Where there are attributed quotes in the text that are not cited in the notes, they derive from personal interviews.
1. The Martyr
7 Sayyid Qutb: I am especially indebted to Mohammed Qutb for his generous recollections of his brother. My views of Qutb’s life have also been shaped by communications with John Calvert and Gilles Kepel.
“Should I go”: al-Khaledi, Sayyid Qutb: min al-milad, 194.
Powerful and sympathetic friends: interview with Mohammed Qutb. Qutb names in particular Mahmud Fahmi Nugrashi Pasha, the Egyptian prime minister.
8 not even a very religious man: Shepard, Sayyid Qutb, xv. Mohammed Qutb told me, “For a while, he became more secular.”
he had memorized the Quran: Mohammed Qutb, personal communication.
He had read: al-Khaledi, Sayyid Qutb: min al-milad, 139.
9 “I hate those Westerners”: Qutb, “Al-dhamir al-amrikani.”
“dishonorable” women: John Calvert, “‘Undutiful Boy,’” 98.
The dearest relationship: Mohammed Qutb, personal communication.
“I have decided”: al-Khaledi, Amrika min al-dakhil, 27.
10 “half-naked”: al-Khaledi, Sayyid Qutb: min al-milad, 195. Later Qutb would claim that the woman was an agent of the American Central Intelligence Agency, sent to seduce him.
the most prosperous holiday: McCullough, Truman, 621.
Half of the world’s: Johnson, Modern Times, 441.
11 Fully a fourth: White, Here Is New York, 46.
never met one: Mohammed Qutb, personal communication.
English was rudimentary: interview with Mohammed Qutb.
“Here in this strange place”: Sayyid Qutb, letter to Anwar el-Maadawi, in al-Khaledi, Sayyid Qutb: al-adib, 157–58.
12 “black elevator operator”: Ibid., 195–96.
Kinsey researcher: Manchester, The Glory and the Dream, 479.
Qutb was familiar: Qutb, Shade of the Qur’an, 6:143. The Kinsey Report is rendered “McKenzie” in this translation.
12 “a reckless”: Qutb, Majallat al-kitab, 666–69.
“Every time a husband”: al-Khaledi, Amrika min al-dakhil, 185–86.
13 “Communism is creeping”: Frady, Billy Graham, 236.
one of every 1,814 people: Oshinsky, A Conspiracy So Immense, 96.
“They are everywhere”: ibid., 97.
“Either Communism must die”: Frady, Billy Graham, 237.
“Either we shall walk”: Shepard, Sayyid Qutb, 354.
14 he saw in the party of Lenin: interview with Gamal al-Banna.
“like a vision”: ibid., 34.
“a complete system”: ibid., 51.
“The city”: White, Here Is New York, 54.
Qutb moved to Washington: Calvert, “‘Undutiful Boy,’” 93.
“Life in Washington”: ibid., 94.
15 “a primitiveness”: Qutb, “Amrika allati ra’ayt” (b).
“I’m here at a restaurant”: Sayyid Qutb, letter to Tewfiq al-Hakeem, in al-Khaledi, Amrika min al-dakhil, 154.
“Whenever I go”: Qutb, “Amrika allati ra’ayt” (c).
“who knows full well”: Qutb, “Amrika allati ra’ayt” (b).
“Today the enemy”: Mohammed Qutb, personal communication. Qutb attributes the quote to “the doctors themselves” and says, “We, the members of the family, heard it from my brother personally.”
16 “Sheikh Hasan’s followers”: Albion Ross, “Moslem Brotherhood Leader Slain as He Enters Taxi in Cairo Street,” New York Times, February 13, 1949.
a profound shock: interview with Mohammed Qutb.
they had never met: Mohammed Qutb, personal communication.
“If the Brothers succeed”: Azzam, “Martyr Sayyid Qutb.”
pay him a fee: al-Khaledi, Sayyid Qutb: al-adib, 149.
“I decided to enter”: Azzam, “Martyr Sayyid Qutb.” Qutb himself writes, however, that he didn’t formally join the Brotherhood until 1953. Qutb, Limadah ‘azdamunee.
17 Summer courses: interview with Michael Welsh, who is the source of much of the information on the history of Greeley; interviews with Peggy A. Ford, Janet Waters, Ken McConnellogue, Jaime McClendon, Ibrahim Insari, and Frank and Donna Lee Lakin.
greatest civilizations: Peggy A. Ford, personal communication.
highly publicized: Larson, Shaping Educational Change, 5.
mandatory virtues: ibid.
18 James Michener: Peggy A. Ford, personal communication.
“small city”: Qutb, “Hamaim fi New York,” 666.
Garden City: interview with Michael Welsh.
“They were kicking”: al-Khaledi, Amrika min al-dakhil, 181.
19 Meeker: Geffs, Under Ten Flags,156–57; interview with Michael Welsh.
Middle Eastern community: interview with Sa‘eb Dajani.
“But we’re Egyptians”: interview with Sa‘eb Dajani.
several of the Arab students: interview with Ibrahim Insari.
“racism had brought”: al-Khaledi, Amrika min al-dakhil, 169.
“The foot does not”: Qutb, “Amrika allati ra’ayt” (b), 1301–2.
20 “simply biological”: al-Khaledi, Amrika min al-dakhil, 194.
22 Qutb acted as host: interview with Ibrahim Insari.
classical records: interview with Sa‘eb Dajani.
“Jazz is”: Qutb, “Amrika allati ra’ayt” (b), 1301.
“dancing hall”: ibid., 1301–6.
“estrangement”: al-Khaledi, Amrika min al-dakhil, 157.
23 “The soul has”: Sayyid Qutb, letter to Tewfig al-Hakeem, in al-Khaledi, Amrika min al-dakhil, 196–97.
“white man”: ibid., 39.
24 Islam and modernity: Abu-Rabi, Intellectual Origins, 156; Berman, Terror and Liberalism, 87ff.
Qutb returned: interview with Mohammed Qutb; al-Khaledi, Sayyid Qutb: al-adib, 152.
two hundred red automobiles: Rodenbeck, Cairo, 152.
25 “It is the nature”: Neil MacFarquhar, “Egyptian Group Patiently Pursues Dream of Islamic State,” New York Times, January 20, 2002.
lower-middle class: Ibrahim, Egypt Islam and Democracy, 36.
more than a million: interview with Saad Eddin Ibrahim.
intimately organized: Mitchell, Society of the Muslim Brothers, 32.
In retaliation: Abdel-Malek, Egypt, 34; Rodenbeck, Cairo, 155. Nutting, Nasser, 31, gives the alternative figure of forty-three policemen dead and seventy-two wounded.
led by members: Abdel-Malek, Egypt, 35.
26 classical music albums: interview with Fahmi Howeidi. Other observations of Qutb’s villa were made during a tour of Helwan with Mahfouz Azzam.
Some of the planning: interview with Gamal al-Banna; al-Khaledi, Sayyid Qutb: al-shaheed, 140–41; al-Khaledi, Sayyid Qutb: al-adib, 159. Members of the Free Officers who were in the society are listed in Abdel-Malek, Egypt, 94, 210–11.
“just dictatorship”: Sivan, Radical Islam, 73.
Nasser then invited: Mohammed Qutb, personal communication.
he was offered: al-Khaledi, Sayyid Qutb: al-shaheed, 142.
The Islamists wanted: interview with Olivier Roy; Roy, Afghanistan, 37–39.
opposed egalitarianism: Heikal, Autumn of Fury, 127.
secret alliance: Ibid., 141.
28 “Let them kill”: nasser.bibalex.org
placing thousands: ibid.; figures range from “dozens” (Calvert, “‘Undutiful Boy,’” 101) to “seven thousand” (Abdel-Malek, Egypt, 96).
Qutb was charged: Hannonen, “Egyptian Islamic Discourse,” 43.
high fever: Moussalli, Radical Islamic Fundamentalism, 34. Al-Khaledi, Sayyid Qutb: al-shaheed, 145, also mentions the use of dogs during the torture of Sayyid Qutb.
“principles of the revolution”: al-Khaledi, Sayyid Qutb: al-shaheed, 154.
planned takeover: Mitchell, Society of the Muslim Brothers, 152.
always frail: Mohammed Qutb, personal communication; Moussalli, Radical Islamic Fundamentalism, 34, 62 n.
29 tuberculosis: Fouad Allam, personal interview.
29 in the prison hospital: Moussalli, Radical Islamic Fundamentalism, 36.
“Mankind today”: Qutb, Milestones, 5ff.
30 government of Saudi Arabia: al-Aroosi, Muhakamat Sayyid Qutb, 80–82.
plot to overthrow: interview with Fouad Allam; al-Aroosi, Muhakamat Sayyid Qutb, 43.
security police: interview with Fouad Allam.
“time has come”: al-Khaledi, Sayyid Qutb: al-shaheed, 154.
31 “Thank God”: ibid., 156.
He dispatched Sadat: interview with Mahfouz Azzam.
minister of education: al-Khaledi, Sayyid Qutb: al-shaheed, 154.
“Write the words”: interview with Mahfouz Azzam.
government refused: interview with Mohammed Qutb.
2. The Sporting Club
32 Maadi: Much of the history and sociology of Maadi comes from interviews with Samir W. Raafat and from his book, Maadi.
33 Dr. Mohammed Rabie al-Zawahiri: Information about the Zawahiri family is largely drawn from interviews and personal communications with Mahfouz Azzam and Omar Azzam.
highly unpopular: Yunan Rizk, “Al-Azhar’s 1934,” Al-Ahram Weekly, May 13–19, 2004.
34 private medical clinic: interview with Khaled Abou el-Fadl.
35 Michel Chalhub: Raafat, Maadi, 185.
“inhumane”: interview with Mahfouz Azzam.
“genius”: interview with Zaki Mohamed Zaki.
36 “From tomorrow”: interview with Mahfouz Azzam.
37 “We don’t want”: interview with Omar Azzam.
“Nasserite regime”: al-Zawahiri, “Knights Under the Prophet’s Banner,” part 3.
38 Parents were fearful: interview with Zaki Mohamed Zaki.
39 “Then history”: al-Zawahiri, “Knights Under the Prophet’s Banner,” part 6.
In return for their support: interview with Saad Eddin Ibrahim.
40 even to his family: Chanaa Rostom, “li awil mara shaqiqat al-Zawahiri tatahadith,” [For the First Time Zawahiri’s Sister Speaks], Akher Sa’a, October 24, 2001.
A joke: interview with Mahfouz Azzam and Omar Azzam.
41 provided them with arms: interview with Hisham Kassem.
in small cells: Cooley, Unholy Wars, 40.
42 fewer than ten members: interview with Abdul Haleem Mandour.
Four of these cells: interview with Kamal Habib.
43 “Before that”: interview with Essam Nowair.
44 become a martyr: interview with Omar Azzam.
“My connection”: al-Zawahiri, “Knights Under the Prophet’s Banner,” part 2.
45 had to use honey: interview with Mahfouz Azzam.
Writing to his mother: interview with Omar Azzam; Robert Marquand, “The Tenets of Terror,” Christian Science Monitor, October 18, 2001.
Through his connection: interview with Omar Azzam.
recruiting for jihad: interview with Mahmoun Fandy.
46 “a training course”: al-Zawahiri, “Knights Under the Prophet’s Banner,” part 2.
47 “lunatic madman”: Ibrahim, Egypt Islam and Democracy, 30 n.
“Yes we are reactionaries”: Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, “Speech at Feyziyeh Theological School,” August 24, 1979; reproduced in Rubin and Rubin, Anti-American Terrorism, 34.
“Islam says”: Taheri, Holy Terror, 226–27.
Iranian revolution: Abdelnasser, Islamic Movement, 73.
48 five hundred Quranic verses: Roy Mottahedeh, personal communication.
final speech: Guenena, “‘Jihad’ an ‘Islamic Alternative,’” 80–81.
49 Sadat dissolved: Kepel, Jihad, 85.
“No politics in religion”: Abdo, No God but God, 54.
Zumar’s plan: 1981 interrogation of Ayman al-Zawahiri.
“a noble person”: al-Zawahiri, “Knights Under the Prophet’s Banner,” part 5.
“something missing”: interview with Yassir al-Sirri.
51 Essam al-Qamari came out: 1981 interrogation of Ayman al-Zawahiri.
52 Citadel: interview with Montassir al-Zayyat.
53 Two weeks later: interview with Fouad Allam.
“Let him pray”: interview with Omar Azzam.
Zawahiri went to the mosque: interview with Mahfouz Azzam.
“The toughest thing”: al-Zawahiri, “Knights under the Prophet’s Banner,” part 11.
Qamari was shot: interview with Kamal Habib.
55 marks of torture: Fouad Allam, who allegedly oversaw the torture personally, claims that no torture took place; it’s all a legend, he says. There may be some truth in that; many of the stories that prisoners tell are so gothic that they have the ring of fantasy, and certainly they have been hawked to reporters in order to discredit the regime and enhance the standing of the Islamists. Allam gave me a 1982 video of a young Montassir al-Zayyat (who had told me of being repeatedly beaten and given electroshock) buoyantly greeting incoming prisoners at Torah Prison and telling them how well he had been treated. “They even gave me this Quran,” he says, holding up a pocket-size book. Zayyat now maintains that he was tortured into making the statement, although Kamal Habib, whose hands are spotted with scars from cigarette burns, says that Zayyat was never tortured. “It’s just something he says to the media,” he told me.
The question is what happened to Zawahiri. “The higher you were in the organization, the more you were tortured,” Habib says. “Ayman knew a number of officers and had some weapons. He was subjected to severe torture.” Several former prisoners told me that the most common form of torture was to have one’s hands tied behind him and then to be hoisted onto a doorjamb—hanging, sometimes for hours, by one’s hands behind one’s back. For Habib, it took years to lose the numbness in his arms. Zawahiri himself never talks about his own experience, but he writes, “The brutal treadmill of torture broke bones, flayed skins, shocked nerves, and killed souls. Its methods were lowly. It detained women, committed sexual assaults, called men feminine names, starved prisoners, gave them bad food, cut off water, and prevented visits to humiliate the detainees” (al-Zawahiri, “Knights Under the Prophet’s Banner,” part 4). One can imagine that the humiliation was all the greater for a man as prideful as Dr. Zawahiri.
Zawahiri’s reference to the use of “wild dogs” as a form of torture is a frequent allegation by ex-prisoners. Sayyid Qutb was allegedly mauled by dogs during his second arrest. Dogs are lowly outcasts in Islamic culture, so such a punishment is particularly degrading.
56 “We were defeated”: interview with Usama Rushdi.
driver arrived: ibid.
57 Zawahiri pointed out: interview with Montassir al-Zayyat.
58 they had had visions: Ibrahim, Egypt Islam and Democracy, 20.
“model young Egyptians”: ibid., 19.
“You have trivialized”: interview with Saad Eddin Ibrahim.
worried about the political consequences: interview with Mahfouz Azzam.
a surgery fellowship: Heba al-Zawahiri, personal communication.
59 a tourist visa to Tunisia: interview with Usama Rushdi.
3. The Founder
60 arrived in the Kingdom in 1985: interview with Ahmed Badeeb.
“scars left on his body”: al-Zayyat, The Road to al-Qaeda, 31.
testifying against his comrades: ibid., 49.
“situation in Egypt”: Tahta al-Mijhar [Under the Microscope], al-Jazeera, February 20, 2003.
61 Zawahiri and bin Laden met: al-Zayyat, “Islamic Groups,” part 4, Al-Hayat, January 12, 2005. Zayyat claims that Zawahiri gave him this information, although Zayyat did not tell me this when we spoke in 2002. At that time, he said that Zawahiri and bin Laden probably met in 1986 in Peshawar. This new information, he contends, is based on subsequent conversations with Zawahiri. Mohammed Salaah, the Al-Hayat correspondent in Cairo, told me that, according to his sources, the two men met in 1985, which would have been in Jeddah. Others speculate that the first meeting of Zawahiri and bin Laden took place in Pakistan; for instance, Jamal Ismail told Peter Bergen that the first meeting of the two men was in Peshawar in 1986. Bergen, The Osama bin Laden I Know, 63.
“If our first parent”: Burton, Personal Narrative, 2:274.
bin Laden’s was buried here: interview with anonymous bin Laden family spokesperson.
death in an air crash in 1967: Othman Milyabaree and Abdullah Hassanein, “Al-Isamee al-Kabeer Alathee Faqadathoo al-Bilad” [The Big Self-Made Man the Country Has Lost], Okaz, September 7, 1967.
62 builders and architects: Eric Watkins, personal communication.
Ethiopia: interview with bin Laden family spokesperson.
boat to Jizan: interview with Saleh M. Binladin.
massacring thousands: Aburish, The Rise, Corruption, and Coming Fall, 24. According to Aburish, “No fewer than 400,000 people were killed and wounded, for the Ikhwan did not take prisoners, but mostly killed the vanquished. Well over a million inhabitants of the territories conquered by Ibn Saud fled to other countries.” The Saudi historian Madawi al-Rasheed notes that such figures are hard to credit, since there was no one doing the counting, but she writes, in personal communication, “The scale of Saudi atrocities in the name of unifying the country is massive.” She adds, “The ikhwan were nothing but a mercenary force mobilised by Ibn Saud to fight his own wars and to serve his own purposes. Once they did the job for him he massacred them using other mercenaries, this time the sedentary population of southern Najd, other tribes, and the British Royal Air force stationed in Kuwait and Iraq at the time.”
63 theological innovations: Schwartz, Two Faces of Islam, 69ff.
they could kill: Khaled Abou el Fadl, “The Ugly Modern and the Modern Ugly,” 33–77.
64 Karl Twitchell: Lacey, The Kingdom, 231ff; Lippman, Inside the Mirage, 15ff.
had begun as a dockworker: interview with Nawaf Obaid.
one glass eye: interview with anonymous bin Laden family spokesperson.
the result of a blow: interview with Jamal Khalifa. A bin Laden family spokesperson disputes the story about the teacher hitting Mohammed bin Laden; he says the eye was lost in an accident in Ethiopia. Before protective goggles were commonly used, bricklayers and stonecutters often were blinded by chips of rock or mortar. I rely on the schoolteacher story because Khalifa heard it from his wife, who was close to her father. Other bin Laden brothers I’ve spoken to admit they have no special knowledge about the loss of their father’s vision.
65 “his signature”: interview with Saleh M. Binladin.
“dark, friendly, and energetic”: interview with Michael M. Ameen, Jr.
Aramco began a program: Thomas C. Barger, “Birth of a Dream,” Saudi Aramco World 35, no. 3 (May/June 1984).
Aramco sponsorship: interview with Prince Turki al-Faisal. “Aramco was really the only institution that built things,” Prince Turki told me. “When King Abdul Aziz wanted something done he would ask Aramco to do it, or get their advice. That was how bin Laden came into the picture. He was recommended.”
“raised as a laborer”: Othman Milyabaree and Abdullah Hassanein, “Al-Isamee al-Kabeer Alathee Faqadathoo al-Bilad” [The Big Self-Made Man the Country Has Lost], Okaz, September 7, 1967.
unprofitable projects: interview with anonymous Saudi source.
They called him mu‘alim: interview with Jamal Khalifa.
renovating houses: interview with anonymous bin Laden family spokesperson.
minister of finance: Mohammed Besalama, “Al-Sheikh Mohammed Awad bin Laden al-Mu‘alem” [Sheikh Mohammed Awad bin Laden, the Teacher], Okaz, June 2, 1984.
65 Osama bin Laden would recall: interview with Ali Soufan.
drove the king’s car: interview with anonymous bin Laden family spokesman.
first concrete building: anonymous Saudi source.
minister of public works: Mohammed Besalama, “Al-Sheikh Mohammed Awad bin Laden al-Mu‘alem” [Sheikh Mohammed Awad bin Laden, the Teacher], Okaz, June 2, 1984; interview with anonymous bin Laden family spokesman.
pay the same fee: Mohammed Besalama, “Al-Sheikh Mohammed Awad bin Laden al-Mu‘alem” [Sheikh Mohammed Awad bin Laden, the Teacher], Okaz, June 2, 1984.
one well-paved road: Mayer, “The House of bin Laden.”
66 largest customer: anonymous Saudi source. A spokesperson for the Caterpillar Corporation refused comment.
donated the asphalt: Lippman, Inside the Mirage, 49.
Umm Kalthoum: interview with Khaled Batarfi.
“We have to organize”: interview with Prince Talal bin Abdul Aziz.
throwing money: Lacey, The Kingdom, 302.
67 Hotel al-Yamama: interview with Michael M. Ameen, Jr.
bin Laden began diversifying: Aramco, Binladen Brothers for Contracting and Industry (N.p., n.d.)
Grand Mosque: figures from Abbas, Story of the Great Expansion, 364ff., and a Saudi Binladin Group promotional film.
68 less than a hundred dollars: Lacey, The Kingdom, 323.
fronted the money: interview with anonymous Saudi source.
special permission: Lippman, Inside the Mirage, 127. At the time, the king also had to personally approve every takeoff and landing of flights in the Kingdom.
69 training Saudi forces in 1953: Rachel Bronson, personal communication. According to Bronson, the Saudis permitted the Americans to build an air base in 1945, which was designed to facilitate troop movement to the Pacific theater during World War II. The American presence was renegotiated after the war, and the Americans conducted a survey to determine Saudi military needs. In 1953 the United States and the Saudis signed the agreement that allowed American forces to train Saudi units. It has served as the basis for all subsequent military cooperation.
view the ruins: interview with Stanley Guess.
70 al-Qaeda would use this: Wiktorowicz and Kaltner, “Killing in the Name of Islam.”
surrendered to the Ikhwan: Champion, The Paradoxical Kingdom, 49ff.; al-Rasheed, A History of Saudi Arabia, 66; Lacey, The Kingdom, 188.
He had a vision: interview with Prince Turki al-Faisal.
Bin Laden’s brilliant solution: anonymous bin Laden family spokesman, personal communication.
bin Laden pushed a donkey: interview with Mahmoud Alim. According to Ali Soufan, Osama bin Laden often recounted the same story.
For twenty months: anonymous bin Laden family spokesman, personal communication.
beginning in 1961: Saudi Binladin Group brochure.
dynamite charges: interview with Khaled Batarfi.
marking the path: interview with Jamal Khalifa.
71 unbudgeted expenses: interview with Prince Turki al-Faisal.
He paid for the operation: Othman Milyabaree and Abdullah Hassanein, “Al-Isamee al-Kabeer Alathee Faqadathoo al-Bilad” [The Big Self-Made Man the Country Has Lost], Okaz, September 7, 1967.
“What I remember”: “Walidee Ramama al-Aqsa Bilkhasara” [My Father Renovated Al Aqsa Mosque, with a Loss], Al-Umma al-Islamiyya, October 18, 1991.
fathered fifty-four children: interview with anonymous bin Laden family spokesman, who told me there were twenty-nine daughters and twenty-five sons. National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission Report (55), puts the total number of children at fifty-seven.
The total number of wives: interview with anonymous bin Laden family spokesman.
An assistant followed: interview with anonymous bin Laden family spokesman.
concubines: bin Ladin, Inside the Kingdom, 69.
“My father used to say”: Anonymous, Through Our Enemies’ Eyes, 82.
72 his seventeenth son, Osama: The 9/11 Commission Report, 55.
Syrian wife: “Ashiqaa’ Wa Shaqiqat Oola Zawjat Bin Laden Billathiqiya Khaifoon ’Alayha wa ‘ala Atfaliha al 11 Fee Afghanistan” [The Brothers and Sisters of the First Wife of bin Laden in Latakya Are Afraid for Her and Her 11 Children in Afghanistan], Al-Sharq al-Awsat, November 14, 2001.
fourteen-year-old girl: interview with Khaled Batarfi.
Alia Ghanem: Ali Taha and Emad Sara, “Al-Majellah Fee Qaryat Akhwal Osama bin Laden Fee Suria” [Al-Majellah in the Village of the Uncles, of Osama bin Laden’s in Syria], Al-Majellah, December 8, 2001.
the Alawite sect: Joseph Bahout, personal communication. Whether Alia Ghanem herself was an Alawi is a subject of dispute. Ahmed Badeeb, an assistant to Prince Turki when he was head of Saudi intelligence, told me that she was an Alawite, as did Osama bin Laden’s brother-in-law, Jamal Khalifa, and his friend Jamal Khashoggi. The family has denied it—which, of course, could be religious dissimulation. Ahmed Zaidan told me that he had asked the guests at the wedding of Osama’s son in Jalalabad in 2001 if Alia was an Alawite and was told that she was not. Wahib Ghanem, an Alawite from Lattakia in the 1940s, was a founder of the Baath Party. There are, however, Ghanems who are Christian or Sunni Islam, especially in Lebanon.
Alia joined bin Laden’s household: Nawaf Obaid says that Alia was actually a concubine, a point that is reinforced by Carmen bin Ladin. Jamal Khashoggi says, “The fact that she gave birth to Osama meant that they were married, but there was the business of buying concubines—it was a thing of that time, the 1950s, particularly from the Alawi sect.”
Alia was modern and secular: interview with Jamal Khalifa.
January 1958: Bin Laden says, “I was born in the month of Ragab in Hejira 1377.” “Walidee Ramama al-Aqsa Bilkhasara” [My Father Renovated al-Aqsa Mosque, with a Loss], Al-Umma al-Islamiyya, October 18, 1991. He told Jamal Ismail, “God Almighty was gracious enough for me to be born to Muslim parents in the Arabian Peninsula, in al-Malazz neighborhood in al-Riyadh, in 1377 Hejira”—which could be 1957 or 1958, depending on the month. Jamal Ismail, “Osama bin Laden: The Destruction of the Base,” presented by Salah Najm, al-Jazeera, June 10, 1999. Bin Laden allegedly gave his birth date as March 10, 1958, during that interview, but it was not a part of the transcript. Moreover, Saudi men of his age typically do not know their actual date of birth, since birthdays are not celebrated. Saudi authorities arbitrarily assigned many men the same birth date for passports and other official documents. For instance, bin Laden’s friend Jamal Khalifa was “officially” born on February 1, 1957; by chance, he found a notation in a family diary that he was actually born on September 1, 1956. The bin Laden family records, such as they are, do not give a particular date of his birth.
72 “Rest his soul”: “Walidee Ramama al-Aqsa Bilkhasara” [My Father Renovated al-Aqsa Mosque, with a Loss], Al-Umma al-Islamiyya, October 18, 1991.
73 The children rarely saw: interview with Ali Soufan, who says, “His brothers told me he never saw his father more than three or four times.”
he would call them: interview with Jamal Khalifa.
gold coin: interview with anonymous Saudi source.
he rarely spoke: “Half-brother Will Pay to Defend bin Laden,” AP, July 5,2005. Yeslam bin Laden spoke of being afraid of his father on the al-Arabiya satellite channel, but his comments were misinterpreted in an English-language AP story to say that he had been beaten.
“I remember reciting”: “Walidee Ramama al-Aqsa Bilkhasara” [My Father Renovated al-Aqsa Mosque, with a Loss], Al-Umma al-Islamiyya, October 18,1991.
religious debates: Reeve, The New Jackals, 159.
“He gathered his engineers”: Salah Najm and Jamal Ismail, “Osama bin Laden: The Destruction of the Base,” al-Jazeera, June 10, 1999.
marrying off ex-wives: interview with anonymous bin Laden family spokesperson.
Mohammed al-Attas: interview with Khaled Batarfi.
Osama was four or five: interview with Jamal Khalifa.
74 another teenage bride: interview with Michael M. Ameen, Jr.
so charred: interview with bin Laden family spokesperson. Bin Ladin, Inside the Kingdom, 65.
“King Faisal said”: Reeve, The New Jackals, 159.
for the next ten years: Mohammed Besalama, “Al-Sheikh Mohammed Awad bin Laden al-Mu‘alem” [Sheikh Mohammed Awad bin Laden, the Teacher], Okaz, June 2, 1984.
75 Only Osama remained behind: interview with anonymous Saudi source.
al-Thagr: interview with Prince Amr Mohammed al-Faisal.
class of sixty-eight students: interview with Ahmed Badeeb. The two princes were Abdul Aziz bin Mishal bin Abdul Aziz and Abdul Aziz bin Ahmed bin Abdul Rahman.
found him shy: Brian Fyfield-Shayler, quoted in “Meeting Osama bin Laden,” PBS, January 12, 2005.
Some ascribe the change: interviews with Tarik Ali Alireza and Ahmed Badeeb.
Osama stopped watching: “Half Brother Says bin Laden Is Alive and Well,” www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/meast/03/18/osama.brother, March 19, 2002.
76 “In his teenage years”: Khaled Batarfi, “An Interview With Osama bin Laden’s Mother,” The Mail on Sunday, December 23, 2001.
right after isha: interview with Khaled Batarfi.
“beginning of his path”: Michael Slackman, “Bin Laden’s Mother Tried to Stop Him, Syrian Kin Say,” Chicago Tribune, November 13, 2001.
77 companions of the Prophet: Rahimullah Yusufzai, “Terror Suspect: An Interview with Osama bin Laden,” ABCNews.com, December 1988.
“The Abu Bakr group”: interview with Khaled Batarfi.
78 “I decided to drop out”: “Walidee Ramama al-Aqsa Bilkhasara” [My Father Renovated al-Aqsa Mosque, with a Loss], Al-Umma al-Islamiyya, October 18,1991.
wedding party: interview with Khaled Batarfi.
“constantly pregnant”: bin Ladin, Inside the Kingdom, 160.
“Only nerds”: interview with Jamal Khashoggi.
He studied economics: interview with Jamal Khalifa, who is the source of much of the information about bin Laden’s university experience.
“I formed a religious charity”: “Walidee Ramama al-Aqsa Bilkhasara” [My Father Renovated al-Aqsa Mosque, with a Loss], Al-Umma al-Islamiyya, October 18, 1991.
79 walk barefoot: interview with Jamal Khalifa.
Mohammad Qutb…would lecture: interviews with Khaled Batarfi, Jamal Khalifa, and Mohammed Qutb.
80 eleven children: interview with Khaled Batarfi; Douglas Farah and Dana Priest, “Bin Laden Son Plays Key Role in al-Qaeda,” Washington Post, October 14, 2003.
sleep on the sand: interview with Khaled Batarfi.
refused to let them attend school: interview with Jamal Khalifa.
Abdul Rahman: ibid.
81 using honey: interview with Zaynab Ahmed Khadr, who has a child with a similar disability. She discussed the problem with Abdul Rahman’s mother.
82 Umm Hamza: interviews with Zaynab Ahmed Khadr (who also supplied the tallies of bin Laden’s children) and with Maha Elsamneh.
house on Macaroni Street: tour and interview with Jamal Khalifa.
83 “I want to be”: interview with Jamal Khalifa.
“I recall, with pride”: “Walidee Ramama al-Aqsa Bilkhasara” [My Father Renovated al-Aqsa Mosque, with a Loss], Al-Umma al-Islamiyya, October 18,1991.
just over six feet tall: The 9/11 Commission Report, 55, drawing from American intelligence, places bin Laden’s height at 6'5". According to Michael Scheuer, that estimate derived from Essam Deraz, bin Laden’s first biographer, who told me bin Laden was “more than two meters tall, maybe two-five or two-four”—over 6'8" tall. John Miller, who interviewed bin Laden for ABC television, described him as 6'5", but he saw him on only one occasion. Ahmad Zaidan, the al-Jazeera bureau chief in Islamabad who met bin Laden several times, estimates his height at 180 cm., about 5'11". Bin Laden’s friends, however, closely agree on his height. Jamal Khashoggi told me that bin Laden was “exactly my height”—182 cm., nearly 6'. Bin Laden’s friend in Sudan, Issam Turabi, told me that bin Laden was 183 or 184 cm., about 6'. His college friend and housemate, Jamal Khalifa, places his height at 185 cm., just over 6'1". That is the actual height of bin Laden’s son Abdullah, who says his father is about two inches taller than he. Bin Laden’s friend Mohammed Loay Baizid also says that bin Laden is two inches taller than he is, but Baizid stands only 5’7”. One could theorize about the wide disparity in perceptions; I only include this survey as an example of one reporter’s frustration in trying to get an answer to a single simple question—among many that had conflicting responses.
4. Change
84 “Thanksgiving turkey?” Prince Turki al-Faisal speech to Contemporary Arab Studies Department, Georgetown University, February 3, 2002.
Turk or Feaslesticks: “The Lawrence,” yearbook for the Lawrenceville School, Lawrenceville, New Jersey, May 4, 1962, 5.
“Did you hear”: Prince Turki al-Faisal speech to Contemporary Arab Studies Department, Georgetown University, February 3, 2002.
85 Bill Clinton: Clinton, My Life, 110.
“Look, I didn’t give”: interview with Prince Turki al-Faisal.
86 average Saudi income: Wright, “Kingdom of Silence.” It became equal to the United States in 1981.
87 30 or 40 percent: Wright, “Kingdom of Silence”; interview with Berhan Hailu.
co-opt the ulema: al-Rasheed, A History of Saudi Arabia, 124; also, Teitelbaum, Holier Than Thou, 17ff.
88 fifty thousand Muslims: Lacey, The Kingdom, 478. Much of this account comes from Lacey and from James Buchan, “The Return of the Ikhwan,” in Holden and Johns, The House of Saud, 511–26.
“Your attention, O Muslims!”: Heikal, Iran, 197. Kechichian claims that none of the thousands of pilgrims in the mosque that day heard Qahtani, “or anyone else for that matter,” invoke the Mahdi. Kechichian, “Islamic Revivalism,” 15. I could find no other sources to support this assertion.
89 an employee of the bin Laden organization: bin Ladin, Inside the Kingdom, 123–24.
90 sun rotated: AbuKhalil, Bin Laden, Islam, and America’s New “War on Terrorism,” 64.
Oteibi had been his student: Holden and Johns, The House of Saud, 517.
four or five hundred insurgents: al-Rasheed, A History of Saudi Arabia, 144; Lacey suggests 200, in The Kingdom, 484; Aburish estimates 300, in The Rise, Corruption, and Coming Fall, 108. Arab sources place the figure in the thousands. Captain Paul Barril says there were 1,500 insurgents, in Commando, October/November 2002.
some American Black Muslims: Holden and Johns, The House of Saud, 520.
armory of the National Guard: Mackey, The Saudis, 231.
on biers: Lacey, The Kingdom, 484.
91 Salem…arrived: interview with Jamal Khalifa.
92 jaw was blown away: Holden and Johns, The House of Saud, 525.
93 recommended gas: interview with Prince Turki al-Faisal.
they converted to Islam: The history of this event is full of contradictory claims. Da Lage cites Captain Paul Barril, who led three French policemen to Mecca, where they “converted” on the spot to Islam, so that they could direct the assault on the Grand Mosque. Olivier Da Lage, “Il y a quinze ans: La prise de la Grande Mosquée de La Mecque,” Le Monde, November 20–21, 1994. Aburish claims that the rebels were put down by French paratroopers, who actually did flood and electrify the chambers. Aburish, The Rise, Corruption, and Coming Fall, 108.
Turki denies that the French converted or entered Mecca. De Marenches also denies that the French entered Mecca. De Marenches and Ockrent, The Evil Empire, 112. I have chosen to credit the account of Captain Barril on the authority of an anonymous Saudi intelligence source.
94 more than 4,000: Theroux, Sandstorms, 90.
Osama bin Laden and his brother Mahrous: interview with Jamal Khalifa.
Oteibi and his followers were true Muslims: Burke, Al-Qaeda, 55.
“I was enraged”: Robert Fisk, “Anti-Soviet Warrior Puts His Army on the Road to Peace,” Independent, December 6, 1993.
“a big secret”: “Walidee Ramama al-Aqsa Bilkhasara” [My Father Renovated al-Aqsa Mosque, with a Loss], Al-Umma al-Islamiyya, October 18, 1991.
95 “hand over the money”: ibid.
his friend Omar Abdul Rahman: Weaver, A Portrait of Egypt, 180.
got him dismissed in 1980: Tahta al-Mijhar [Under the Microscope], al-Jazeera, February 20, 2003.
“Jihad and the rifle alone”: Abdullah bin Omar, “The Striving Sheik: Abdullah Azzam,” Nida‘ul Islam, trans. Mohammed Saeed, July–September 1996, www.islam.org.au/articles/14/AZZAM.HTM.
“Jihad for him”: Mohammed al-Shafey, “Al-Sharq al-Awsat Interviews Umm Mohammed,” Al-Sharq al-Aswat, April 30, 2006.
spotted an announcement: Tahta al-Mijhar [Under the Microscope], al-Jazeera, February 20, 2003.
arriving in November 1981: Mohammed, Al-Ansar al-Arab fi Afghanistan, 37.
96 “I reached Afghanistan”: untitled Abdullah Azzam recruitment video, 1988.
birds functioned as an early-warning radar system: interview with Jamal Khalifa.
“He lives in his house”: Azzam, The Lofty Mountain, 150.
“If you have it”: interview with Jamal Khalifa.
97 Paid agents rounded up: Salah, Waqai‘ Sanawat al-Jihad.
office in Cairo: Dr. Gehad Auda and Dr. Ammar Ali Hasan, “Strategic Papers: The Globalization of the Radical Islamic Movement: The Case of Egypt,” www.ahram.org.eg/acpss/eng/ahram/2004/7/5/SPAP5.htm.
Bin Laden opened a halfway house: interview with Essam Deraz.
he ran special military camps: Mohammed Sadeeq, “The Story of Saudi Afghans: They Participated in Jihad and Violent Fighting,” Al-Majellah, May 11, 1996.
dozens of trucks: Shadid, Legacy of the Prophet, 83.
98 “The Saudi government asked me”: Osama bin Laden, interviewed by al-Jazeera, October 7, 2001. Bin Laden dates this conversation to 1979, which is when he says he first went to Afghanistan.
“won’t even get near”: interview with Khaled Batarfi.
5. The Miracles
99 “Now we can give the USSR”: Cooley, Unholy Wars, 19.
100 170 armed Afghan militias in the mid-1980s: ibid., 232.
800,000 people…under their authority: interview with Abdullah Anas.
Abdul Rasul Sayyaf: Jon Lee Anderson, “Letter from Kabul: The Assassins,” New Yorker, June 10, 2002.
lock them up in a jail: Coll, Ghost Wars, 83.
“Fear of bodily participation”: Mohammed, Al-Ansar al-Arab fi Afghanistan, 85.101
he forfeited his share of the profit: Azzam, The Lofty Mountain, 150.
“surprised by the sad state”: ibid.
“mountains were shaking”: ibid.
“between five and ten million dollars”: ibid., 88. 102
three hundred dollars per month: Bergen, Holy War, 56.
103 house bin Laden was renting: Mohammed, Al-Ansar al-Arab fi Afghanistan, 119.
twenty-five thousand dollars a month: Anonymous, Through Our Enemies’ Eyes, 99; Mohammed, Al-Ansar al-Arab fi Afghanistan, 198.
“this heaven-sent man”: Bernstein, Out of the Blue, 45.
104 to deliver cash: interview with Ahmed Badeeb and Sayeed Badeeb. According to Sayeed Badeeb, the Saudi government continued its support until bin Laden left Afghanistan in 1989.
$350 to $500 million per year: private communication with Marc Sageman, who was a CIA case officer in Afghanistan at the time.
he first met bin Laden in 1985: Elsewhere, he says, “Our first meeting must have taken place around 1984.” “And then Mullah Omar Screamed at Me,” Der Spiegel, November 2004.
Turki could recruit: Clarke, Against All Enemies, 52.
cashews and chocolate: Jason Burke, “The Making of bin Laden: Part 2,” Observer, October 28, 2001.
He built a theological library: Anonymous, Through Our Enemies’ Eyes, 98.
tutored at least one young Afghan warrior: Jason Burke, “The Making of bin Laden: Part 2,” Observer, October 28, 2001.
University of Dawa al-Jihad: Fouda and Fielding, Masterminds of Terror, 91; Cooley, Unholy Wars, 238.
pitched in at Jihad, the Arabic-language magazine: Burke, Al-Qaeda, 56.
105 “small smile”: interview with Khaled Khawaja.
“November 1985”: interview with anonymous al-Qaeda source.
“Brigade of the Strangers”: Mohammed, Al-Ansar al-Arab fi Afghanistan, 177.
modern conveniences: interview with Zaynab Abdul Khadr.
never more than three thousand: interview with Abdullah Anas. Milt Bear-den, who was the CIA chief of station in Afghanistan at the time, says, “We figured there were about two thousand Arab Afghans at any one time, plus a couple thousand Arab Afghans who treated it as a Club Med”—i.e., they came for brief holidays. “This compares with about a quarter million full- or part-time Afghans, and 125,000 Soviets,” Bearden says.
106 father’s real identity: interview with Zayneb Ahmed Khadr.
“I traveled to acquaint people”: untitled Abdullah Azzam recruitment video, 1988.
stories of the mujahideen: For instance, see Abdullah Yusuf Azzam, “The Signs of ar-Rahmaan in the Jihad of the Afghan,” www.islamicawakening.com/viewarticle.php?articleID=877&.
When one beloved mujahid expired: Abdullah Yusuf Azzam, “Abul-Mundhir ash-Shareef,” www.islamicawakening.com/viewarticle.php?articleID=30&.
was paying for mujahids: interview with Mohammed Loay Baizid.
107 if one subtracted the oil revenue: James R. Woolsey, “Defeating the Oil Weapon,” Commentary, Sept. 2002. The figure is for the mid-1990s. Other statistics have been extrapolated from the authoritative Arab Human Development Report 2002.
108 “raid and be slain”: Osama bin Laden, “Message to the Iraqi People,” al-Jazeera, October 18, 2003.
“He who dies,” Mitchell, Society of the Muslim Brothers, 207.
“Islam is not merely ‘belief’”: Qutb, Milestones, 58ff.; includes other Qutb quotes that follow.
life without Islam is slavery: This argument is more fully developed in Roxanne L. Euben, “Comparative Political Theory: An Islamic Fundamentalist Critique of Rationalism,” Journal of Politics 59, no. 1 (February 1997): 28–55.
109 Muslim Brotherhood refuted: interview with Jamal Khashoggi. concerned Saudi fathers: interview with Mohammed al-Hulwah.
110 “Your presence is no longer needed”: Mohammed, Al-Ansar al-Arab fi Afghanistan, 178.
In 1986 bin Laden brought his wives and children: This is according to Essam Deraz, although Mohammed Loay Baizid places the date of the move in 1988.
111 Bin Laden expanded the caverns: interview with Marc Sageman.
“God is great! God is great!”: Mohammed, Al-Ansar al-Arab fi Afghanistan, 185.
bin Laden financed: Jamal Ismail, “Usama bin Laden, the Destruction of the Base,” al-Jazeera, June 10, 1999.
112 inspired by the lines: Mohammed, Al-Ansar al-Arab fi Afghanistan, 241.
Soviet base: ibid., 233.
single car: ibid., 216.
114 “I began thinking”: “Walidee Ramama al-Aqsa Bilkhasara” [My Father Renovated al-Aqsa Mosque, with a Loss], Al-Umma al-Islamiyya, October 18, 1991.
skilled engineers: interview with anonymous bin Laden family spokesman.
seven man-made caverns: interview with Essam Deraz.
114 Sheikh Tameem: interviews with Bassim A. Alim and Mohammed Loay Baizid.
not over eighteen years old: Mohammed, Al-Ansar al-Arab fi Afghanistan, 211.
115 “Tell him that I will not return”: Azzam, The Lofty Mountain, 23. Sheikh Tameem never did find his martyrdom. He died the following year of a heart attack while on a speaking tour in Orlando, Florida.
“afraid that some of the brothers”: Mohammed, Al-Ansar al-Arab fi Afghanistan, 261.
force of 120: Abu Muhammed in Azzam, The Lofty Mountain, 97.
He chose to attack on a Friday: Mohammed, Al-Ansar al-Arab fi Afghanistan, 265.
116 closing down the Arab guesthouses: interview with Mohammed Loay Baizid.
“There were nine”: Azzam, The Lofty Mountain, 109.
nine or ten thousand troops: ibid., 100ff., which is the source for much of this account, along with Mohammed, Al-Ansar al-Arab fi Afghanistan, 310ff., and “Walidee Ramama al-Aqsa Bilkhasara” [My Father Renovated al-Aqsa Mosque, with a Loss], Al-Umma al-Islamiyya, October 18, 1991.
118 “shouted at me”: Mohammed, Al-Ansar al-Arab fi Afghanistan, 316.
“thought he was possessed”: Azzam, The Lofty Mountain, 30.
“very tired”: “Walidee Ramama al-Aqsa Bilkhasara” [My Father Renovated al-Aqsa Mosque, with a Loss], Al-Umma al-Islamiyya, October 18, 1991.
“guard the left side:” Mohammed, Al-Ansar al-Arab fi Afghanistan, 326.
119 “It passed by me”: Osama bin Laden in Azzam, The Lofty Mountain, 112, 113.
“There was a terrible battle”: “Walidee Ramama al-Aqsa Bilkhasara” [My Father Renovated al-Aqsa Mosque, with a Loss], Al-Umma al-Islamiyya, October 18, 1991.
“I was only thirty meters from the Russians”: Robert Fisk, “The Saudi Businessman Who Recruited Mujahideen Now Uses Them for Large-Scale Building Projects in Sudan,” Independent, December 6, 1993.
bag of salt: interview with Jamal Khashoggi, who also spoke about bin Laden’s episodes of malaria and pneumonia. There is a link between low blood pressure and diabetes, for which some have said bin Laden received insulin shots. Bergen, Holy War, 57; also, Hasin al-Binayyan, “Al-Qaeda Man Freed from Riyadh Jail Reveals It All,” Arab News, November 26, 2001. However, Jamal Khalifa says that bin Laden was not diabetic.
“only nine brothers”: Osama bin Laden in Azzam, The Lofty Mountain, 114. (The quote has been slightly corrected for grammatical reasons that may have been caused by the translation.)
gave bin Laden a trophy: interview with Mohammed Loay Baizid.
6. The Base
121 treasures of the Afghan national museum: interviews with Mohammed Sarwar and Rahimullah Yusufzai.
skimming off the subsidies: interview with Marc Sageman. Sageman disputes the common assertion that the commanders were enriching themselves from the heroin trade.
Their murderous rivalries: interview with Rahimullah Yusufzai.
122 “second home”: interview with Jamal Ismail.
Mohammed set up al-Jihad’s financial pipeline: unpublished CIA document, “Report on Mohammed al-Zawahiri” (no date, no author).
Bitter Harvest: Some members of al-Jihad believed that Zawahiri had plagiarized this book, which they say was actually written by Sayyid Imam al-Sharif (also known as Dr. Fadl).
“available free”: interview with Kemal Helbawi.
Dr. Fadl: interview with Yasser al-Sirri, also Hamdi Rizq, “Confessions of Those ‘Returning from Albania’ Mark the End of the Egyptian ‘Jihad Organization,’” Al-Wasat, April 19, 1999. Translated by FBIS.
123 Kuwaiti-backed Red Crescent hospital: interviews with Jamal Khashoggi and Osama Rushdi.
Dr. Ahmed el-Wed: interviews with Kamal Helbawy and Abdullah Anas.
Takfir wa Hijira: Kepel, Muslim Extremism in Egypt, 73–78.
124 mosque Zawahiri had frequented: interview with Khaled Abou El-Fadl.
Remnants of the group: Heikal, Autumn of Fury, 251.
blood of Muslims cannot be shed: Sahih Bukhari, vol. 9, bk. 83, no. 17.
125 entitled to kill practically anyone: interview with Usama Rushdi.
126 Fisher-Price: interview with Maha Elsamneh.
“unusually close family”: Chanaa Rostom, “Al-Zawahiri’s Latest Victims,” Akher Sa’a, December 12, 2001.
127 “As of now”: al-Zawahiri, “Knights Under the Prophet’s Banner,” part 2.
128 on his payroll: exhibit from “Tareek Osama” document presented in United States v. Enaam M. Arnaout.
Abu Ubaydah: interviews with Jamal Khashoggi and Essam Deraz.
Zawahiri had introduced: “Bin-Ladin Associate Interrogated,” Al-Sharq al-Awsat, June 24, 1999.
129 Abu Hafs: interview with Essam Deraz.
Mohammed Ibrahim Makkawi: Nabil Sharaf El Din, “Details on the Man Who Carved the Story of bin Laden (Part III),” Al-Watan, September 29, 2001. Translated by FBIS. According to Abduh Zinah, “Report Profiling Five Egyptian Terrorists on US Most Wanted List,” Al-Sharq al-Awsat,December 20, 2001, Makkawi went to Saudi Arabia in 1998, then to Afghanistan.
clean-shaven: interview with Montassir al-Zayyat, who was Makkawi’s lawyer.
dangerously unbalanced: interviews with Kamal Habib and Mohammed Salah.
crash an airliner: interview with anonymous Cairo political figure. “I believe he is the true father of September 11,” the source told me. He also described Makkawi as a “psychopath.”
Saif al-Adl: There is a controversy over whether the al-Qaeda figure who goes by this name is the same man as Mohammed Makkawi. He is identified this way on the U.S. indictment, but according to Ali Soufan, “We don’t really know Saif al-Adl’s real name, not even the Egyptian service knows who he is. But he fought against the Russians in Afghanistan.” Nu‘man bin Uthman, a Libyan Islamist who fought in Afghanistan and claims to know both Makkawi and Saif al-Adl, contends that they are different men. Mohammed el-Shafey, “Libyan Islamist bin-Uthman Discusses Identity of al-Qa‘ida Operative Sayf-al-Adl,” Al-Sharq al-Awsat, May 30, 2005. On the other hand, Jordanian author Fu‘ad Husayn recently interviewed Saif al-Adl and says that he is Makkawi. Fu‘ad Husayn, “Al-Zarqawi…The Second Generation of al-Qaida, Part 2,” Al-Quds al-Arabi,June 16, 2005. Translated by FBIS. Jamal Ismail, who was a reporter for an Islamist paper in Peshawar during the 1980s, says that Saif al-Adl is not Makkawi but another Egyptian currently living in Iran; Makkawi, says Ismail, is a refugee in Europe.
129 position papers: interview with Jamal Khalifa.
130 “Dr. Ayman was giving him a class”: interview with Mohammed Loay Baizid.
“I don’t know what some people”: interview with Abdullah Anas.
issued a fatwa: Gunaratna, Inside al-Qaeda, 22.
“pioneering vanguard”: Azzam, “The Solid Base.”
train brigades of Hamas fighters: Jamal Ismail, personal communication.
131 hated Yasser Arafat: Abdel Bari Atwan in Bergen, The Osama bin Laden I Know, 170.
moving the struggle to Kashmir: interview with Jamal Khashoggi. Notably, Bosnia was also not on bin Laden’s list of prospective targets for jihad.
One fateful day: interviews with Mohammed Loay Baizid (Abu Rida al-Suri) and Wa’el Julaidan through an intermediary. Baizid claims he was out of the country at the time of the meeting, and that Abu Hajer later told him about it. The court in Chicago contends that the handwritten notes of the meeting are actually Baizid’s. Wa’el Julaidan, who was present, told me through an intermediary that Abdullah Azzam was there as well.
sketchy handwritten notes: exhibit from “Tareek Osama” document presented in United States v. Enaam M. Arnaout. The translation I have provided differs in several respects from what was provided to the court.
133 Medani al-Tayeb: interview with Jamal Khalifa.
al-Qaeda al-Askariya: exhibit from “Tareek Osama” document presented in United States v. Enaam M. Arnaout.
134 “Brother Abu Ubaydah”: Ahmad Zaydan, “The Search for al-Qa‘ida,” Tahta al-Mijhar [Under the Microscope], al-Jazeera, trans. FBIS, September 10, 2004.
“Sixty”: interview with Mohammed Loay Baizid.
135 “independent body”: interview with Abdullah Anas.
“The Saudi authorities”: ibid.
“Say something”: ibid.
136 “Osama is limited”: ibid.
Abu Abdul Rahman: His real name is Ahmed Sayed Khadr. Interviews with Zaynab Ahmed Khadr, Maha Elsamneh, and Mohammed Loay Baizid. Details of the trial come from Wa’el Julaidan, who responded to questions through an intermediary, and “Tareek Osama” document presented in United States v. Enaam M. Arnaout.
expel him from the leadership: “The Story of the Arab Afghans from the Time of Their Arrival in Afghanistan Until Their Departure with the Taliban,” Part 5, Al-Sharq al-Awsat, December 12, 2004.
“Soon we will see the hand”: interview with Abdullah Anas.
“cannot trust the Egyptians”: interview with Jamal Khalifa.
137 “not a single Soviet soldier”: Cordovez and Harrison, Out of Afghanistan, 384.
fifteen thousand lives: Borovik, The Hidden War, 12–13.
Between a million: William T. Vollmann, “Letter from Afghanistan: Across the Divide,” New Yorker, May 15, 2137.
third of the population: interview with Prince Turki al-Faisal.
six thousand Arabs: Ismail Khan, “Crackdown Against Arabs in Peshawar,” Islamabad the News, April 7, 1993.
“men with large amounts of money”: from “Chats from the Top of the World,” no. 6, from the Harmony Documents.
air-conditioned cargo containers: Benjamin and Simon, The Age of Sacred Terror, 101.
takfiris even held up a truck: interview with Jamal Khashoggi.
138 sold arms for gold: Raphaeli, “Ayman Muhammed Rab‘i al-Zawahiri.”
“The Blind Leader”: interview with Usama Rushdi.
awarding $100,000: Bergen, The Osama bin Laden I Knew, 70.
Jalalabad: The account that follows is based on a number of interviews, but they include some contradictory stories that are worth noting. Marc Sageman, who was a CIA case officer in Pakistan at the time, told me that the garrison of Afghan soldiers—450 men—who were guarding the airport quickly surrendered. Given the jealousy and divisiveness of the mujahideen factions, it was decided that the prisoners would be parceled out among them. The Arabs got a one-ninth share—49 men. The Arabs murdered them, cut their bodies to pieces, and packed them into crates. Then they loaded the boxes onto a supply truck, which they sent into the beleaguered city, with a sign that said, “This is what happens to apostates.” At that point the war abruptly changed. The Afghan troops inside Jalalabad stopped negotiating their surrender and began fighting back. Within days, the Afghan air force drove the mujahideen away from the airport and back into the mountains. If this account is true, this was the first evidence of bin Laden’s appetite for slaughter. Olivier Roy, the great French scholar and student of Afghanistan, said that he had heard essentially the same account from Afghans who were inside the garrisoned city. Neither Sageman nor Roy was present at the battle, however. Essam Deraz, who was there, denies that such an event ever occurred, as does Ahmed Zaidan, who covered the battle as a reporter. Indiscriminate slaughter of prisoners was common on both sides in that war.
Another issue about the battle of Jalalabad is whether bin Laden was injured. Michael Scheuer, who was head of the CIA’s Alec Station, says that bin Laden was injured twice in the jihad against the Soviet Union: once in Jaji, a foot wound, and once in the shoulder from a piece of shrapnel. Essam Deraz, again, says that bin Laden was never injured during that war, as does Jamal Khalifa.
five to seven thousand Afghan mujahideen: Yousaf and Adkin, The Bear Trap, 227–28.
four kilometers above the city: interview with Essam Deraz.
fewer than two hundred men: interview with Abdullah Anas.
139 malaria…pneumonia: interview with Jamal Khashoggi.
139 medical genius: interview with Essam Deraz.
twenty sorties a day: Yousaf and Adkin, The Bear Trap, 230.
glucose transfusion: Details of this episode come from an interview with Essam Deraz and from his account that is rendered in Azzam, The Lofty Mountain, 80ff.
Addison’s disease: I’m grateful to Dr. Jeanne Ryan, who consulted with me on these matters and provided the diagnosis. Although the CIA, among others, has speculated that bin Laden suffers from kidney disease, he would probably have died by now without frequent dialysis, and the symptoms are not the same as the ones described here. Dr. Ryan points out that patients with kidney disease cannot tolerate extra salt. Everyone who knew bin Laden well was acquainted with his constant dipping into his salt supply. One of the key indicators of Addison’s is the eventual darkening of the skin, which has become apparent in bin Laden’s later video appearances.
140 Shafiq: interviews with Abdullah Anas and Jamal Khalifa.
141 Eighty other Arabs: interview with Abdullah Anas. Other accounts place the figure as high as five hundred. “The Story of the Arab Afghans from the Time of Arrival in Afghanistan Until Their Departure with the Taliban,” part 6, Al-Sharq al-Awsat, December 13, 2004.
Farouk was a takfir camp: interview with Abdullah Anas.
Those chosen: Hasin al-Banyan, “The Oldest Arab Afghan Talks to ‘Al-Sharq al-Awsat’ About His Career That Finally Landed Him in Prison in Saudi Arabia,” Al-Sharq al-Awsat, November 25, 2001.
in triplicate: Gunaratna, Inside al-Qaeda, 56.
142 $1,000 a month: interview with Jack Cloonan.
round-trip ticket home: Details of the al-Qaeda employment contract can be found in the Harmony Documents, drawn from a United States Department of Defense database. www.ctc.usma.edu/aq_harmonylist.asp.
constitution and by-laws: ibid.
143 “We are your soldiers”: interview with Abdullah Anas.
discovered and disarmed a powerful bomb: “Saudi ‘Afghan’ Talks About Involvement with al-Qa‘ida, bin Ladin,” Al-Sharq al-Awsat, November 25, 2001.
“It’s better to leave”: interview with Ahmed Badeeb.
They embraced for a long time: Tahta al-Mijhar [Under the Microscope], al-Jazeera, Feb. 20, 2003.
twenty kilograms of TNT: Gunaratna, Inside al-Qaeda, 23.
144 spreading rumors: interview with Usama Rushdi.
7. Return of the Hero
145 27 million Saudi riyals: interview with bin Laden family spokesperson. Jamal Khalifa, who is married to one of bin Laden’s half sisters, told me the annual share is “not even a million riyals”—$266,000, a figure that was confirmed by the bin Laden family spokesperson. That amount is considerably less than even the downsized figure given by the 9/11 Commission, which states: “from 1970 through 1994, bin Ladin received about $1 million per year—a significant sum, to be sure, but not a $300 million fortune that could be used to fund jihad.” National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, The 9/11 Commission Report, 170. Jamal Khashoggi told me that when bin Laden returned from Afghanistan, he informed his brothers that he had spent his share of his inheritance on the jihad, and that they made it up to him out of their own pockets; a bin Laden family spokesperson disputes this, however.
build roads in Taif and Abha: Robert Fisk, “The Saudi Businessman Who Recruited Mujahedin Now Uses Them for Large-Scale Building Projects in Sudan,” Independent, December 6, 1993.
146 “Othman of his age”: interview with Monsour al-Njadan.
482-foot yacht: Simons, Saudi Arabia, 28.
blackjack and roulette dealers: Marie Colvin, “The Squandering Sheikhs,” Sunday Times, August 29, 1993.
“whores, pornography”: David Leigh and David Pallister, “Murky Shadows Amid the Riviera Sunshine,” Guardian, March 5, 1999.
147 shooting at them: interview with Mohammed al-Rasheed.
modest, one-story house: interview with Frank Anderson.
raised ostriches: Jamal Khashoggi, personal communication.
White Knight: Petition by Despina Sahini v. Turki Saeed or Turki al-Faisal bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, Court of First Instance, Athens, Greece, February 2, 2003.
banana daiquiri: Coll, Ghost Wars, 73.
148 “This man has defamed”: interview with Ahmed Badeeb.
149 ex-convicts: ibid.
taught and studied in Mecca: interview with Sami Angawi.
forbade the Shia: Simons, Saudi Arabia, 34.
1 percent of the world Muslim population: Yamani, To Be a Saudi, 63.
90 percent of the expenses: Dawood al-Shirian, “What Is Saudi Arabia Going to Do?” Al-Hayat, May 19, 2003.
150 “They have attacked our brothers”: Osama bin Laden speech in the bin Laden family mosque in Jeddah, April 1990, filmed by Essam Deraz.
151 “when America permitted”: bin Laden videotape, al-Jazeera, October 29, 2004.
“Thank you”: www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/.
152 America and Saudi Arabia: cf. Lippman, Inside the Mirage.
more than thirty thousand: Peterson, Saudi Arabia and the Illusion of Security, 46.
more than 200,000 Americans: Prince Turki al-Faisal, address to Seton Hall University, October 14, 2003.
United States was the tenth: Aburish, The Rise, Corruption, and Coming Fall, 169.
153 In 1989 bin Laden approached: interviews with Saeed Badeeb and Ahmed Badeeb.
Americans had a secret agreement: interview with Jamal Khashoggi.
suitcases full of cash: Randal, Osama, 100.
154 a number of trips to the new republic: interviews with Ahmed Badeeb and Saeed Badeeb.
154 assassinate socialist leaders: The Yemeni government maintained that “Yemeni Afghan groups executed several socialist figures and mounted 158 operations…between 1990 and 2004 on the strength of fatwas issued by Osama bin Laden.” Quoted in Anonymous, Through Our Enemies’ Eyes, 112. The Yemenis apparently did not realize that a new organization, al-Qaeda, was responsible for these operations.
“I was working”: interview with Ahmed Badeeb.
155 he immediately doubled the figure: interview with Nawaf E. Obaid.
a little over 5 million: Professor William B. Quandt, personal communication.
moved its foreign headquarters: Simons, Saudi Arabia, 214.
“I said many times”: Osama bin Laden, interviewed by Peter L. Bergen and Peter Arnett, CNN, May 10, 1997.
“burn half of Israel”: Amatzia Baram, “The Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait,” in The Saddam Hussein Reader, edited by Turi Munthe, 259.
non-aggression pact: According to Leslie and Alexander Cockburn, “Royal Mess,” New Yorker, November 28, 1994, the Saudis had also been funding Iraqi research into nuclear weapons. On the other hand, Richard A. Clarke contends, in an interview, that scenario is “quite unbelievable,” since a nuclear-armed Saddam was Saudi Arabia’s greatest fear.
no intention of invading Kuwait: www.kingfahdbinabdulaziz.com/main/1300.htm.
raid bin Laden’s farm: “Biography of Usamah bin-Ladin, written by brother Mujahid with minor modifications,” Islamic Observation Center, trans. FBIS, April 22, 2000.
156 One battalion: Woodward, The Commanders, 248.
bin Laden wrote a letter: Esposito, Unholy War, 12.
royal family itself was divided: Abir, Saudi Arabia, 174.
satellite images: Later press reports questioned the accuracy of these images, pointing out that commercial Russian satellite photos showed empty stretches of sand along the Saudi border. Scott Peterson, “In War, Some Facts Less Factual,” Christian Science Monitor, September 6, 2002. Richard A. Clarke, in an interview, says that the images General Schwarzkopf presented were not of the border area but of the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait.
157 Cheney pledged: Clarke, Against All Enemies, 58.
“Come with all”: interview with Richard A. Clarke.
bin Laden spoke to Prince Sultan: Burke, Al-Qaeda, 124; also, Anonymous, Through Our Enemies’ Eyes, 114; Thomas E. Burnett, Sr., v. Al Baraka Investment and Development Corporation, et al., Final Third Amended Complaint.
“I am ready”: al-Hammadi, “The Inside Story of al-Qa’ida,” part 8, March 26, 2005.
“no caves”: Douglas Jehl, “Holy War Lured Saudis as Rulers Looked Away,” New York Times, December 27, 2001.
proposals to the CIA: Prince Turki al-Faisal speech to Contemporary Arab Studies Department, Georgetown University, February 3, 2002.
in a theater: interviews with Ahmed Badeeb and Hassan Yassin.
158 fifty-eight thousand men: Abir, Saudi Arabia, 176.
“We pushed the Soviets”: interview with Ahmed Badeeb. The prince laughed: Arnaud de Borchgrave, “Osama’s Saudi moles,” Washington Times, August 1, 2003.
“radical changes”: Jamal Khashoggi, “Osama Offered to Form Army to Challenge Saddam’s Forces: Turki,” Arab News, November 7, 2001.
Prince Turki argued: Jamal Khashoggi, “Kingdom Has a Big Role to Play in Afghanistan,” Arab News, November 6, 2001.
that Caliph Omar: Lewis, The Crisis of Islam, xxix-xxx.
“inadmissible”: al-Hammadi, “The Inside Story of al-Qa’ida,” part 8, March 26, 2005.
159 1,500 foreign journalists: al-Rasheed, A History of Saudi Arabia, 166.
“infidels”: Wright, “Kingdom of Silence.”
160 “Letter of Demands”: al-Rasheed, A History of Saudi Arabia, 170; also, Champion, The Paradoxical Kingdom, 218ff.; Abir, Saudi Arabia, 186ff.
more shocked: Champion, The Paradoxical Kingdom, 221.
161 “There’s a role”: interview with Jamal Khashoggi.
Worried about the influence: interview with Michael Scheuer, who talked to Turki during this period.
Saudi Arabia had recruited: Stephen Engelberg, “One Man and a Global Web of Violence,” New York Times, January 14, 2001.
8. Paradise
163 fifteen and twenty-five thousand: interview with Steven Simon. Other estimates range from five to fifteen thousand. Reeve, The New Jackals, 3; also, Halliday, Two Hours That Shook the World, 166. Marc Sageman cautions in a personal communication: “I wanted to zero in on the numbers myself. What I found out is that no one knew, and did not even know how to go about even estimating this number. So far, all the numbers are arbitrary, based on a very wild guess.”
directly to jail: interview with Saeed Badeeb.
164 “even with Red Indians”: interview with Hasan al-Turabi.
four trusted associates: testimony of Jamal al-Fadl, U.S. v. Usama bin Laden, et al.
“it is Sudan!”: interview with Mohammed Loay Baizid.
gave Fadl $250,000: testimony of Jamal al-Fadl, United States v. Usama bin Laden et al.
165 which brought Osama: interview with Dr. Ghazi Salaheddin.
seventeen children: interview with Zaynab Abdul Khadr.
leader of Sudan greeted: Ahmad Zaydan, “The Search for al-Qaeda,” al-Jazeera, September 10, 2004.
Nearly every month: interview with Ibrahim al-Sanoussi.
heresy in bin Laden’s eyes: interview with Jamal Khalifa.
“art, music, singing”: interview with Hasan al-Turabi.
“The Prophet himself”: interview with Hasan al-Turabi.
167 The neighbors claimed: al-Nour Ahmed al-Nour, “His Neighbor Claims He Does Not Speak Much,” Al-Hayat, November 19, 2001.
what his guests left: interview with Issam Eldin Turabi.
167 al-Qaeda soccer teams: interview with Jack Cloonan.
168 “great Islamic investor”: “Part One of a Series of Reports on bin Ladin’s Life in Sudan: Islamists Celebrated Arrival of ‘Great Islamic Investor,’ ” Al-Quds al-Arabi, November 24, 2001. Translated by FBIS.
$350 million: Ibid.
$50 million: Thomas E. Burnett, Sr. v. Al Baraka Investment and Development Corporation, et al. Final Third Amended complaint.
“larger than Bahrain”: interview with Dr. Khaled Batarfi.
leather for the Italian market: Bergen, Holy War, 81.
a million acres: Burr, Revolutionary Sudan, 71.
near monopoly: U.S. State Department fact sheet on Usama bin Laden, August 14, 1996.
169 filled out in triplicate: interview with Bruce Hoffman.
between $50 and $120: al-Hammadi, “The Inside Story of al-Qa’ida,” part 9, March 28, 2005.
Saudis got more: interview with Dan Coleman.
five hundred people working: interview with Hassabulla Omer.
a hundred of them who were active members: ibid. The testimony of Jamal al-Fadl (U.S. v. Usama bin Laden, et al.) is confusing because he apparently conflates the number of employees of bin Laden’s companies with the actual number of people who had formally pledged bayat to bin Laden.
$1 million a day: Burr, Revolutionary Sudan, 36.
holy men…fasting: al-Nour Ahmed al-Nour, “His Neighbor Claims He Does Not Speak Much,” Al-Hayat, November 19, 2001.
blessings of peace: interview with Ghazi Salah Eddin Atabani.
170 Abu Hajer: interviews with Tom Corrigan, Daniel Coleman, Allan P. Haber, Jamal Khalifa, and Mohammed Loay Baizid.
he deserted: interrogation of Mamdouh Mahmoud Salim Ahmed, Munich, September 17, 1998.
made bin Laden weep: interview with Daniel Coleman.
171 September 11: Belloc, The Great Heresies, 85.
“Jihad against America?”: al-Hammadi, “The Inside Story of al-Qa’ida,” part 8, March 26, 2005.
172 “a large-scale front”: ibid., part 5, March 23, 2005.
173 nine hundred people: United States Department of State, Country Reports on Terrorism, 2004, April 2005.
Carlos the Jackal: interviews with Tim Niblock and Hassabullah Omer. Ken Silverstein, “Official Pariah Sudan Valuable to America’s War on Terrorism,” Los Angeles Times, April 29, 2005.
in exchange for weapons: Douglas Farah and Dana Priest, “Bin Laden Son Plays Key Role in al-Qaeda,” Washington Post, October 14, 2003.
175 Ibn Tamiyyah had issued a historic fatwa: testimony of Jamal al-Fadl, U.S. v. Usama bin Laden, et al.
9. The Silicon Valley
176 “awesome symbolic towers”: Osama bin Laden interview with Tayser Alouni, al-Jazeera, October 2001, translated by CNN.
Little Egypt: Kepel, Jihad, 301.
177 issued a fatwa: interview with Tom Corrigan.
“descendants of apes”: Kohlmann, Al-Qaida’s Jihad in Europe, 26.
“cut the transportation”: ibid, 185.
bin Laden was financially backing: interview with Tom Corrigan.
World Trade Center bombing: interviews with Frank Pellegrino, David Kelley, Lewis Schiliro, James Kallstrom, Joe Cantemessa, Richard A. Clarke, Thomas Pickard, Pascual “Pat” D’Amuro, Mark Rossini, Mary Galligan, and Tom Corrigan.
178 sodium cyanide: Reeve, The New Jackals, 43.
dirty bomb: ibid., 147.
tourists felt: ibid., 12.
hospital casualties: ibid., 15.
179 Zawahiri appeared on the speaker circuit: There is considerable dispute about the exact date of Zawahiri’s trip to the United States, or whether there was more than one. Ali Mohammed, the FBI’s main source on this matter, told investigators that Zawahiri traveled to Brooklyn in 1988 in the company of Abu Khaled al-Masri, which is an alias for Mohammed Shawki Islambouli, the brother of the assassin of Anwar al-Sadat, and who was on the shura council of al-Jihad. As for the California trip, Mohammed says it took place in 1993 before the World Trade Center bombing, which occurred on February 26. Zawahiri’s host in California, Dr. Ali Zaki, however, says he met Zawahiri once, in 1989 or 1990. There is also court testimony in Egypt by Khaled Abu al-Dahab, another member of al-Jihad who lived in California. “Ayman al-Zawahiri came to America to collect donations,” Abu al-Dahab told a court in Cairo in 1999. Abu al-Dahab gave the date of Zawahiri’s trip as late 1994 or 1995. For this narrative, I have chosen to accept the FBI version of the travel dates.
According to Dan Coleman, Zawahiri paid a visit to the mujahideen’s Services Bureau branch office in Brooklyn in 1988. The office on Atlantic Avenue was run by one of Zawahiri’s men in al-Jihad, Mustafa Shalabi. Two years later, Shalabi got into a dispute with Zawahiri’s old rival, Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman, over money. The blind sheikh wanted to use the funds the center raised to support the international jihad. Shalabi wanted the money to go into the Islamist rebellion against Egypt. He refused to relinquish control of the account. In March 1991 someone entered Shalabi’s apartment in Brooklyn, beat him, strangled him, and stabbed him more than thirty times—a murder that has never been solved.
Bern, Switzerland…real name: interview with Jack Cloonan.
martial artist: interview with Mark Rossini.
180 the government rightly suspected: Benjamin and Simon, The Age of Sacred Terror, 123.
already a member: plea, U.S. v. Ali Mohamed.
the Cairo station: interview with Jack Cloonan.
probably a plant: interview with Michael Scheuer.
sponsored by the agency: Paul Quinn-Judge and Charles M. Sennott, “Figure Cited in Terrorism Case Said to Enter US with CIA Help,” Boston Globe, February 3, 1995.
180 the transatlantic flight: Peter Waldman, Gerald F. Seib, Jerry Markon, and Christopher Cooper, “The Infiltrator: Ali Mohamed Served in the U.S. Army—and bin Laden’s Circle,” Wall Street Journal, November 26, 2001; Miller, Stone, and Mitchell, The Cell, 141.
181 pursuing a doctorate: Bergen, Holy War, 129.
Kinko’s: interview with Jack Cloonan.
members of al-Jihad: interview with Tom Corrigan.
“kill Russians”: Benjamin Weiser and James Risen, “The Masking of a Militant: A Special Report; a Soldier’s Shadowy Trail in U.S. and in the Mideast,” New York Times, December 1, 1998.
kidnappings, assassinations, and hijacking: “The Story of the Arab Afghans from the Time of Their Arrival in Afghanistan Until Their Departure with the Taliban,” part 5, Al-Sharq al-Awsat, December 12, 2004.
triggering device: interview with Jack Cloonan.
“buy rugs”: interview with Jack Cloonan.
182 name of Osama bin Laden: interview with Jack Cloonan. Bin Laden’s name and his organization were already beginning to be known even in the media. There is an Agence France Presse article, “Jordanian Militants Train in Afghanistan to Confront Regime,” dated May 30, 1993, in which a “27-year-old militant” admits that he has been “trained by Al-Ka’ida, a secret organization in Afghanistan that is financed by a wealthy Saudi businessman who owns a construction firm in Jeddah, Ossama ibn Laden.”
“James Bond”: interview with Harlen L. Bell.
they had been lost: interview with Daniel Coleman.
German military attaché: confessions of Ahmed Ibrahim al-Sayed al-Najjar, “Returnees from Albania” case, September 1998.
183 two thousand dollars: interview with Jack Cloonan.
184 Naguib Mahfouz: interview with Naguib Mahfouz.
185 “Vanguards of Conquest”: al-Zawahiri, “Knights Under the Prophet’s Banner,” part 6. There is an ongoing dispute about whether Zawahiri was in charge of the Vanguards. There were several articles in the press that described the Vanguards as a dissident, break-away group from al-Jihad, which was led by Ahmed Agazzi and Yasser el-Sirri. However, el-Sirri was evasive when I queried him on this. “In 1993 and 1994, many did not agree with what happened in Egypt,” he said. “But Zawahiri had the money. This group did not.” Mamdouh Ismail, an Islamist lawyer in Cairo, told me that “Vanguards” was a media name; in fact, the arrested persons were largely members of al-Jihad—a view echoed by Hisham Kassem, a human rights advocate and publisher in Cairo, and Montassir al-Zayyat. “There is nothing called ‘Vanguards of Conquest,’ ” Zayyat asserts.
judicial standards: According to Hisham Kassem, a Cairo publisher and human rights worker, “Vanguards was accused of trying to overthrow the government. Part of the evidence was a baseball bat and an air rifle. The ones you think are dangerous, you hang; the rest you give life sentences. It was all staged.”
“only solution”: Andrew Higgins and Christopher Cooper, “Cloak and Dagger: A CIA-Backed Team Used Brutal Means to Crack Terror Cell,” Wall Street Journal, November 20, 2001.
backs of camels: testimony of Jamal al-Fadl, U.S. v. Usama bin Laden, et al.
“The Minister escaped”: “Al-Sharq al-Awsat Publishes Extracts from al-Jihad Leader al-Zawahiri’s New Book,” by FBIS, Al-Sharq al-Awsat, December 2, 2001.
186 been to Iran: “Confessions from Last Leader of al-Jihad Organization,” Rose el-Youssef, February 2, 1997. Translated by FBIS.
Zawahiri distributed cassettes: Salah, Waqai’ Sanawat al-Jihad.
“Terrorism is the enemy”: “Egyptian Mourners Condemn Terrorists,” AP, November 27, 1993.
“The unintended death”: Ayman al-Zawahiri, “Al-Sharq al-Awsat Publishes Extracts from al-Jihad Leader al-Zawahiri’s New Book,” Al-Sharq al-Awsat, December 2, 2001. Translated by FBIS.
“This meant”: ibid.
10. Paradise Lost
188 350,000 lives: Huband, Warriors of the Prophet, 36.
250 men: Anonymous, Through Our Enemies’ Eyes, 136.
a handful: interview with Hassabulla Omer. The testimony of L’Houssaine Kherchtou mentions only a couple of al-Qaeda fighters, who were sent to Somalia because they were dark-skinned and could pass as natives. U.S. v. Usama bin Laden et al. The extent of al-Qaeda’s involvement in Somalia remains unresolved. Mary Deborah Doran, who concentrated on the Somali question for the FBI, wrote me: “I think there’s no doubt AQ played a role in Somalia, and I believe that AQ had a role in the killing of our Rangers in October 1993—that even if they weren’t the ones to pull the trigger (something we won’t know until we find the people who did pull the triggers or were there when they were pulled), I believe it wouldn’t have happened without them.”
“Somalis treated us”: al-Hammadi, “The Inside Story of al-Qa’ida,” part 2, March 24, 2005.
189 “Based on the reports”: Taysir Aluni interview with Osama bin Laden, al-Jazeera, October 2001.
Ali Mohammed, taught: interview with Jack Cloonan.
Qari el-Said: interview with Abdullah Anas.
190 two months of 1994: Wiktorowicz, “The New Global Threat.”
“Thank God”: interview with Abdullah Anas.
“better image”: Evan Kohlmann, “The Legacy of the Arab-Afghans: A Case Study” (international politics honors thesis, Georgetown University, 2001).
“too flexible”: interview with Abdullah Anas.
More than a hundred thousand: Kepel, Jihad, 254.
chemical agents…smuggling: testimony of Jamal al-Fadl, U.S. v. Usama bin Laden, et al.
191 Jamal al-Fadl: interviews with Jack Cloonan and Mark Rossini.
The general wanted $1.5 million: testimony of Jamal al-Fadl, U.S. v. Usama bin Laden, et al. Mohammed Loay Baizid (Abu Rida al-Suri), who allegedly purchased the “uranium” for bin Laden, claims that this entire episode never happened. His statement is supported by Hassabulla Omer, who was working in Sudanese intelligence at the time. Both men say there were similar rumors and scams operating in Khartoum that might have been the basis for Fadl’s testimony.
191 red mercury: personal correspondence with Roy Schwitters.
nuclear warheads: Anonymous, Through Our Enemies’ Eyes, 125.
192 Ansar al-Sunnah Mosque: Details about the assassination attempt come from Mohammed Ibrahim Naqd, “The First Attempt to Assassinate bin Laden Was Attempted by a Libyan Who Was Trained in Lebanon,” Al-Hayat, November 18, 2001; and Ibrahim Hassan Ardi, “Al-Watan Places the Period the Head of al-Qaeda Spent in Sudan,” Al-Watan, October 25, 2001; “Ossama bin-Ladin: Muslims Who Live in Europe Are Kafirs,” Rose al-Yousef, December 9, 1996; al-Hammadi, “The Inside Story of al-Qa’ida,” part 3, March 21, 2005; and from interviews with Issam al-Turabi, Sadiq el-Mahdi, Hassabulla Omer, and Khaled Yusuf. A number of sources state that there were actually two assassination attempts on bin Laden, sometimes given as being several weeks apart, but those reports stem from bin Laden himself, who counts the shooting at the mosque the night before as an attempt on his life.
suffered from asthma: interview with Jamal Khalifa. Some of the details about bin Laden’s son Abdullah come from al-Hammadi, “The Inside Story of al-Qa’ida,” part 3, March 21, 2005.
“At that moment”: “Ossama bin-Ladin: Muslims Who Live in Europe Are Kafirs,” Rose al-Yousef, December 9, 1996.
193 “They had targeted”: ibid.
“regimes in our Arabic region”: Wright, “The Man Behind bin Laden.”
Egyptian intelligence: interview with Jamal Khashoggi.
CIA believed: interview with Michael Scheuer.
kept their university jobs: interview with anonymous Sudanese source.
194 “We have not been”: interview with Jamal Khalifa.
It was Egypt: ibid.
195 Fahd personally decided: interview with Saeed Badeeb.
“Take it,”: “Walidee Ramama al-Aqsa Bilkhasara” [My Father Renovated al-Aqsa Mosque, with a Loss], Al-Umma al-Islamiyya, October 18, 1991.
seeking asylum: Daniel McGrory, “The Day When Osama bin Laden Applied for Asylum—in Britain,” Times, September 29, 2005.
about $7 million: interview with bin Laden family spokesperson.
196 depended on the monthly stipend: interview with Jamal Khalifa.
spreading money around: interview with Hassabulla Omer.
rock-crushing machines: Benjamin Weiser, “Ex-Aide Tells of Plot to Kill bin Laden,” New York Times, February 21, 2001.
“Business is very bad”: testimony of Jamal al-Fadl, U.S. v. Usama bin Laden, et al. Interview with Mohammed Loay Baizid.
197 “lost all my money”: testimony of L’Houssaine Kherchtou, U.S. v. Usama bin Laden, et al.
a billionaire: testimony of Jamal al-Fadl, U.S. v. Usama bin Laden, et al.
nearly $1 million: ibid. The actual amounts were $795,200.49 from the Witness Protection Program and $151,047.02 from the FBI. That does not include money that may have been given to Fadl by the CIA, who were the first to interview him.
New Jersey Lottery: interview with Jack Cloonan.
198 two cameras: ibid.
“Bin Laden looked”: plea, U.S. v. Ali Mohamed.
199 “I am tired”: Hasin al-Banyan, “The Oldest Arab Afghan Talks to ‘Al-Sharq al-Awsat’ About His Career That Finally Landed Him in Prison in Saudi Arabia,” trans. FBIS, Al-Sharq al-Awsat, November 25, 2001.
Medani al-Tayeb: interview with Jamal Khalifa.
several delegations: Anonymous, Through Our Enemies’ Eyes, 146.
“It means that Abdullah”: interview with Mohammed Loay Baizid.
conciliatory note: interview with Jamal Khashoggi.
if he pledged to give up jihad: interview with Ahmed Badeeb.
11. The Prince of Darkness
202 “O’Neill”: interview with Richard A. Clarke.
203 “nightclub wardrobe”: interview with Steven Simon.
204 paint its jet: interview with Admiral Paul E. Busick.
$12 million: Naftali, Blind Spot, 242.
205 Su-Casa: Reeve, New Jackals, 104.
207 “Sons of John”: interview with Mark Rossini.
209 “This battle is not between al-Qaeda and the U.S.”: Taysir Aluni interview with Osama bin Laden, al-Jazeera, October 2001.
210 new basing agreements: interview with Richard A. Clarke.
former Egyptian minister: Alain Geresh, From Index on Censorship, www.geocities.com/saudhouse_p/endofan.htm, April 1996.
211 “Why would my car”: Kevin Dennehy, “Cape Man Relives Close Call with Terrorist Bombing While in Saudi Arabia,” Cape Cod Times, October 25, 2001.
torturing confessions: A vivid account of the roundup and torture of Arab Afghans following the 1995 bombing can be found in Jerichow, The Saudi File, 136-40.
Farouk camp: Kohlmann, Al-Qaida’s Jihad in Europe, 158.
nearly identical confessions: Teitelbaum, Holier Than Thou, 76.
“heroes”: Anonymous, Through Our Enemies’ Eyes, 141.
fatwa urging jihad: Salah Najm and Jamal Ismail, “Osama bin Laden: The Destruction of the Base,” al-Jazeera, June 10, 1999.
212 “first terrorist blow”: Prince Turki al-Faisal speech to Seton Hall University, October 14, 2003.
12. The Boy Spies
213 Egyptian intelligence learned: Al-Ahram, July 5, 1995.
214 married local women: interview with David Shinn.
smuggled weapons: interview with Sadiq al-Mahdi.
motivational talk: Al-Ahram, July 5, 1995.
The plan: interview with Saeed Badeeb.
Mubarak’s plane: interview with Hisham Kassem.
grenade launcher malfunctioned: interview with Mohammed el-Shafey.
return to the airport: interview with Saeed Badeeb.
“The sons”: Petterson, Inside Sudan, 179.
215 Houses were burned: interview with Hisham Kassem.
thousands of suspects: Human-rights organizations estimate the number of Islamists still incarcerated in Egypt at 15,000; Islamists put the figure at 60,000.
fiendish plan: interviews with Yassir el-Sirri, Montassir el-Zayyat, and Hani el-Sibai.
a senior member: Mohammed el-Shafey, “Al-Zawahiri’s Secret Papers,” part 6, Al-Sharq al-Awsat, December 18, 2002.
“It could even”: interview with Yassir el-Sirri.
216 “state within a state”: Mohammed el-Shafey, “Al-Zawahiri’s Secret Papers,” part 6, Al-Sharq al-Awsat, December 18, 2002.
fewer than a hundred: confessions of Ahmed Ibrahim al-Sayed al-Najjar, “Returnees from Albania” case, September 1998.
“These are bad times”: ibid.
217 November 19, 1995: The account of the Egyptian Embassy bombing comes from al-Hammadi, “The Inside Story of al-Qa’ida,” part 9, March 28, 2005.
cab driver: “Al-Qaida, Usama bin Laden’s Vehicle for Action,” unsigned CIA document, July 12, 2001. The document describes Abu Khabab as a “limousine driver,” which in the Middle East is usually a euphemism for cab driver.
218 government rounded up: interview with Ismail Khan.
there were no innocents: Maha Azzam, “Al-Qaeda: The Misunderstood Wahhabi Connection and the Ideology of Violence,” Royal Institute of International Affairs Briefing Paper No. 1, February 2003.
“A man may”: Sahih Bukhari, vol. 8, bk. 77, no. 60.
219 “a generation of mujahideen”: Mohammed el-Shafey, “Al-Zawahiri’s Secret Papers,” part 6, Al-Sharq al-Awsat, December 18, 2002.
“Do you remember”: interview with Issam al-Turabi.
his right testicle: Randal, Osama, 147.
French had issued a similar indictment: interview with Ghazi Salah Eddin Atabani.
220 “if he apologizes”: interview with Timothy Carney.
“We are ready”: interview with Elfatih Erwa. Both Richard A. Clarke, who was the national coordinator for security, infrastructure protection, and counterterrorism at the time, and his deputy Steven Simon dispute the point that the Sudanese ever formally offered bin Laden to the United States, but neither man was in the meeting, and it seems clear that the director of national security at the time, Sandy Berger, did explore the possibility of accepting bin Laden. The 9/11 Commission, however, stated that it found “no credible evidence” that Erwa had made the offer. 9/11 Commission Report, 110.
221 nurtured the fantasy: Barton Gellman, “U.S. Was Foiled Multiple Times in Efforts to Capture bin Laden or Have Him Killed,” Washington Post, October 3, 2001.
Bashir offered: “Arabs and Muslims Must Break Barriers, Contact Others: Turki,” Saudi Gazette, November 11, 2002.
“Give us proof”: interview with Ahmed Badeeb.
“Ask him to leave”: interview with Ahmed Badeeb.
Turabi and bin Laden argued: al-Hammadi, “The Inside Story of al-Qa’ida,” part 3, March 21, 2005.
222 Turabi did bin Laden the favor: Jason Burke, “The Making of bin Laden: Part 1,” Observer, October 28, 2001.
$12 million: Robert Block, “In the War Against Terrorism, Sudan Struck a Blow by Fleecing bin Laden,” Wall Street Journal, December 3, 2001.
“a mixture”: ibid.
223 check for $2,400: testimony of L’Houssaine Kherchtou, U.S. v. Usama bin Laden, et al.
Tupolev jet: interview with Jack Cloonan.
Two of bin Laden’s young sons: al-Hammadi, “The Inside Story of al-Qa’ida,” part 3, March 21, 2005.
He held America responsible: interview with Jamal Khashoggi.
13. Hijira
224 given him money: interview with Ahmed Badeeb.
abducted children: interview with Rahimullah Yusufzai.
225 disabled 4 percent: Tim Friend, “Millions of Land Mines Hinder Afghan Recovery,” USA Today, November 27, 2001.
most of them orphans: According to Thomas Gouttierre, director of the Center for Afghanistan Studies at the University of Nebraska-Omaha, 80 percent of the Taliban forces were orphans from the Soviet war. Anna Mulrine, “Unveiled Threat,” U.S. News and World Report, October 15, 2001.
three former mujahideen: Burke, Al-Qaeda, 145.
Younis Khalis: interview with Rahimullah Yusufzai.
teenage brides: Coll, Ghost Wars, 327.
226 hired pilots: U.S. Embassy (Islamabad) confidential cable, “Finally, a Talkative Talib: Origins and Membership of the Religious Students’ Movement,” February 20, 1995.
four Talibs in a jeep: interview with anonymous Pakistani diplomat.
lost his right eye: Arnaud de Borchgrave, “Osama bin Laden—‘Null and Void,’ ” UPI, June 14, 2001.
crack marksman: Ismail Khan, “Mojaddedi Opposes Elevation of Taliban’s Omar,” Islamabad the News, April 6, 1996.
passable Arabic: interview with Farraj Ismail.
227 “Corruption and moral disintegration”: Zaidan, Bin Laden Bila Qina’.
vision of the Prophet: U.S. Embassy (Islamabad) confidential cable, “Finally, a Talkative Talib: Origins and Membership of the Religious Students’ Movement,” February 20, 1995.
2,500 men: Nojumi, The Rise of the Taliban, 118.
students in a vocational school: Coll, Ghost Wars, 294-95.
three million Afghan refugees: interview with Prince Turki al-Faisal.
Sufi shrines: Juan Cole, personal communication.
228 monthly stipend: Nojumi, The Rise of the Taliban, 119.
beggars and sissies: Lamb, The Sewing Circles of Heart, 105.
twelve thousand fighters: Burke, Al-Qaeda, 113.
228 10 percent tax: Nojumi, The Rise of the Taliban, 136.
229 tents for the wives: Robert Fisk, “Small Comfort in bin-Ladin’s Dangerous Exile,” Independent, July 11, 1996.
former Soviet collective: Jason Burke, “The Making of bin Laden: Part 1,” Observer, October 28, 2001.
Najm al-Jihad: “The Story of the Arab Afghans from the Time of Arrival in Afghanistan Until Their Departure with the Taliban, part 3,” Al-Sharq al-Awsat, December 10, 2004.
men bunked nearby: interview with Rahimullah Yusufzai.
trade in honey: interview with Peter L. Bergen.
Electricity: Mohammed el-Shafey, “Son of al-Qai’da Financier: ‘Lived Next to bin Ladin’s Family, Who Disliked Electricity and Called for Austerity,’ ” Al-Sharq al-Awsat, April 16, 2004.
no international telephone: Robert Fisk, “Small Comfort in bin-Ladin’s Dangerous Exile,” Independent, July 11, 1996.
Americans were monitoring: Actually, according to Jack Cloonan, U.S. intelligence did not learn about the phone until 1997.
He was suspicious: “Biography of Usamah bin-Ladin, Written by Brother Mujahid with Minor Modifications,” Islamic Observation Center, April 22, 2000. Translated by FBIS.
killed in an ambush: Burke, Al-Qaeda, 156.
taught his wives: “The Story of the Arab Afghans from the Time of Arrival in Afghanistan Until Their Departure with the Taliban, Part 3,” Al-Sharq al-Awsat, December 10, 2004. Translated by FBIS.
230 “We don’t want subversive”: Tim McGirk, “Home Away from Home,” Time, December 16, 1996.
beaten and tortured: Rashid, Taliban, 49.
“Women you should”: from appendix 1 of ibid., 217ff. Rashid reproduced the Taliban decrees that had been translated from Dari and passed to reporters. He left the grammar and spelling as in the original. Statistics of female employment come from Anna Mulrine, “Unveiled Threat,” U.S. News and World Report, October 15, 2001.
231 “unclean things”: Amy Waldman, “No TV, No Chess, No Kites: Taliban’s Code, from A to Z,” New York Times, November 22, 2001.
“Beatle-ly”…“her home will be marked”: ibid.
only animals that survived: interview with Bahram Rahman.
“Throw reason”: Burke, Al-Qaeda, 111.
232 overloaded ferry: testimony of Ashif Mohamed Juma, U.S. v. Usama bin Laden, et al.
234 “You are not unaware”: Osama bin Laden, “Declaration of War Against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places,” Al-Quds al-Arabi, August 23, 1996.
235 secretary for…Sayyaf: interview with Yosri Fouda.
poorly trained: Fouda and Fielding, Masterminds of Terror, 116.
month in the Philippines: interview with Frank Pellegrino.
“Bojinka”: 9/11 Commission Report, 488 n. Previous reports have erroneously stated that the term was a Serbo-Croatian word for “big bang.”
236 Haruki Ikegami: Reeve, The New Jackals, 79.
did not know Yousef: interview with Jamal Khashoggi, who says bin Laden “swore” to him that he did not know Yousef. Yousef did spend time in al-Qaeda camps and safe houses in 1989, however, and may have been in Peshawar at the same time that bin Laden was mediating the civil war in Afghanistan. Coll, Ghost Wars, 249. Mohammed Saleh, the Al-Hayat correspondent in Cairo, told me that Ramzi Yousef and bin Laden met in Pakistan, but he would not reveal the source of this information.
sent a messenger: Reeve, The New Jackals, 76.
sent to bin Laden diagrams: interview with Michael Scheuer.
kill Pope John Paul II: Reeve, The New Jackals, 86.
training pilots: 9/11 Commission Report, 149.
14. Going Operational
237 Khobar Towers: interviews with John Lipka, Dale Watson, Jack Cloonan, and anonymous political officer in Riyadh; Freeh, My FBI, 11ff. Kenneth M. Pollack, in personal communication, writes, “The Saudis fully concurred with our conclusion that Iran was behind Khobar Towers. I never heard the slightest hint that they believed al-Qa’eda was responsible. However, because they had begun their rapprochement with Tehran—and especially after Muhammad Khatemi’s election in Iran—it was our strong sense that they did not want us to be able to reach that definitive conclusion for fear that we would either want to mount a retaliatory strike against the Iranians or feel compelled to do so.” Richard A. Clarke and Steven Simon have expressed similar sentiments in interviews. The 9/11 Commission, however, leaves open the possibility of a connection between the Khobar Towers bombing and al-Qaeda, saying that there was “strong but indirect evidence” that the organization “did in fact play some as yet unknown role.” Douglas Jehl, “No Saudi Payment to Qaeda Is Found,” New York Times, June 19, 2004. That evidence has not been made public, however. According to Michael Scheuer, the link was made in a memorandum prepared by the CIA and turned over to the commission.
238 “Wasn’t that a great trip?”: interview with Richard A. Clarke. Freeh, in personal communication, denies this exchange took place. O’Neill told many others the same story, however.
239 It was Naif who decided: interview with anonymous former U.S. State Department official.
“Maybe you have”: interview with Rihab Massoud.
“go operational”: interview with John Lipka.
240 “got this town wired”: interview with R. P. Eddy.
241 TWA Flight 800: interviews with Richard A. Clarke, Tom Corrigan, and Tom Lang.
Alec Station: interviews with Daniel Coleman and Michael Scheuer.
243 “Send ten green papers”: exhibit from U.S. v. Usama bin Laden, et al.
six children: bail hearing, U.S. v. Usama bin Laden, et al.
Coleman put the women: interview with Daniel Coleman.
244 “Would you like”: interview with Daniel Coleman.
15. Bread and Water
245 They flattered him: Abdel Bari Atwan, “Interview with Saudi oppositionist Usmah bin-Ladin,” Al-Quds al-Arabi, November 27, 1996.
endorsed their rule: Burke, “The Making of bin Laden: Part 1,” Observer, October 28, 2001.
television crew: Bergen, Holy War, 17ff.
247 sent a helicopter: al-Hammadi, “The Inside Story of al-Qa’ida,” part 5, March 23, 2005.
plot…to kidnap: “Walidee Ramama al-Aqsa Bilkhasara” [My Father Renovated al-Aqsa Mosque, with a Loss], Al-Umma al-Islamiyya, October 18, 1991.
248 “We want a simple life”: al-Hammadi, “The Inside Story of al-Qa’ida,” part 5, March 23, 2005.
about eighty mud-brick: Coll, Ghost Wars, 391.
“in perfect harmony”: al-Hammadi, “The Inside Story of al-Qa’ida,” part 6, March 24, 2005.
two T-55 Soviet tanks: Clarke, Against All Enemies, 149.
“May God be praised”: al-Hammadi, “The Inside Story of al-Qa’ida,” part 6, March 24, 2005.
249 Switzerland: “Secrets of Relations Among al-Zawaheri, ben Ladan, and Hezb ul-Tahrir in Terrorist Operations in Europe” [sic], Al-Watan al-Arabi, October 13, 1995. Translated by FBIS. One of Zawahiri’s associates testified in Egypt that he had had telephone contacts with Zawahiri in Geneva. Khalid Sharaf-al-Din, “Surprises in the Trial of the Largest International Fundamentalist Organization in Egypt,” Al-Sharq al-Awsat, March 6, 1999. Translated by FBIS. The Swiss villa is from “Al-Jihad Terrorist Claims Strong CIA-Terrorist Ties,” MENA, September 8, 1996. Yassir al-Sirri, who was close to al-Jihad, maintained in an interview that Zawahiri never lived in Switzerland, but Zawahiri’s cousin Maha Azzam says he did.
Bulgaria: interview with Saeed Badeeb.
Copenhagen: interview with Jesper Stein; Michael Taarnby Jensen, personal correspondence.
fake passport: Andrew Higgins and Alan Cullison, “Terrorist’s Odyssey: Saga of Dr. Zawahri [sic] Illuminates Roots of al-Qaeda Terror,” Wall Street Journal, July 2, 2002.
satellite television channel: Wright, “The Man Behind bin Laden,” New Yorker, September 16, 2002.
“Conditions there”: Andrew Higgins and Alan Cullison, “Terrorist’s Odyssey: Saga of Dr. Zawahri [sic] Illuminates Roots of al-Qaeda Terror,” Wall Street Journal, July 2, 2002.
“If the Chechens”: al-Zawahiri, “Knights Under the Prophet’s Banner,” part 7.
250 four passports: C. J. Chivers and Steven Lee Myers, “Chechen Rebels Mainly Driven by Nationalism,” New York Times, September 12, 2004.
“God blinded them”: Andrew Higgins and Alan Cullison, “Terrorist’s Odyssey: Saga of Dr. Zawahri [sic] Illuminates Roots of al-Qaeda Terror,” Wall Street Journal, July 2, 2002.
ISI subsidizing: Benjamin and Simon, The Age of Sacred Terror, 146.
purchase some expensive vehicles: Vahid Mojdeh, in Bergen, The Osama bin Laden I Know, 164.
a hundred-dollar-per-month: confessions of Ahmed Ibrahim al-Sayed al-Najjar, “Returnees from Albania” case, September 1998.
250 people: Abdurrahman Khadr, in Bergen, The Osama bin Laden I Know, 173.
251 “This place is worse”: Alan Cullison and Andrew Higgins, “Strained Alliance: Inside al-Qaeda’s Afghan Turmoil,” Wall Street Journal, August 2, 2002.
254 play Nintendo: Abdel Bari Atwan, in Bergen, The Osama bin Laden I Know, 170.
255 Azza: interview with Maha Elsamneh.
nonviolence initiative: interview with Montassir al-Zayyat.
256 twenty thousand Islamists: Weaver, A Portrait of Egypt, 264. Weaver estimates the number of Islamists slain to be between seven and eight thousand, 267.
released two thousand: Rubin, Islamic Fundamentalism, 161.
“The political translation”: Mohammed el-Shafey, “Al-Zawahiri’s Secret Papers,” part 5, Al-Sharq al-Awsat, December 17, 2002. Translated by FBIS.
bargaining chip: interview with Hisham Kassem.
257 three thousand security: Weaver, A Portrait of Egypt, 272.
red headbands: Douglas Jehl, “70 Die in Attack at Egypt Temple,” New York Times, November 18, 1997.
“No to tourists”: Weaver, A Portrait of Egypt, 259.
dead included: Alan Cowell, “At a Swiss Airport, 36 Dead, Home from Luxor,” New York Times, November 20, 1997; also, Douglas Jehl, “At Ancient Site Along the Nile, Modern Horror,” New York Times, November 19, 1997.
258 Rifai Taha said: Anonymous, Through Our Enemies’ Eyes, 199.
bin Laden had financed: Jailan Halawi, “Bin Laden Behind Luxor Massacre?” Al-Ahram Weekly, May 20-26, 1999.
“The young men”: Lawrence Wright, “The Man Behind bin Laden,” New Yorker, September 16, 2002.
“We thought we’d never”: interview with Hisham Kassem.
259 The main point: Fu’ad Husayn, “Al-Zarqawi…The Second Generation of al-Qa’ida, Part Fourteen,” Al-Quds al-Arabi, July 13, 2005.
who was responsible: al-Zawahiri, “Knights Under the Prophet’s Banner,” part 11.
Zawahiri began writing: Kenneth M. Karas summation, U.S. v. Usama bin Laden, et al.
260 lamely explaining: Zayyat, The Road to al-Qaeda, 89.
“dark past”: Mohammed el-Shafey, “Al-Zawahiri’s Secret Papers,” part 2, trans. FBIS, Al-Sharq al-Awsat, December 14, 2002.
“If the Contractor”: Mohammed el-Shafey, “Al-Qaeda’s Secret Emails,” part 2, trans. FBIS, June 13, 2005.
261 pledged to resign: al-Zayyat, The Road to al-Qaeda, 109.
Zawahiri’s own brother: interview with Hani al-Sibai.
“I myself heard”: confessions of Ahmed Ibrahim al-Sayed al-Najjar, “Returnees from Albania” case, September 1998.
16. “Now It Begins”
262 thirty Algerians…Young men from Yemen: Burke, Al-Qaeda, 186.
263 staged and cartoonish: interview with Ismail Khan.
“Let’s talk”: interview with Rahimullah Yusufzai.
“Terrorism can be commendable”: www.pbs.org/frontline.
he wouldn’t speak: al-Hammadi, “The Inside Story of al-Qa’ida,” part 6, March 24, 2005.
kidney disease: interview with Rahimullah Yusufzai.
264 ‘Owhali…Azzam: testimony of Stephen Gaudin, U.S. v. Usama bin Laden, et al.
erased the Saudis’ faces: Miller, Stone, and Mitchell, The Cell, 192.
265 kidnap bin Laden: interviews with Michael Scheuer, Dale Watson, Mark Rossini, Daniel Coleman, and Richard A. Clarke.
267 “Finish this”: interview with Prince Turki al-Faisal.
left town: interview with Michael Scheuer.
268 “Are you agreed”: The meeting with Mullah Omar is largely Turki’s firsthand account. Michael Scheuer says, based on CIA coverage of the meeting, that Omar and Turki quarreled, with Omar reportedly saying, “Your highness, I have just one question: When did the royal family become lackeys of the Americans?”
four hundred four-wheel-drive…Mazar-e-Sharif: Rashid, Taliban, 72-73.
several hundred Arabs: ibid., 139.
Ahmed Salama Mabruk: interviews with Daniel Coleman, Mark Rossini, and Montassir al-Zayyat.
269 tortured: interview with Hafez Abu-Saada.
270 Saleh: His real name is Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah, also known as Abu Mohammed el-Masri. He has never been captured. Interview with Ali Soufan; also, testimony of Stephen Gaudin, U.S. v. Usama bin Laden, et al.
273 “Now it begins”: interview with Daniel Coleman.
274 Nairobi: interviews with Pascuale “Pat” D’Amuro, Stephen Gaudin, Mark Rossini, and Kenneth Maxwell.
passports: interview with Ali Soufan.
Stephen Gaudin: interview with Stephen Gaudin.
275 five American embassies: interview with Mark Rossini.
277 Ahmed al-Hada: interviews with Pascuale “Pat” D’Amuro, Daniel Coleman, and Ali Soufan.
called the number: FBI document, “PENTBOM Major Case 182 AOT-IT,” November 5, 2001.
279 “Kissinger’s Promise”: testimony of Stephen Gaudin, U.S. v. Usama bin Laden, et al.
“connections”: interview with Mary Lynn Stevens.
issuing threats: interview with Grant Ashley.
281 raising money: interview with Michael Rolince.
bypass surgery: interview with Paul Garmirian.
282 Jamal al-Fadl: interview with Mark Rossini.
hired a spy: interview with Milt Bearden. Bearden thinks the foreign asset was either Egyptian or Tunisian.
283 If surveillance aircraft: interview with Admiral Bob Inman.
refused to share the raw data: interview with Michael Scheuer.
284 “Where do you think”: al-Hammadi, “The Inside Story of al-Qa’ida,” part 9, March 28, 2005.
“Can you at least”: interview with Abdul Rahman Khadr.
285 twenty-two Afghans: U.S. Department of State confidential cable, “Osama bin Laden: Taliban Spokesman Seeks New Proposal for Resolving bin Laden Problem,” November 28, 1998. Hospital sources and Pakistani officials counted eleven dead, and fifty-three wounded. Ismail Khan, “Varying versions,” Islamabad the News, August 30, 1998.
“Each house”: al-Hammadi, “The Inside Story of al-Qa’ida,” part 9, March 28, 2005.
bin Laden sold the unexploded missiles: Murad Ahmad, “Report Cites Russian ‘Documents’ on bin Ladin’s Past,” Al-Majellah, December 23, 2001.
286 “survived the attack”: interview with Rahimullah Yusufzai.
17. The New Millennium
287 Mullah Omar placed a secret call: U.S. Department of State confidential cable, “Afghanistan: Taliban’s Mullah Omar’s 8/22 Contact with State Department,” August 22, 1998.
furious: interview with Rahimullah Yusufzai.
He judged: U.S. Embassy (Islamabad) cable, “SITREP 6: Pakistan/Afghanistan Reaction to U.S. Strikes,” August 25, 1998.
288 “I shed tears”: Robert Fisk, “Bin Laden’s Secrets Are Revealed by al-Jazeera Journalist,” Independent, October 23, 2002.
“We consider you”: Burke, Al-Qaeda, 168.
fishing: Stephen Braun and Judy Pasternak, “Long Before Sept. 11, bin Laden Aircraft Flew Under the Radar,” Los Angeles Times, November 18, 2001.
“This time”: interview with Prince Turki al-Faisal.
289 on drugs: “Spiegel Interview: ‘And Then Mullah Omar Screamed at Me,’ ” Der Spiegel, March 8, 2004. Translated by Christopher Sultan.
they were easily relocated: interview with Abdul Rahman Khadr.
290 “There is no need”: al-Hammadi, “The Inside Story of al-Qa’ida,” part 6, March 24, 2005.
“Did you expect”: ibid.
291 military objected: 9/11 Commission Report, 131.
292 “burned out”: interview with Michael Scheuer.
294 “Catholic thing”: interview with Grant Ashley.
295 “Gee, John”: interview with anonymous FBI agent.
paying the mortgage: Weiss, The Man Who Warned America, 279.
borrowing money: interview with Joe Cantemessa.
“common strategy”: Anonymous, Through Our Enemies’ Eyes, 124.
the prophesied Mahdi: interview with Ahmed Badeeb.
stop backing anti-Saddam insurgents: 9/11 Commission Report, 61.
295 met the Iraqi dictator: Jeffrey Goldberg, “The Great Terror,” New Yorker, March 25, 2002.
296 Iraqi intelligence officials flew: 9/11 Commission Report, 66.
Zawahiri went to Baghdad: “Iraq: Former PM Reveals Secret Service Data on Birth of al-Qaeda in Iraq,” Aki, May 23, 2005.
297 piece of the infrastructure: interview with Lewis Schiliro.
The CIA warned: statement of Samuel R. Berger, Joint Congressional Inquiry, September 19, 2002.
“Hey, we’ve got something”: Robert Draper, “The Plot to Blow Up LAX,” GQ, December 2001.
298 Times Square: interviews with Joseph Dunne and Mark Rossini.
“If they’re gonna”: Clarke, Against All Enemies, 214.
299 Night of Power: interview with Robert McFadden.
18. Boom
301 middle or upper: interview with Marc Sageman. Many of the statistics derive from his important study, Understanding Terror Networks.
mental disorders: Sageman remarks that “only four of the 400 men [in his sample] had any hint of a disorder. This is below the worldwide base rate for thought disorders.” Marc Sageman, “Understanding Terror Networks,” E-Notes, Foreign Policy Research Institute, November 1, 2004.
middle-class professionals: Nick Fielding, “Osama’s Recruits Well-Schooled,” Sunday Times, April 3, 2005.
young, single men: interview with Abdullah Anas.
Shia Muslims had participated: interview with Abdullah Anas.
ten and twenty thousand trainees: 9/11 Commission Report, 66. Sageman privately estimates the number of recruits during this period was no more than five thousand.
302 utopian goals: Bernstein, Out of the Blue, 86.
three main stages: al-Hammadi, “The Inside Story of al-Qa’ida,” part 5, March 23, 2005.
303 “enemies of Islam”: interview with Ali Soufan.
“shooting the personality”: David Rohde and C. J. Chivers, “Al-Qaeda’s Grocery Lists and Manuals of Killing,” New York Times, March 17, 2002.
Kamikaze Camp: Abu Zayd, “After Ben Ladan’s Return to Afghanistan and Revival of Fundamentalist Alliance,” Al-Watan al-Arabi, June 7, 1996.
Arnold Schwarzenegger: interview with Jack Cloonan. The author’s own movie, The Siege, was also viewed by al-Qaeda members.
“the destructive power”: Alan Cullison and Andrew Higgins, “Computer in Kabul Holds Chilling Memos,” Wall Street Journal, December 31, 2001.
304 five hours to die: undated, unsigned document, “CIA Report on the Zawahiri Brothers.”
Yazid Sufaat: “Is al-Qaeda Making Anthrax?” CBS News, October 9, 2003; Eric Lipton, “Qaeda Letters Are Said to Show Pre-9/11 Anthrax Plans,” New York Times, May 21, 2005.
preferred nuclear bombs: “The Story of the Afghan Arabs,” Al-Sharq al-Awsat, part 1, December 8, 2004.
305 Hamburg: interviews with Georg Mascolo, Josef Joffe, Jochen Bittner, Manfred Murck, and Cordula Meyer.
200,306: “The Hamburg Connection,” BBC News, August 19, 2005.
306 “a good man”: 9/11 Commission Report, 165.
307 “elegant”: John Crewdson, “From Kind Teacher to Murderous Zealot,” Chicago Tribune, September 11, 2004.
“I had a difficult”: Brian Ross, “Face to Face with a Terrorist,” ABC News, June 6, 2002.
signed a standardized will: Fouda and Fielding, Masterminds of Terror, 82.
Atta was enraged: Nicholas Hellen, John Goetz, Ben Smalley, and Jonathan Ungoed-Thomas, “God’s Warrior,” Sunday Times, January 13, 2002.
“planes operation”: ibid., 154.
308 spring of 1999: “Substitution for the Testimony of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed,” U.S. v. Moussaoui.
only ones involved: 9/11 Commission Report, 155.
“America is:” “Bin Laden’s Sermon for the Feast of the Sacrifice,” MEMRI Special Dispatch Series—No. 476, www.memri.org, March 5, 2003.
Sears Tower: Paul Martin, “Chicago, L.A. Towers Were Next Targets,” Washington Times, March 30, 2004.
309 Nawaf al-Hazmi: Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001, 131; and Der Spiegel, Inside 9-11, 16.
Khaled al-Mihdhar: Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001, 131; interview with Ali Soufan; and Eric Watkins, personal communication.
Ramadan: Georg Mascolo, “Operation Holy Tuesday,” Der Spiegel, October 27, 2003.
bin al-Shibh: interview with Ali Soufan.
310 “Something nefarious”: 9/11 Commission Report, 353.
311 CIA already had the names: interview with Saeed Badeeb.
“We need to continue the effort”: “Three 9/11 Hijackers: Identification, Watchlisting, and Tracking,” Staff Statement No. 2, 4, National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States.
“This is not a matter”: interview with Mark Rossini.
“Is this a no go”: Miller is identified as “Dwight” in “A Review of the FBI’s Handling of Intelligence Information Related to the September 11 Attacks,” Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, November 2004, 233.
313 drowning in a flood of threats: interview with an anonymous CIA employee of Alec Station, who told me, “The real miracle is that there was only one major failure.”
twelve employees: The 9/11 Commission Report, 479.
“Manson Family”: Steve Coll, “A Secret Hunt Unravels in Afghanistan,” Washington Post, February 22, 2004.
314 Bayoumi: Michael Isikoff and Evan Thomas, “The Saudi Money Trail,” Newsweek, December 2, 2002; 9/11 Commission Report, 215-18; Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001, 172-74; “A Review of the FBI’s Handling of Intelligence Information Related to the September 11 Attacks,” Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, November 2004, 325.
315 going nowhere: interview with Jack Cloonan.
318 “centralization”: al-Hammadi, “The Inside Story of al-Qa’ida,” part 4, March 22, 2005.
USS The Sullivans: 9/11 Commission Report, 190-91.
shaped charges: Benjamin and Simon, The Age of Sacred Terror, 323.
“Enough of words”: Bergen, Holy War, 186.
319 Aden: interview with anonymous former CIA officer.
USS Cole: interviews with Barbara Bodine, Kenneth Maxwell, Thomas Pickard, Pascuale “Pat” D’Amuro, Jim Rhody, Tom Donlon, Ali Soufan, Kevin Giblin, Barry Mawn, David Kelley, Mark Rossini, and Kevin Donovan; also, John O’Neill, “The Bombing of the U.S.S. Cole,” speech given at 19th Annual Government/Industry Conference on Global Terrorism, Political Instability, and International Crime, March 2001; Graham, Intelligence Matters, 60-61; Bergen, Holy War, 184-92; Weiss, The Man Who Warned America, 287-312; “The Man Who Knew,” www.pbs.org.¨
324 clear directives: interview with Michael Sheehan.
329 “errand boy”: interview with Ali Soufan.
Soufan queried the CIA: According to Soufan, “the agency went behind my back” to interview his source in Afghanistan in December 2000. The agency was sharing his source at this time, but in accordance with protocol, brought along the FBI legal attaché from Islamabad. At this time, the CIA officer had the source identify a surveillance photo of Khallad from the Malaysia meeting. This allowed the agency to correctly say that the FBI was present when the picture was shown; however, the interview was conducted in Arabic, a language that the FBI attaché didn’t speak, so he was unaware of what was actually transpiring.
331 Samsonite suitcases: “The Story of the Afghan Arabs,” Al-Sharq al-Awsat, part 4, December 12, 2004.
Bin Laden separated: 9/11 Commission Report, 191.
launching another missile: Clinton, My Life, 925.
hoped to lure: interview with Ali Soufan.
19. The Big Wedding
333 marriage: interviews with Ahmed Zaidan, Jamal Khalifa, and Maha Elsamneh; Zeidan, Bin Laden Bila Qina’, 109-58.
A destroyer: “Bin Laden Verses Honor Cole Attack,” Reuters, March 2, 2001.
334 sleeplessness: Abdullah bin Osama bin Laden says that his father was only sleeping two or three hours a night. “Bin Laden’s Son Defiant,” BBC, October 14, 2001.
Our men are in revolt: government exhibit, U.S. v. Moussaoui.
Dick Clarke: interview with Richard A. Clarke; also, Clarke, Against All Enemies, 225-34. The 9/11 Commission Report says that Clarke told Rice he wanted to be reassigned in May or June; he told me March.
335 Rice demurred: Philip Shenon and Eric Schmitt, “Bush and Clinton Aides Grilled by Panel,” New York Times, March 24, 2004.
eighty thousand dollars: interview with Valerie James. O’Neill’s base salary was $120,336.
336 “hot-blooded revolutionary”: Mohammed el-Shafey, “UBL’s Aide al-Zawahiri Attacks Jihad Members ‘Taking Refuge in Europe,’ ” Al-Sharq al-Awsat, April 23, 2001. Translated by FBIS.
337 Ahmed Shah Massoud: interview with Abdullah Anas; Kathy Gannon, “Osama Ordered Assassination,” Advertiser, August 16, 2002; Jon Lee Anderson, “Letter from Kabul: The Assassins,” New Yorker, June 10, 2002; Burke, Al-Qaeda, 177; Mike Boettcher and Henry Schuster, “How Much Did Afghan Leader Know?” CNN, November 6, 2003; 9/11 Commission Report, 139; Defense Intelligence Agency confidential cable, “IIR [Excised]/The Assassination of Massoud Related to 11 September 2001 Attack,” November 21, 2001; Benjamin and Simon, The Age of Sacred Terror, 338; Coll, Ghost Wars, 568.
338 “using an airplane”: Sam Tannehaus, “The C.I.A.’s Blind Ambition,” Vanity Fair, January 2002. Tannehaus reports the attack was going to be on the G-8 in Genoa, but Clarke told me that the tip involved a presidential assassination in Rome.
Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil: “Newspaper Says U.S. Ignored Terror Warning,” Reuters, September 7, 2002.
Jordanian intelligence: John K. Cooley, “Other Unheeded Warnings Before 9/11?” Christian Science Monitor, May 23, 2002.
Amal al-Sada: interview with Ali Soufan.
“Songs and merriment”: al-Hammadi, “The Inside Story of al-Qa’ida,” part 6, March 24, 2005.
mother chastised: interview with Ali Soufan.
339 “We’re going to kill”: interview with Richard A. Clarke.
340 “Something bad”: Dana Priest, “Panel Says Bush Saw Repeated Warnings,” Washington Post, April 13, 2004.
Intelink: Intelink is a handicapped system available to other intelligence agencies. It would have shown Gillespie only what was available to FBI intelligence. Had she looked on the Hercules system, the powerful CIA database that contained all the cables and NSA traffic and was available to her, she would have gotten a complete picture of the agency’s knowledge of Mihdhar and Hazmi.
June 11: interviews with Dina Corsi, Steven Bongardt, Ali Soufan, and Mark Rossini. Miller, Stone, and Mitchell, The Cell, 305; Cofer Black statement, September 20, 2002, Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001. Dina Corsi told me that she had written the names of Mihdhar and Hazmi on the backs of the photographs, so that the names were made available to the criminal agents on the I-49 squad, but Bongardt says he never saw them.
343 “the Wall”: interviews with Jack Cloonan, Ali Soufan, Pascuale “Pat” D’Amuro, Daniel Coleman, Admiral Bob Inman; 9/11 Commission Report, 78-80.
given birth: 9/11 Commission Report, 222.
344 Pink Floyd: interview with Ali Soufan.
O’Neill…in Spain: interviews with Mark Rossini, Valerie James, Enrique García, Emiliano Burdiel Pascual, and Teodoro Gómez Domínguez.
345 Atta…also in the country: interviews with José Maria Irujo, Keith Johnson, and Ramón Pérez Maura; Joint Congressional Inquiry, 139; Fouda and Fielding, Masterminds of Terror, 137.
346 Irish Republican Army: interview with Dan Coleman.
349 “The duties of this religion”: “Rede des Scheich usamma Bin LADEN anläßlich des Fitr-Festes erster schawal 1420.” [Speech of Sheikh Osama Bin Laden on the occasion of the Fitr celebration of the first schawal 1420], Motassadeq Document, Trans. Chester Rosson. I have modified some of the grammar and the stilted language, which was translated from Arabic to German to English.
350 alarming electronic communication: interviews with Jack Cloonan, Mark Rossini, and Daniel Coleman; Miller, Mitchell, and Stone, The Cell, 289; Joint Congressional Inquiry, 20. In FBI vernacular, an “electronic communication” is an e-mail that requires a response; it is not an informal document. It has superseded teletypes as a formal communication.
351 Zacarias Moussaoui: interviews with Richard A. Clarke and Michael Rolince; 9/11 Commission Report, 273-76.
Yazid Sufaat: 9/11 Commission Report, 151; “Entrepreneurs of Terrorism,” Weekend Australian, July 24, 2004.
“Today is”: Weiss, The Man Who Warned America, 350.
352 INS: interviews with Ali Soufan, Jack Cloonan, Mark Rossini, and Daniel Coleman; Eleanor Hill, “The Intelligence Community’s Knowledge of the September 11 Hijackers Prior to September 11, 2001,” Joint Inquiry Staff Statement, Joint Congressional Inquiry, September 20, 2002.
354 “I left because”: Roula Khalaf, “Dinner with the FT: Turki al-Faisal,” Financial Times, November 1, 2003.
“over-ripened fruit”: Paul Mcgeough, “The Puppeteer,” Sydney Morning Herald, October 8, 2002.
“huge burden”: Weiss, The Man Who Warned America, 359.
Massoud: Jon Lee Anderson, “Letter from Kabul: The Assassins,” New Yorker, June 10, 2002.
355 Mullah Mohammed Khaksar: Kathy Gannon, “Osama ‘Ordered Assassination,’ ” Advertiser, August 17, 2002.
“We’re overdue”: interviews with Jerome Hauer and Robert Tucker.
356 mountains above Khost: interview with Ali Soufan.
“We were playing”: videotape of bin Laden’s dinner with Sheikh Ali Saeed al-Ghamdi.
banned all talk of dreams: Sageman, Understanding Terror Networks, 117.
America in ashes: Peter Finn, “Hamburg’s Cauldron of Terror,” Washington Post, September 11, 2002.
357 nine thousand gallons: Der Spiegel, Inside 9-11, 50.
O’Neill helped usher: Weiss, The Man Who Warned America, 366.
“Wait, wait”: interview with Ali Soufan.
358 held up three fingers: Mike Boettcher, “Detainees Reveal bin Laden’s Reaction to Attacks,” CNN.com, September 10, 2002.
359 north tower: Details of the scene inside come from interviews with Kurt Kjeldsen and Michael Hingson; the video footage shot by Jules and Gedeon Naudet; Murphy, September 11; Fink and Mathias, Never Forget; and Smith, Report from Ground Zero.
“Is it true”: interview with Wesley Wong.
360 dust was a compound: Anthony DePalma, “What Happened to That Cloud of Dust?” New York Times, November 2, 2005.
20. Revelations
363 Quso and Abu Jandal interrogations: interviews with Ali Soufan and Robert McFadden.
368 special protocol: Weiss, The Man Who Warned America, 383.
370 “We planned”: John R. Bradley, “Definitive Translation of ‘Smoking Gun’ Tape.” www.johnrbradley.com/art_27.htm, July 15, 2004. translated by Ali al-Ahmed.
“I never knew”: interview with Maha Elsamneh.
371 Tora Bora: Smucker, Al-Qaeda’s Great Escape, 119-20.
“We were about”: bin Laden audiotape: “Message to Our Muslim Brothers in Iraq,” BBCNews.com, February 12, 2003.
“Only a few”: “Al-Majellah Obtains bin Ladin’s Will,” Al-Majellah, October 27, 1992. Translated by FBIS.
372 “I saw a heavy”: Ilene R. Prusher, “Two Top al-Qaeda Leaders Spotted,” Christian Science Monitor, March 26, 2002.