head, Adam Gamal could hear the sound of explosions around him.
At just 5ft tall, he was at the mercy of a bearded interrogator almost twice his size.
The giant hit him so many times he thought he was going to die.
He was bombarded with questions and other Americans around him were begging for the torment to stop.
But he wasn’t in a war zone and the blast sounds were only simulations.
Gamal was at the beginning of the brutal process of being selected for the most secretive fighting force in the U.S. military. It’s so classified, it doesn’t even have an official name.
Adam Gamal, with his face obscured to protect his identity, was part of an elite U.S. special operations team so secret it didn’t have a name
He spent three weeks getting constantly smacked during interrogations, walking miles in deserts and training until he was so exhausted he couldn’t move.
It was all part of the hellish program to qualify for a unit of intelligence operatives who track down the biggest threats to the United States – while operating almost completely in the shadows.
He found terrorists so he could pass on coordinates for missile strikes and gathered information on targets who had evaded American forces for years.
The Navy SEALs and Green Berets are well known for some of the most historic and dangerous missions in history.
From the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden to the capture of Panama’s military leader Manuel Noriega, their names are etched in military folklore.
But Gamal’s elite team is so clandestine it is only known unofficially as The Unit or The Activity.
The Department of Veterans Affairs doesn’t keep any records and members can’t ever discuss any details of the work they are involved in.
Adam (right) and his boss prepare to go out on a mission. The location is classified and the details have never been revealed
Adam (left as a boy scout) grew up as a Muslim in Alexandria, Egypt. The smallest student in his class, he gained an understanding of an array of modern cultures thanks to the city’s metropolitan surroundings
After going through hell, Gamal was selected and would embark on deployments to fight U.S. enemies in the most dangerous places on the planet.
Arriving through the doors of a grim East African hospital after getting shot in the stomach, he fully expected he was going to die and never see his wife or daughter again.
He tracked the head of the Somali branch of Al Qaeda and passed his location to the U.S. Navy, so they could take him out with a payload of guided missiles.
Operators serving with him would dress as tourists to follow members of terrorist cells in cities around the world.
When deployed he would be constantly under surveillance, and would come back to his hotel room to find the contents of his suitcase dumped on the floor.
When he asked staff if anyone had been in his room, they simply shrugged their shoulders and looked at him with the same suspicion of those following him.
He has been to the most volatile parts of the Horn of Africa and has tracked down the globe’s most wanted terrorists.
Al Qaeda and the Taliban were among his targets, but only he and those he served with will know the full extent of his sacrifice.
Adam Gamal is a pseudonym because he can’t reveal his real name.
He even uses a voice changer to speak to DailyMail.com from where he lives, which he also cannot tell us.
And despite the fact that his career finished years ago, he is sworn to silence about the full extent of his work.
The story of his life – The Unit: My Life Fighting Terrorists as One of America’s Most Secret Military Operatives – is the first inside look at the highly-classified unit and serves as a message to the modern U.S. military.
Gamal grew up in a Muslim household in Alexandria, Egypt.
The smallest student in his class, he gained an understanding of an array of modern cultures thanks to the city’s metropolitan surroundings – something that would serve him well when he was on assignment overseas.
But he didn’t yet know that his hours spent running along the sandy beaches was actually preparing him for missions in Bosnia.
He also couldn’t have known that his strict father – who insisted he come home between prayers at the mosque and forbade him from hanging out with certain ‘bad’ influences at school – would protect him from the growing influence of the extremist Islamic factions which sprouted the militants he would later take on in his decorated military career.
While growing up, the Muslim Brotherhood was in local mosques and schools sharing the propaganda and teachings that formed the foundations of the likes of Al Qaeda, Al-Shabab and the Taliban.
His emigration to the United States at the age of 20 was the turning point – even though, ‘fresh off the boat’, he was barely able to speak any English.
The elite team that is so clandestine it doesn’t have an official name – and is only known as The Unit or The Activity
