The Looming Tower (67 page)

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unpublished CIA document, “Report on Mohammed al-Zawahiri” (no date, no author).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.