The Looming Tower (47 page)

A
T THE SAME TIME
that the warheads were exploding in northern Khartoum, sixty-six U.S. cruise missiles were in flight toward two camps around Khost, Afghanistan, near the Pakistan border.

Zawahiri happened to be talking on bin Laden’s satellite phone at the time to Rahimullah Yusufzai, a distinguished reporter for BBC and the Pakistani paper the
News.
Zawahiri told him, “Mr. bin Laden has a message. He says, ‘I have not bombed the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. I have declared jihad, but I was not involved.’”

The best way American intelligence had of detecting bin Laden’s and Zawahiri’s movements at the time was by tracking their satellite phone. If surveillance aircraft had been positioned in the region, Zawahiri’s call to the reporter would have given agents his exact location. But the strike was delivered so quickly that there was little time to prepare. Still, American intelligence knew in general where bin Laden and Zawahiri were hiding, so the fact that surveillance aircraft were not available prior to the strike is inexplicable. Had they pinpointed Zawahiri prior to launch there is little question that he would have been killed in the strike. On the other hand, it takes several hours to prepare a missile for firing, and the flight time from the warships in the Arabian Sea across Pakistan to eastern Afghanistan was more than two hours. By the time Zawahiri picked up the phone the missiles were probably already on their way and it was already too late.

Although the National Security Agency was able to monitor calls on the satellite phone, it refused to share the raw data with the FBI or the CIA or Dick Clarke in the White House. When the CIA learned from one of its own employees, who was posted at the NSA, that al-Qaeda’s phones were being monitored, it demanded the transcripts. The NSA refused to hand them over; instead, it offered narrative summaries that were often out of date. The CIA then turned to its own director of science and technology to construct a device that would monitor the transmissions of satellite phones from that portion of Afghanistan. They were able to receive only one side of the conversation, but based on one of the partial intercepts the CIA determined that bin Laden and others were going to be in Khost.

The information was timely and relevant. Bin Laden had made the decision to go to Khost only the night before. But as he and his companions were driving through Vardak province, they happened to pause at a crossroads.

“Where do you think, my friends, we should go?” bin Laden asked. “Khost or Kabul?”

His bodyguard and others voted for Kabul, where they could visit friends.

“Then, with God’s help, let us go to Kabul,” bin Laden decreed—a decision that may have saved his life.

A
T THE AGE OF FIFTEEN,
Abdul Rahman Khadr was the youngest trainee in the Farouk camp near Khost. There were between 70 and 120 men training there, he estimated, and about an equal number in the Jihad Wal camp nearby. After the evening prayer, he was walking back from the washroom, carrying a bucket, when bright lights punctured the sky just above him. He threw the bucket aside, but before it hit the ground the missiles began to explode.

The first twenty explosions were at Jihad Wal. Abdul Rahman dove for cover as the next wave followed, detonating all around him. He glanced up to see the air pulsing with explosive waves. When the rain of rocks and pebbles subsided, he walked around the smoking ruins to see what was left.

The administration building was destroyed. Abdul Rahman concluded that the trainers must be dead. But then he heard shouting, and he walked over to Jihad Wal, where he discovered that the trainers had gathered for a meeting. Amazingly, they were all alive. None of al-Qaeda’s leaders were harmed.

There were five injured men, whom Abdul Rahman loaded into a four-by-four. Despite his youth, he was the only one who could drive, so he rushed them to the hospital in Khost. He stopped along the way to give water to one of the badly injured, and the man died in his arms.

Abdul Rahman returned to the camp to help bury the dead. One body was so mutilated it was impossible to identify. “Can you at least find his feet?” Abdul Rahman asked. Someone discovered one of them, and by the birthmark on a toe Abdul Rahman was able to identify his friend, a Canadian citizen of Egyptian background like himself. There were four other dead men, whom they buried as surveillance aircraft flew overhead recording the damage.

I
N THE BIG-CHESTED PARLANCE
of U.S. military planners, the failed strikes were dubbed Operation Infinite Reach. Designed to be a surgical and proportional response to the terrorist acts—two bombings, two decisive replies—the missile attacks exposed the inadequacy of American intelligence and the futility of military power, which rained down nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars’ worth of armament on two of the poorest countries in the world.

According to General Hamid Gul, the former head of the ISI, more than half of the missiles fell in Pakistani territory, killing two Pakistani citizens. Although Abdul Rahman Khadr buried only five men in the al-Qaeda camp, not counting the one who died in his arms, there were many false claims. Sandy Berger, Clinton’s national security advisor, said that “twenty or thirty al-Qaeda operatives were killed.” The Taliban later complained that twenty-two Afghans had also been killed and more than fifty gravely wounded. Bin Laden’s bodyguard observed the damage, however, and agreed with Abdul Rahman’s assessment. “Each house was hit by a missile but they did not destroy the camp completely,” he reported. “They hit the kitchen of the camp, the mosque, and some bathrooms. Six men were killed: a Saudi, an Egyptian, an Uzbek, and three Yemenis.”

The attacks did have other profound consequences, however. Several of the Tomahawk missiles failed to detonate. According to Russian intelligence sources, bin Laden sold the unexploded missiles to China for more than $10 million. Pakistan may have used some of the ones found on its territory to design its own version of a cruise missile.

The main legacy of Operation Infinite Reach, however, was that it established bin Laden as a symbolic figure of resistance, not just in the Muslim world but wherever America, with the clamor of its narcissistic culture and the majestic presence of its military forces, had made itself unwelcome. When bin Laden’s exhilarated voice came crackling across a radio transmission—“By the grace of God, I am alive!”—the forces of anti-Americanism had found their champion. Those Muslims who had objected to the slaughter of innocents in the embassies in East Africa were cowed by the popular support for this man whose defiance of America now seemed blessed by divine favor. Even in Kenya and Tanzania, the two countries that had suffered the most from al-Qaeda’s attacks, children would be spotted wearing bin Laden T-shirts.

The day after the strikes, Zawahiri called Yusufzai again. “We survived the attack,” Zawahiri informed him. “Tell the Americans that we aren’t afraid of bombardment, threats, and acts of aggression. We suffered and survived the Soviet bombings for ten years in Afghanistan, and we are ready for more sacrifices. The war has only just begun; the Americans should now await the answer.”

17

The New Millennium

T
WO DAYS AFTER THE
A
MERICAN MISSILE ATTACKS,
Mullah Omar placed a secret call to the U.S. State Department. He had a piece of advice. The strikes would only arouse anti-American sentiment in the Islamic world and provoke more acts of terrorism, he said. The best solution was for President Clinton to resign.

The unflappable State Department official who fielded the call, Michael E. Malinowski, pointed out that there was considerable evidence that bin Laden was behind the bombings in East Africa. Malinowski added that he appreciated the tribal code that required Omar to shelter bin Laden, but the Saudi was behaving like a guest who was shooting at neighbors from the host’s window. As long as bin Laden stayed in Afghanistan, Malinowski warned, there would be no reconstruction aid. Although the conversation resolved nothing, it was the first of many such candid and informal talks between the United States and the Taliban.

Mullah Omar certainly realized that he had a problem. Bin Laden’s declaration of war against the United States had split the Taliban. There were those who said that America had always been Afghanistan’s friend, so why turn it into a powerful and unnecessary enemy? They pointed out that no one in bin Laden’s inner circle, including bin Laden himself, had the religious authority to pronounce any fatwa, much less a jihad. Others felt that America had made itself Afghanistan’s enemy when it launched the missiles.

Omar was furious at bin Laden’s defiance of his authority, but the American attack on Afghanistan soil placed him in a quandary. If he surrendered bin Laden, he would be seen to be caving in to American pressure. He judged that the Taliban could not survive in power if he did so. And, of course, there was the deal that Mullah Omar had struck with Prince Turki, who would soon be returning to Kandahar to collect bin Laden and take him back to the Kingdom.

Once again Omar summoned bin Laden. “I shed tears,” bin Laden later admitted. “I told Mullah Omar that we would leave his country and head toward God’s vast domain, but that we would leave our children and wives in his safekeeping. I said we would seek a land which was a haven for us. Mullah Omar said that things had not yet reached that stage.”

Bin Laden then made a pledge of personal fealty, much like the one that members of al-Qaeda swore to him. He acknowledged Omar as the leader of the faithful. “We consider you to be our noble emir,” bin Laden wrote. “We invite all Muslims to render assistance and cooperation to you, in every possible way they can.”

With this promise in his pocket, Mullah Omar’s attitude changed. He no longer viewed bin Laden as a threat. A friendship developed between them. From now on, when other members of the Taliban complained about the Saudi, Mullah Omar proved to be bin Laden’s strongest defender. They often went fishing together below a dam west of Kandahar.

“T
HIS TIME,
why don’t
you
come with me?” Prince Turki asked his Pakistani colleague, General Naseem Rana, head of the ISI, in mid-September. “That way, Mullah Omar can see that both of us are serious.”

On the basis of their own intelligence, the Pakistanis had informed Turki that bin Laden was behind the embassy bombings and that Saudi citizens had actually carried out the attack in Nairobi. Turki gloomily realized that he was no longer negotiating for a mere dissident but for a master terrorist. Surely the Taliban’s two strongest allies—Saudi Arabia and Pakistan—would be able to persuade the Afghan to surrender his nettlesome guest.

Turki and General Rana came to the same Kandahar guesthouse where Mullah Omar had received the Saudi prince before. Turki greeted the Taliban ruler, then reminded him of his pledge. Before answering, Omar abruptly stood up and left the room for about twenty minutes. Turki wondered if he was consulting with his
shura
council or even with bin Laden himself. Finally, the Leader of the Faithful returned and said, “There must have been a translator’s mistake. I never told you we would hand over bin Laden.”

“But, Mullah Omar, I did not say this only one time,” Turki sputtered. He pointed to Omar’s main advisor and de facto foreign minister, Mullah Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil, who, Turki remarked, had come to the Kingdom only the month before to negotiate the handover. How could Omar pretend otherwise?

Omar’s voice was shrill, and he began to perspire. Turki began to wonder if he was on drugs. Omar screamed at the prince, telling him that bin Laden was “a man of honor, a man of distinction” who only wanted to see the Americans run out of Arabia. “Instead of seeking to persecute him, you should put your hand in ours and his, and fight against the infidels.” He called Saudi Arabia “an occupied country” and became so personally insulting that the translator hesitated.

“I’m not going to take any more of this,” Turki said furiously. “But you must remember, Mullah Omar, what you are doing now is going to bring a lot of harm to the Afghan people.”

Turki and General Rana rode back to the airport in stunned silence. It was particularly galling to once again pass by Tarnak Farms, bin Laden’s dilapidated citadel. From now on, not only Turki’s personal reputation but also Saudi Arabia’s place in the world would be held hostage by the man inside.

A
LTHOUGH THE
A
MERICAN STRIKE
had damaged the Afghan training camps, they were easily relocated—this time near the population centers of Kandahar and Kabul. But the attack had left a residue of paranoia, and the members of the al-Qaeda community, who were always suspicious of outsiders, turned on each other. Saif al-Adl, the head of bin Laden’s security force, was certain that there was a traitor in his camp. After all, bin Laden and key members of the
shura
council would have been in Khost when the missiles struck had it not been for the last-minute decision to turn off on the road to Kabul.