The Longest War (64 page)

12
charismatic Syrian physical education teacher
: Steve Coll,
The Bin Ladens
(New York: Penguin, 2008), pp. 144–146.

12
was religiously conservative already
: Jamal Khalifa, interviews by author, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, September 6 and 9, 2005.

12
more than just observing
: ibid.

13
married with a couple of toddlers
: bin Laden and Sasson op. cit., pp. 292–293.

13
found his religiosity a bit much
: Yeslam bin Laden, interview by Al Arabiya television, May 28, 2005.

13
died in a plane crash
: Osama bin Laden, Al Jazeera interview, 1999 op. cit.

13
fifty-four children
: Jamal Khalifa, interview by author, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, September 6 and 9, 2005.

13
“I am the one son”
: Hamid Mir, interview by author, Islamabad, Pakistan, September 1998.

14
twenty-five sons
: Khalifa op. cit.

14
founded the Services Office
: The section about Abdullah Azzam draws on my 2001 book,
Holy War Inc.
, pp. 56–59.

14
an influential fatwa
: Abdullah Azzam,
Defense of Muslim Lands: The Most Important Personal Duty
, published in booklet form by Modern Mission Library, Amman, 1984.

14
“The relationship between”
: Faraj Ismail, interview by author, Cairo, Egypt, June 2005.

14
“I feel so guilty”
: Basil Muhammed,
Al Ansar Al Arab fi Afghanistan
(“The Arab Volunteers in Afghanistan”).

14
most of his time
: Jamal Ismail, interview by author, Islamabad, Pakistan, March 2005.

15
Abdullah Anas
: Abdullah Anas, interview by author, London, UK, June 15, 17, and 20, 2005.

15
“He became more assertive, less shy”
: Khaled Batarfi, interviews by author, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, September 5 and 9, 2005.

15
no longer tolerate disagreement
: Jamal Khalifa, interviews by author, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, September 6 and 9, 2005.

15
ambitious plan
: This section draws on chapter 3 of
The Osama bin Laden I Know
(Bergen 2006).

15
the first thing
: Basil Muhammed,
Al Ansar Al Arab fi Afghanistan
(“The Arab Volunteers in Afghanistan”).

15
“Every drop of blood”
: Khalifa op. cit.

16
the making of bin Laden
: Essam Deraz, interviews by author, Cairo, Egypt, January 2000 and May 2005.

16
“sound of the explosions”
: Jamal Khashoggi, “Arab youths fight shoulder to shoulder with Mujahedeen,”
Al Majallah
(Issue #430), May 4, 1988.

16
ranged up to 175,000
: Mark Urban,
War In Afghanistan
(London: Macmillan, 1988), p. 244. According to Urban the total number of guerrillas that would be operating on any given day would not be below 35,000 and not above 175,000. Milt Bearden, who ran the CIA’s Afghan operation, says the maximum number of mujahideen at any given time was 250,000, but that figure includes mujahideen fighters who cycled through Pakistani refugee camps to see their families, or had to return to their native villages for harvesting, etc. Milt Bearden, interview by author, Washington, D.C., September 2000.

16
several hundred
: Abdullah Anas, interview by author, London, UK, June 15, 17, and 20, 2005.

16
no impact
: Bergen 2006 op. cit., p. 50.

17
“For God’s sake”
: Jamal Ismail, interview by author, Islamabad, Pakistan, March 2005.

17
“gentle, enthusiastic young man”
: Jamal Khashoggi, “Interview with Prince Turki al Faisal,”
Arab News
and MBC Television, November 4–9, 2001.

17
Azzam did not approve
: Anas op. cit.

17
“regime change”
: Ismail op. cit.

17
Osama Rushdi
: Osama Rushdi, interview by author, London, UK, August 9, 2005.

18
He was assassinated
: Bergen 2006 op. cit., p. 92.

18
“a volcanic temper”
: Bergen 2006 op. cit., p. 73.

18
The minutes of al-Qaeda’s founding meetings
: The documents are taken from the Government’s Evidentiary Proffer Supporting the Admissibility of Co-Conspirator Statements,
United States v. Enaam Arnaout
, No. 02-CR-892 (North District of Illinois, filed January 6, 2003). Some of this material can be found in the proffer. The information is also retained by Motley Rice, the lead law firm for the 9/11 victims’ families.

18
about a quarter
: Coll op. cit., p. 189.

18
“My husband and I”
: Sasson and bin Laden op cit, pp. 26–27.

18
urging Muslims to boycott American products
: Osama bin Laden interview by Taysir Allouni, Al Jazeera, south of Kabul, Afghanistan, October 20, 2001.

19
Pepsi and Coca-Cola
: Jamal Ismail, interview by author, Islamabad, Pakistan, March 2005.

19
Omar recalls
: Sasson and bin Laden op cit, p. 60.

19
“He changed”
: Turki op. cit.

19
“Women! Defending Saudi men!”
: Sasson and bin Laden op cit., p. 84.

19
an important impact
: Osama bin Laden, interview by Peter Arnett and CNN, late March 1997, eastern Afghanistan.

19
raising his own jihadist army
: Abu Musab al-Suri, a Syrian militant close to bin Laden recalled that during this period, “Osama’s main passion was the jihad in South Yemen.” Abu Musab al-Suri,
The Call for Global Islamic Resistance
, posted on the Internet in December 2004.

19
was given a passport
: Khaled al-Hammadi, “Bin Laden’s former bodyguard interviewed on al-Qaeda strategies,”
Al-Quds al-Arabi
, in Arabic, August 3, 2004 and March 20–April 4, 2005.

20
sold their properties
: Rushdi op. cit.

20
“head of the snake”
: United States v. Usama bin Laden, et al. S(7) 98 Cr. 1023 (LBS). United States District Court, Southern District of New York. Trial Transcript, February 6, 2001, pp. 280–285.

20
the first attack against an American target
: Bergen 2001 op. cit., chapter 9.

20
traveled to Somalia
: Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon,
Age of Sacred Terror
(New York: Random House, 2002), p. 121.

20
eighteen American soldiers
: Mark Bowden, “Team members try to free pilot’s body,”
Philadelphia Inquirer
, January 28, 1998.

20
the most effective way
: Mark Bowden,
Black Hawk Down
(New York: Penguin, 2000), p. 110.

21
Within a week
: Mark Huband,
Warriors of the Prophet: The Struggle for Islam
(Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1998), p. 41.

21
“reviewed by Osama bin Laden”
: “Excerpts from guilty plea in terrorism case,”
New York Times
, October 21, 2000.
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/21/nyregion/excerpts-from-
guilty-plea-in-terrorism-case.html
.

21
“It was an unacceptable activity”
: Jamal Khashoggi, “Former Saudi intel chief interview on Saudi-Afghan ties, bin Laden—Part 5,”
Arab News
, November 8, 2001.

21
Medina of the new age
: Al-Qaeda recruitment videotape, summer 2001, accessed on August 14, 2001 at
www.moonwarriors.com
.

21
“hugely embittered”
: Sasson and bin Laden op cit, p. 207.

22
“Declaration of war”
: Osama bin Laden, “Declaration of war against the Americans occupying the land of the two holy places,” August 1996. Available from PBS:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/terrorism/
international/fatwa_1996.html
.

22
in 1949
: Lawrence Wright,
The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11
(New York: Vintage, 2007). “Baby, it’s cold outside”: Wright op. cit., p. 26.

22
jail-cell manifesto
: Syed Qutb,
Milestones
(Mumbai: Bilal Books, 1998 edition), p. 62; repeatedly cited Qutb: Zawahiri op. cit.; “bin Laden would attend”: Jamal Khalifa, interviews by author, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, September 6 and 9, 2005.

23
The conventional view
: This was largely the thrust of “The Man Behind bin Laden,” Lawrence Wright’s 2002
New Yorker
piece, which remains the best account of Zawahiri’s life. It’s also an analysis that I had made in the 2001 book
Holy War, Inc.
Montasser al-Zayyat, an Egyptian lawyer who had been imprisoned with Zawahiri in the early 1980s, described him to me in December 2000 as “bin Laden’s mind.” But based on subsequent interviews with militants who know both men and an analysis of bin Laden’s own actions it is clear that sometime in the mid-90s the al-Qaeda leader reversed the roles that had previously existed between himself and Zawahiri, who had once been one of his mentors and who he gradually eased instead into the role of one of his followers; albeit an important one. Zayyat himself has reversed himself writing in his 2002 book
The Road to Al-Qaeda: The Story of Bin Laden’s Right-Hand Man
, “Osama bin Laden had an appreciable impact on Zawahiri though the conventional wisdom holds the opposite to be the case. Bin Laden advised Zawahiri to stop armed operations in Egypt and to ally with him against their common enemies: the United States and Israel. His advice to Zawahiri came upon their return to Afghanistan [in 1996], when bin Laden ensured the safety of Zawahiri and the [Egyptian] Islamic Jihad members under the banner of the Taliban.”

24
“near enemy” regimes could not survive
: Abu Musab al-Suri,
The Call for Global Islamic Resistance
, posted on the internet in December 2004.

24
“the main enemy is the Americans”
: Noman Benotman, interview by author, London, August 30, 2005.

24
came to this strategic analysis
: Al-Suri op. cit.

24
in a Russian jail
: Andrew Higgins and Alan Cullison, “Saga of Dr. Zawahiri Illuminates Roots of al-Qaeda Terror,”
Wall Street Journal
, July 2, 2002.

24
Zawahiri was the penniless leader
: Lawrence Wright, “The man behind bin Laden,”
New Yorker
, September 16, 2002.

24
not especially well-liked
: Jamal Ismail interview by author, Islamabad, Pakistan, 2004.

24
formally merged with al-Qaeda
: The merger was de facto complete by February 1998, although the formal “contract” would not be signed until June 2001. See Intelligence report, Incorporation of Zawahiri’s organization into bin Ladin’s Al-Qa’ida, and recent [1998] activities of Egyptian Associates of Al-Qa’ida, Sept. 22, 1998; see also Intelligence report, interrogation of detainee, Feb. 8, 2002. 9/11 Commission Report op. cit., p. 470, fn 82.

24
“more like the assimilation”
: Feroz Ali Abbasi, Guantánamo Bay Prison Memoirs, 2002–2004, author’s collection.

25
outlined the dictatorial powers
: Substitution for the testimony of KSM, trial of Zacarias Moussaoui,
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/
Substitution_for_the_Testimony_of_KSM
.

25
requesting permission
: Sasson and bin Laden op cit, p. 161 and 213.

25
modeled his life of jihad on the life of the Prophet
: Batarfi op. cit.

25
“as a father”
: Al Hammadi op. cit.

25
“‘seduced’ many young men”
: Excerpts of Shadi Abdalla’s interviews with German authorities that occurred between April 2002 and May 2003: “Summary Interrogation S. Abdalla: UK and European Connections plus Background Al Tawid/Zarqawi,” author’s collection.

25
“was so impressed”
: Trabelsi was subsequently arrested in Brussels on September 13, 2001, where he was planning a possible attack on a NATO base. Trabelsi was questioned in French and the text of his interrogation was later provided in Italian to prosecutors in Milan investigating one of Trabelsi’s associates. Documents translated by investigative journalist Leo Sisti of
L’Espresso
. Author’s collection.

25
“very inspirational”
: “Affidavit in support of pre-trial detention,” filed by Special Agent Kiann Vandenover, U.S. District Court of Minnesota, Crim. 04–29 (JRT/FLN), February 6, 2004. Author’s collection.

26
“godlike reverence”
: John Miller, interview by author, Washington, D.C., September 2005.

27
“What America is tasting now”
: transcript of the tape can be found from the Associated Press, October 7, 2001.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/
Article/0,4273,4272288,00.html
.

27
“the Bush-Blair axis”
: Lawrence op. cit., p. 187.

27
ordinary American citizens
: bin Laden quoted in Raymond Ibrahim,
The al-Qaeda Reader
(Broadway Books: New York, 2007), p. 281.

28
“Allah legislated”
: Lawrence op. cit., p. 165. (The verse in the Koran, 2, 194 is “And one who attacks you, attack him in the like manner as he attacked you.”)

28
“completely justified”
: John Esposito and Dalia Mogahed,
Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think
(New York: Gallup Press, 2007).

28
1.2 billion Muslims
: PBS, “Islam Today,”
http://www.pbs.org/
empires/islam/faith-today.html
.

28
“organized Islamic faction”
: The founding minutes of al-Qaeda can be found in Bergen 2006, p. 81.

28
“This war is fundamentally religious”
: Al Jazeera op. cit. October 20, 2001.

29
quoted approvingly
: Lawrence op. cit., p. 187.

29
an additional pillar
: Fawaz Gerges,
The Far Enemy: Why Jihad Went Global
(Cambridge University Press: New York, 2005), p. 10.

29
religiously sanctioned warfare
: David Cook,
Understanding Jihad
(University of California Press: Los Angeles, 2005), p. 2.