The Longest War (77 page)

210
Grand Hyatt, Radisson, and Days Inn
: Scott Macleod, “Behind the Amman hotel attack,”
Time
, November 10, 2005.
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/
0,8599,1128209,00.html
.

210
According to Spanish prosecutors
: interview by author Florence, Italy, May 27, 2009.

210
“were under pledge”
: Anne Stenersen, “Are the Afghan Taliban involved in international terrorism?” CTC
Sentinel
, September 2009.

211
The suicide bomber
: Joby Warrick and Pamela Constable, “CIA base attacked in Afghanistan supported airstrikes against al-Qaeda, Taliban,”
Washington Post
, January 1, 2010; “Bomber Fooled CIA, Family, Jordanian Intelligence,” Associated Press, January 6, 2010.

211
how he planned to attack the group
: “An interview with the Shaheed Abu Dujaanah al Khorshani (Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi),” February 28, 2010, NEFA Foundation.

211
“avenge our good martyrs”
: Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, “Infiltrating the American Fortresses,” December 31, 2009, NEFA Foundation.
http://www.nefafoundation.org/miscellaneous/nefaAbul-Yazid0110.pdf
.

211
was revenge
: Stephen Farrell, “Video links Taliban to CIA attack,”
New York Times
, January 9, 2010.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/
world/middleeast/10balawi.html
.

211
Armed with that training and $8,000 in cash
:
United States of America v. Faisal Shahzad
, Plea agreement, Southern District of New York, June 21, 2010.

211
“only organization qualified”
: Quoted in Peter Bergen, “Where you bin?”
The New Republic
, January 29, 2006.

211
the green light
: Author interview with Saudi official, February 25, 2008, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

211
battle is conducted in the media
: See for instance his letter to Mullah Mohammed Omar, the leader of the Afghan Taliban, in West Point’s Harmony documents, February 14, 2006. AFGP-2002-600321.

211
nearly one hundred
: IntelCenter Breakout of as-Sahab audio/video, 2002-26 February 2009. Email from Ben Venzke, February 26, 2009.

211 2 percent: In 2007, 1.8% of Afghans and .01% of Pakistanis were Internet users, according to the International Telecommunications Union, “Information Society Statistical Profiles—Asia and the Pacific, 2009.”
http://www.itu.int/publ/D-INDRPM.AP-2009/en
; “1%”: In 2008, 1% of Iraqis were Internet users, according to the International Telecommunications Union, “Information Society Statistical Profiles—Arab states, 2009,”
http://www.itu.int/publ/D-IND-RPM.AR-2009/en
.

214
“Acquiring nuclear”
: Rahimullah Yusufzai, “Osama bin Laden lashes out against the West,”
Time
, January 11, 1999.
http://www.time.com/time/
asia/asia/magazine/1999/990111/osama1.html
.

214
“I wish to declare”
: Hamid Mir, “Osama claims he has nukes,”
Dawn
, November 10, 2001.
http://www.dawn.com/2001/11/10/top1.htm
.

215
“I asked this question”
: Hamid Mir, interview by author, Islamabad, Pakistan, May 11, 2002.

215
in a pre-9/11 memo
: Roland Jacquard,
L’Archive Secretès d’al Qaida
, (Paris: Jean Picollec, 2002), p. 291.

215
For that information
: Peter Baker, “Pakistani Scientist Who Met Bin Laden Failed Polygraphs, Renewing Suspicions,”
Washington Post
, March 3, 2002.

215
al-Qaeda’s leaders turned to
: Graham Allison,
Nuclear Terrorism
(New York: Henry Holt, 2004), pp. 20–22.

215
“a rather strange man”
: author interview with Pervez Hoodbhoy, May 11, 2002, Islamabad, Pakistan.

215
spent part of his retirement
: Baker op. cit.

216
charity aimed to establish
: David Albright and Holly Higgins, “Pakistani Nuclear Scientists: How Much Nuclear Assistance to Al-Qaeda?” Washington, D.C.: Institute for Science and International Security. August 30, 2002.

216
reporters found
: Albright and Higgins op. cit.

216
failed polygraph tests
: Peter Baker, “Pakistani Scientist Who Met Bin Laden Failed Polygraphs, Renewing Suspicions,”
Washington Post
, March 3, 2002.

216
Mahmood had provided information
: Albright and Higgins op. cit.

216
“wouldn’t you tell him”
: Charles Faddis, interview by author, Washington, D.C., January 20, 2010.

217
told his interrogators
: Henry Schuster, “Walker Lindh: Al-Qaeda spoke of more attacks,” CNN.com, October 4, 2002.
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/LAW/10/03/
walker.lindh.documents/index.html
; “told al Jazeera”: BBC News, “Al-Qaeda ‘plotted nuclear attacks,’” September 8, 2002.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2244146.stm
.

217
crop-dusting planes
: Transcript from Johnelle Bryant interview by Brian Ross, ABC News, June 6, 2002.
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=130304&page=1
.

217
wrote an essay
: The essay was posted on Al Neda and translated by MEMRI. Suleiman Abu Ghaith, “In the Shadow of the Lances,” The Middle East Research Institute, Special Dispatch Series—No. 338, June 12, 2002.

217
the fatwa of a Saudi cleric
: Nasir bin Hamad al-Fahd, “A treatise on the legal status of using weapons of mass destruction against infidels,” May 2003.
http://www.carnegieendowment.org/static/npp/fatwa.pdf
.

218
first known atomic thief
: PBS
Frontline
, “Loose Nukes,” 1996.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/
nukes/interviews/smirnov.html
.

218
“I was the shift leader”
: Author interview with Leonid Smirnov, Podolsk, Russia, April 28, 2002; Blinding Horizon, National Geographic, 2003.
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/episode/blinding-horizon-1337/Overview
.

219
strictly an amateur affair
: Abu Walid al-Masri,
The history of the Arab Afghans from the time of their arrival in Afghanistan until their departure with the Taliban
, serialized in
Al Sharq al Awsat
, December 8–14, 2004.

219
issued a statement
: Osama bin Laden statement, “Dangers and Signs of the Indian Nuclear Explosions,” May 14, 1998, author collection.

219
al-Masri
: Abu Walid al-Masri,
The history of the Arab Afghans from the time of their arrival in Afghanistan until their departure with the Taliban
, serialized in
Al Sharq al Awsat
, December 8–14, 2004.

219
Zawahiri wrote to Mohamed Atef
: Alan Cullison and Andrew Higgins, “A computer in Kabul reveals thinking behind four years of al-Qaeda doings,”
Wall Street Journal
, December 31, 2001.

220
$2,000–$4,000
: Anne Stenersen,
Al-Qaida’s Quest for Weapons of Mass Destruction: The History behind the Hype
(Saarbrücken: VDM Verlag, 2009), p. 35.

220
“refused to voice”
: Al-Masri op. cit.

220
Fadl said
:
USA vs. Usama bin Laden
, Testimony of Jamal al-Fadl, February 7 and 20, 2001.

220
stockpiled a considerable quantity
: Al-Masri op. cit.

220
advised the Taliban leader
: Charles J. Hanley, “Taliban naïve of nuclear arms,” Associated Press, July 1, 2002.

220
underground facility near Kandahar airport
: Drew Brown, “U.S. finds materials for dirty bombs,” Knight Ridder, December 22, 2001.

221
“some forms”
: Peter Zimmerman and Cheryl Loeb, “Dirty bombs: the threat revisited,” National Defense University,
Defense Horizons
, No. 38. January 2004.
http://www.ndu.edu/inss/DefHor/DH38/dh38.htm
.

221
In 1996
: International Atomic Energy Agency, “Combating illicit trafficking in nuclear and other radioactive material,” Technical Guidance Reference Manual (Vienna: IAEA, 2007), p. 127.

221
one hundred times above normal levels
: The information about the Gisht-Kuprik incident comes from the author’s 2002 visit to the Uzbek-Kazakh border, interviews with U.S. Customs officials William Lambert and Richard Melton and Colonel Sadritdin Jalilov of Uzbek Customs, and National Geographic’s
Blinding Horizon
documentary, op. cit.

222
virtually impossible
: David Albright, Kathyrn Buehler, and Holly Higgins, “Bin Laden and the bomb,”
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
, January/February 2002.
http://www.isis-online.org/publications/terrorism/binladenandbomb.pdf
.

222
U.S government analysts
: Thom Shanker, “U.S. analysts find no sign bin Laden had nuclear arms,”
New York Times
, February 26, 2002.

222
crude chemical weapons
: Barton Gellman, “Al-Qaeda nears biological, chemical arms production,”
Washington Post
, March 23, 2003.

222
al-Qaeda videotape from this period
: Nic Robertson, “Tapes shed new light on bin Laden’s network,” CNN.com, August 19, 2002. CNN videotape collection.

222
were ignored
: Omar bin Laden, Najwa bin Laden, Jean Sasson,
Growing Up bin Laden
(2009) p. 230.

222
seven-thousand-page
:
Encyclopedia of Jihad
. Author Collection.

222
chemical engineer
: West Point, Combating Terrorism Center, “Profile of Abu Khabab,” 2007.

222
hundreds of militants
: Carlotta Gall and Douglas Jehl, “U.S. raid killed Qaeda leaders, Pakistanis say,”
New York Times
, January 19, 2006.

222
“Obtain the liquid”
: Roland Jacquard,
L’Archive Secretès d’al Qaida
, (Paris: Jean Picollec, 2002), p. 281.

223
American-educated scientists
: James Bone and Zahid Hussain, “Al-Qaeda woman Aifia Siddiqui in court on attempted murder charge,”
The Times (London)
, August 6, 2008.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/U.S.
_and_americas/article4467148.ece
.

223
Al-Qaeda recruit with an American science degree
: Justine Redman, “Letters detail al-Qaeda’s anthrax program,” CNN.com, May 23, 2005.

223
biologist working for the Pakistani government
:, Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, former official responsible for WMD at the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center; author interview, Washington, D.C., December 18, 2009; “looking for anthrax”: Joby Warrick, “Suspects and a setback in al-Qaeda anthrax case; scientist with ties to group goes free,”
Washington Post
, October 31, 2006.

223
could only weaponize anthrax
: Bruce Ivins,
New York Times
,
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/
timestopics/people/i/bruce_e_ivins/index.html?8qa&
scp=1-spot&sq=bruce+ivins&st=nyt
.

223
Gary Ackerman
: Gary Ackerman, email to author, May 6, 2010.

224
CNN reported this story
: “Ricin suspects linked to al-Qaeda,” CNN.com, January 16, 2003.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/europe/01/16/
ricin.alqaeda/index.html
.

224
gave his speech
: Colin Powell, presentation before the United Nations, February 5, 2003, New York City.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iraq
/2003/iraq-030205-powell-un-17300pf.htm
.

224
But two years later
: Walter Pincus, “London ricin finding called a false positive,”
Washington Post
, April 14, 2005; and Stenersen op. cit. p. 48.

224
“has the potential”
: Jason Bennetto, “Mass panic was aim of £70,000 dirty bomb,”
The Independent (London)
, November 8, 2006.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/mass-panic-was-aim-of-16370000-dirty-bomb-423425.html
.

224
“comical”
: Michael Sheehan,
Crush the Cell; How to Defeat Terrorism without Terrorizing Ourselves
(New York: Crown, 2008), p. 235.

225
sickened hundreds of Iraqis
: BBC News, “‘Chlorine bomb’ hits Iraq village.” May 16, 2007.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6660585.stm
; “stopped using”: Stenersen op. cit., p. 42.

225
“there was a lot of effort”
: Charles Faddis interview by author, Washington, D.C. January 20, 2010.

225
“poisons and deadly gases”
: George W. Bush, Cincinnati, OH, October 7, 2002.
http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/
10/20021007-8.html
.

225
trotted out the dubious tales
: Paul Williams,
Osama’s Revenge: The Next 9/11: What the Media and the Government Haven’t Told You
(Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2004), pp. 46–47.

225
hyperbolic reporting
: Ron Suskind,
The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America’s Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006), pp. 193–197 and 218.

226
Milton Leitenberg of the University of Maryland
: Global Security Newswire, June 26, 2006.
http://www.nti.org/d_newswire/issues/2006/6/26/017198a4-bb95-40d5-9738-817ce4a469bb.html
.

226
credited with discovering
: Ron Suskind, “How an Al-Qaeda cell planned a poison-gas attack on the NY subway,” TIME Magazine, June 17, 2006.
http://www.time.com/time/
nation/article/0,8599,1205309,00.html
.

226
according to Michael Sheehan
: Michael Sheehan interview, New York City, November 21, 2009.