The Looming Tower (43 page)

P
ERHAPS, IN THEIR ISOLATION IN KANDAHAR,
the jihadi leaders, especially the Egyptians, could not appreciate the nature of their defeat. They were locked into a logic of their own making. They spoke mainly to each other, fortifying their opinions with selected verses from the Quran and lessons from hadith that made their destiny appear inescapable. They lived in a country so brutalized by endless violence that the horror of Luxor could not have seemed all that significant; indeed, the Taliban revolution had inspired them to become even bloodier and more intransigent. And yet, immediately after Luxor, there was a period of introspection among the leaders, who analyzed their predicament and prescribed a strategy for the triumph of Islam and the final showdown with the unbelievers.

The main point of their diagnosis was that the Islamic nation was in misery because of illegitimate leadership. The jihadis then asked themselves who was responsible for this situation. They pointed to what they called the Christian-Jewish alliance that had emerged following the 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement, in which Britain and France divided Arab lands between them, and the Balfour Declaration the following year, which called for a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Soon thereafter the Ottoman Empire collapsed, and with it the Islamic caliphate. This was all seen as an ongoing campaign by the Christian-Jewish alliance to suffocate Islam, using such tools as the United Nations, compliant Arab rulers, multinational corporations, satellite channels, and international relief agencies.

Radical Islamist groups had risen in the past, only to fail because of disunity and the lack of a clear plan. In January
1998,
Zawahiri began writing a draft of a formal declaration that would unite all of the different mujahideen groups that had gathered in Afghanistan under a single banner. It would turn the movement away from regional conflicts and toward a global Islamic jihad against America.

The language was measured and concise, in comparison with bin Laden’s declaration of war two years before. Zawahiri cited three grievances against the Americans. First, the continuing presence of American troops in Saudi Arabia seven years after the end of the Gulf War. “If some people have formerly debated the fact of the occupation, all the people of the peninsula have now acknowledged it,” he observed. Second, America’s intention to destroy Iraq, as evidenced by the death of what he said was more than a million civilians. Third, the American goal of propping up Israel by incapacitating the Arab states, whose weakness and disunion are Israel’s only guarantee of survival.

All this amounted to a “war on God, his messenger, and the Muslims.” Therefore, the members of the coalition were issuing a fatwa: “The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies—civilian and military—is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it.”

On February
23,
Al-Quds al-Arabi
in London published the text of the fatwa by the new coalition, which called itself the International Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders. It was signed by bin Laden, individually; Zawahiri, as leader of al-Jihad; Rifai Taha, as leader of the Islamic Group; Sheikh Mir Hamzah, secretary of the Jamiat-ul-Ulema of Pakistan; and Fazlul Rahman, leader of the Jihad Movement in Bangladesh. The name al-Qaeda was not used. Its existence was still a closely held secret.

Outside of Afghanistan, members of the Islamic Group greeted the declaration with disbelief. After the catastrophe of Luxor, they were appalled to find themselves part of a coalition that they hadn’t been asked to join. Taha was forced to withdraw his name from the fatwa, lamely explaining to fellow members of the Islamic Group that he had only been asked over the telephone to join in a statement of support for the Iraqi people.

Al-Jihad was also in an uproar. Zawahiri called a meeting of his supporters in Afghanistan to explain the new global organization. The members accused him of turning away from their primary goal of taking over Egypt, and they protested al-Jihad’s being drawn into bin Laden’s grandiose war with America. Some objected to bin Laden personally, saying he had a “dark past” and could not be trusted as the head of this new coalition. Zawahiri responded to the attacks on bin Laden by e-mail: “If the Contractor [bin Laden] made promises in the past he did not carry out, then now the man has changed…. Even at this time, almost everything we enjoy comes to us from God first and then from him.” His attachment to bin Laden by now was total. Without bin Laden’s money, however scarce it had become, there was no al-Jihad.

In the end, Zawahiri pledged to resign if the members failed to endorse his actions. The organization was in such disarray because of arrests and defections, and so close to bankruptcy, that the only choice was to follow Zawahiri or abandon al-Jihad. Many members chose the latter option, among them Zawahiri’s own brother Mohammed, who was also his military commander. The two brothers had been together from their underground days. They had sometimes been at odds with each other—on one occasion, Ayman denounced Mohammed in front of his colleagues for mismanaging the group’s paltry finances. But Mohammed was popular, and, as deputy emir, he had run the organization whenever Ayman was off on his lengthy travels or in jail. The alliance with bin Laden was too much for Mohammed, however. His defection was a shocking blow.

Several members of the Islamic Group tried to have the blind sheikh named emir of the new Islamic Front, but the proposal was brushed aside, since Sheikh Omar was in prison in America. Bin Laden had had enough of the infighting between the Egyptian factions. He told both groups that their operations in Egypt were ineffectual and too expensive and that it was time for them to “turn their guns” on the United States and Israel. Zawahiri’s assistant, Ahmed al-Najjar, later told Egyptian investigators, “I myself heard bin Laden say that our main objective is now limited to one state only, the United States, and involves waging a guerrilla war against all U.S. interests, not only in the Arab region but also throughout the world.”

16

“Now It Begins”

A
L
-Q
AEDA’S FORTUNES
began to improve after the coalition’s fatwa to kill Americans wherever they might be found. Until then, bin Laden’s name and his cause had been obscure outside of Saudi Arabia and Sudan, but news of the fatwa excited a new generation of fighters. Some came from the madrassas in Pakistan, others from the streets of Cairo or Tangier. The call was heard also in Muslim enclaves in the West. In March
1998,
only a month after the fatwa, Ahmed Ressam came from Montreal. A petty thief of Algerian origin who would later be arrested for trying to blow up the Los Angeles International Airport, Ressam was one of about thirty Algerians in the Khaldan camp, the entry point for al-Qaeda trainees in Afghanistan. That same month, Zacarias Moussaoui, a French citizen of Moroccan descent who was living in London, arrived; he would later plead guilty to planning to attack the United States
.
Young men from Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, Turkey, and Chechnya came to Khaldan, and each nationality had its own emir. They created cells that they could then transplant to their own or adopted countries. Some went to fight in Kashmir and Chechnya. Many fought for the Taliban.

Publicity was the currency bin Laden was spending, replacing his wealth with fame, and it repaid him with recruits and donations. Despite his pledge to Mullah Omar to remain silent, bin Laden followed up the fatwa with a series of press conferences and interviews, first with a group of fourteen Pakistani journalists, who were driven around in circles for two days before landing in an al-Qaeda camp only miles from where they had started. They stood around idly waiting for bin Laden to make his appearance. Suddenly there was a barrage of gunfire and rocket grenades to herald bin Laden’s arrival in a convoy of four pickup trucks, accompanied by bodyguards with their faces covered. A dog ran amok, looking for cover, and skidded behind a tree.

The event struck the Pakistani reporters as staged and cartoonish. They weren’t interested in bin Laden’s declaration of war against America, which seemed like an absurd publicity stunt. India had just tested a nuclear device, and they wanted bin Laden to declare jihad against India instead. Frustrated, bin Laden tried to steer the reporters back to his agenda. “Let’s talk about real problems,” he pleaded.

“Terrorism can be commendable and it can be reprehensible,” bin Laden philosophized in response to a planted question from one of his followers. “Terrifying an innocent person and terrorizing him is objectionable and unjust, also unjustly terrorizing people is not right. Whereas, terrorizing oppressors and criminals and thieves and robbers is necessary for the safety of people and for the protection of their property…. The terrorism we practice is of the commendable kind.”

After the formal interview, Rahimullah Yusufzai, the reporter for the
News
in Islamabad, drew bin Laden aside and asked if he would talk a bit about his life. For instance, how many wives and children did he have?

“I’ve lost count,” bin Laden said, laughing.

“Maybe at least you know about your wives,” Yusufzai suggested.

“I think I have three wives, but I have lost count of my children,” bin Laden said.

Yusufzai then asked bin Laden how much money he had. Bin Laden put his hand on his heart and smiled. “I am rich here,” he said. He continued to evade personal questions.

As soon as Yusufzai got back to Peshawar, he received a call from a furious Mullah Omar. “Bin Laden holds a press conference announcing jihad and he doesn’t even tell me?” he exclaimed. “There can only be one ruler in Afghanistan, either me or bin Laden.”

T
HESE INTERVIEWS
always took a toll on bin Laden’s voice, although he drank copious amounts of tea and water. The next day he wouldn’t speak at all, communicating by gesture, because his vocal cords were so inflamed. His bodyguard contended that this was the lingering effect of a Soviet chemical weapon, but some of the reporters concluded that he must be suffering from kidney disease—the origin of a persistent and unsubstantiated legend.

Two days after speaking to the Pakistani press, bin Laden received reporter John Miller and an ABC news crew. Beforehand, the irrepressible American correspondent had sat on the floor of a hut with Zawahiri and explained the needs of his crew. “Doc, we need shots of bin Laden going around the camps, interacting with the men, watching them train or whatever, so we’ll have some footage over which we can narrate his story,” Miller said. Zawahiri nodded knowingly. “You need some ‘B’ roll,” he said, using the technical term for such coverage. He chuckled and continued, “Mr. Miller, you have to understand that this is not like your Sam Donaldson walking with the president in the Rose Garden. Mr. bin Laden is a
very important man.
”

It occurred to Miller at the time that Zawahiri might be the real power behind al-Qaeda, but then bin Laden himself arrived, with the same staged, awe-inspiring fusillade as before. Over the chirping of crickets outside the mud hut, Miller asked bin Laden if his fatwa was directed at all Americans or just the military. “Through history, America has not been known to differentiate between the military and the civilians, or between men and women or adults and children,” bin Laden quietly responded. He cast shy, doe-eyed glances at the American, as if he worried about giving offense. “We anticipate a black future for America. Instead of remaining united states, it shall end up separated states”—just like the old Soviet Union. Bin Laden wore a white turban and a green military jacket. Looming behind his head was a large map of Africa, an unremarked clue.

“You are like the Middle East version of Teddy Roosevelt,” Miller concluded.

During the interview, many of bin Laden’s followers crowded into the hut. Two Saudis, Mohammed al-‘Owhali and “Jihad Ali” Azzam, were preparing for al-Qaeda’s first big operation the following month. After Miller’s crew finished the taping, bin Laden’s technical experts erased the Saudis’ faces from the videotape before giving it to the Americans.

D
URING THE INTERVIEW,
Miller asked about Wali Khan Amin Shah, who had been arrested in Manila. “American authorities believe he was working for you, funded by you, setting up training camps there and part of this plan was…the assassination or the attempted assassination of President Clinton during his trip to Manila,” said Miller. Wali Khan was “a close friend,” bin Laden mildly replied. “As to what you said about him working for me, I have nothing to say. We are all together in this.”

The fact that Khan was in American custody was supposed to be a closely held secret, but someone had leaked that information to Miller. Some people in the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office were enraged when Khan’s name was mentioned directly to bin Laden on television. They knew that John O’Neill was a friend of Christopher Isham, an investigative producer for ABC News; they often drank together at Elaine’s. Patrick Fitzgerald, the assistant prosecutor in New York’s Southern District, was so angry that he threatened to indict O’Neill. Both Isham and Miller denied that O’Neill was their source and volunteered to take lie-detector tests to prove it. Fitzgerald backed off, but the allegation that O’Neill talked carelessly to reporters lingered as a slur on his reputation. It didn’t help that some journalists’ investigations of bin Laden were more creative than those of the American intelligence community.

T
HE FACT WAS THAT THE CIA
had no one inside al-Qaeda or the Taliban security that surrounded bin Laden. The agency did have some contacts with a few Afghan tribesmen—leftover assets from the jihad against the Soviets. At Alec Station, Mike Scheuer came up with a plan to use them to kidnap bin Laden. The Afghans were supposed to enter through a drainage ditch that ran under the back fence of Tarnak Farms. Another group of Afghans would sneak through the front gate, using silenced pistols to kill whoever got in the way. When they found bin Laden, they would stash him in a cave thirty miles away. If they were caught, there would be no American fingerprints on the abduction; if they were not, then the Afghans would turn bin Laden over to the Americans a month or so later, after the search parties had given up.