The Looming Tower (69 page)

171
September 11:
Belloc,
The Great Heresies
, 85.
“Jihad against America?”:
al-Hammadi, “The Inside Story of al-Qa’ida,” part 8, March 26, 2005.

172
“a large-scale front”:
ibid., part 5, March 23, 2005.

173
nine hundred people:
United States Department of State,
Country Reports on Terrorism, 2004
, April 2005.
Carlos the Jackal:
interviews with Tim Niblock and Hassabullah Omer. Ken Silverstein, “Official Pariah Sudan Valuable to America’s War on Terrorism,”
Los Angeles Times
, April 29, 2005.
in exchange for weapons:
Douglas Farah and Dana Priest, “Bin Laden Son Plays Key Role in al-Qaeda,”
Washington Post
, October 14, 2003.

175
Ibn Tamiyyah had issued a historic fatwa:
testimony of Jamal al-Fadl,
U.S. v. Usama bin Laden, et al
.

9. The Silicon Valley

176
“awesome symbolic towers”:
Osama bin Laden interview with Tayser Alouni, al-Jazeera, October 2001, translated by CNN.

Little Egypt:
Kepel,
Jihad
, 301.

177
issued a fatwa:
interview with Tom Corrigan.
“descendants of apes”:
Kohlmann,
Al-Qaida’s Jihad in Europe
, 26.
“cut the transportation”:
ibid, 185.
bin Laden was financially backing:
interview with Tom Corrigan.
World Trade Center bombing:
interviews with Frank Pellegrino, David Kelley, Lewis Schiliro, James Kallstrom, Joe Cantemessa, Richard A. Clarke, Thomas Pickard, Pascual “Pat” D’Amuro, Mark Rossini, Mary Galligan, and Tom Corrigan.

178
sodium cyanide:
Reeve,
The New Jackals
, 43.
dirty bomb:
ibid., 147.
tourists felt:
ibid., 12.
hospital casualties:
ibid., 15.

179
Zawahiri appeared on the speaker circuit:
There is considerable dispute about the exact date of Zawahiri’s trip to the United States, or whether there was more than one. Ali Mohammed, the FBI’s main source on this matter, told investigators that Zawahiri traveled to Brooklyn in 1988 in the company of Abu Khaled al-Masri, which is an alias for Mohammed Shawki Islambouli, the brother of the assassin of Anwar al-Sadat, and who was on the
shura
council of al-Jihad. As for the California trip, Mohammed says it took place in 1993 before the World Trade Center bombing, which occurred on February 26. Zawahiri’s host in California, Dr. Ali Zaki, however, says he met Zawahiri once, in 1989 or 1990. There is also court testimony in Egypt by Khaled Abu al-Dahab, another member of al-Jihad who lived in California. “Ayman al-Zawahiri came to America to collect donations,” Abu al-Dahab told a court in Cairo in 1999. Abu al-Dahab gave the date of Zawahiri’s trip as late 1994 or 1995. For this narrative, I have chosen to accept the FBI version of the travel dates.

According to Dan Coleman, Zawahiri paid a visit to the mujahideen’s Services Bureau branch office in Brooklyn in 1988. The office on Atlantic Avenue was run by one of Zawahiri’s men in al-Jihad, Mustafa Shalabi. Two years later, Shalabi got into a dispute with Zawahiri’s old rival, Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman, over money. The blind sheikh wanted to use the funds the center raised to support the international jihad. Shalabi wanted the money to go into the Islamist rebellion against Egypt. He refused to relinquish control of the account. In March 1991 someone entered Shalabi’s apartment in Brooklyn, beat him, strangled him, and stabbed him more than thirty times—a murder that has never been solved.
Bern, Switzerland…real name:
interview with Jack Cloonan.
martial artist:
interview with Mark Rossini.

180
the government rightly suspected:
Benjamin and Simon,
The Age of Sacred Terror
, 123.
already a member:
plea,
U.S. v. Ali Mohamed
.
the Cairo station:
interview with Jack Cloonan.
probably a plant:
interview with Michael Scheuer.
sponsored by the agency:
Paul Quinn-Judge and Charles M. Sennott, “Figure Cited in Terrorism Case Said to Enter US with CIA Help,”
Boston Globe
, February 3, 1995.

180
the transatlantic flight:
Peter Waldman, Gerald F. Seib, Jerry Markon, and Christopher Cooper, “The Infiltrator: Ali Mohamed Served in the U.S. Army—and bin Laden’s Circle,”
Wall Street Journal
, November 26, 2001; Miller, Stone, and Mitchell,
The Cell
, 141.

181
pursuing a doctorate:
Bergen,
Holy War
, 129.
Kinko’s:
interview with Jack Cloonan.
members of al-Jihad:
interview with Tom Corrigan.
“kill Russians”:
Benjamin Weiser and James Risen, “The Masking of a Militant: A Special Report; a Soldier’s Shadowy Trail in U.S. and in the Mideast,”
New York Times
, December 1, 1998.
kidnappings, assassinations, and hijacking:
“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.
triggering device:
interview with Jack Cloonan.
“buy rugs”:
interview with Jack Cloonan.

182
name of Osama bin Laden:
interview with Jack Cloonan. Bin Laden’s name and his organization were already beginning to be known even in the media. There is an Agence France Presse article, “Jordanian Militants Train in Afghanistan to Confront Regime,” dated May 30, 1993, in which a “27-year-old militant” admits that he has been “trained by Al-Ka’ida, a secret organization in Afghanistan that is financed by a wealthy Saudi businessman who owns a construction firm in Jeddah, Ossama ibn Laden.”
“James Bond”:
interview with Harlen L. Bell.
they had been lost:
interview with Daniel Coleman.
German military attaché:
confessions of Ahmed Ibrahim al-Sayed al-Najjar, “Returnees from Albania” case, September 1998.

183
two thousand dollars:
interview with Jack Cloonan.

184
Naguib Mahfouz:
interview with Naguib Mahfouz.

185
“Vanguards of Conquest”:
al-Zawahiri, “Knights Under the Prophet’s Banner,” part 6. There is an ongoing dispute about whether Zawahiri was in charge of the Vanguards. There were several articles in the press that described the Vanguards as a dissident, break-away group from al-Jihad, which was led by Ahmed Agazzi and Yasser el-Sirri. However, el-Sirri was evasive when I queried him on this. “In 1993 and 1994, many did not agree with what happened in Egypt,” he said. “But Zawahiri had the money. This group did not.” Mamdouh Ismail, an Islamist lawyer in Cairo, told me that “Vanguards” was a media name; in fact, the arrested persons were largely members of al-Jihad—a view echoed by Hisham Kassem, a human rights advocate and publisher in Cairo, and Montassir al-Zayyat. “There is nothing called ‘Vanguards of Conquest,’ ” Zayyat asserts.
judicial standards:
According to Hisham Kassem, a Cairo publisher and human rights worker, “Vanguards was accused of trying to overthrow the government. Part of the evidence was a baseball bat and an air rifle. The ones you think are dangerous, you hang; the rest you give life sentences. It was all staged.”
“only solution”:
Andrew Higgins and Christopher Cooper, “Cloak and Dagger: A CIA-Backed Team Used Brutal Means to Crack Terror Cell,”
Wall Street Journal
, November 20, 2001.
backs of camels:
testimony of Jamal al-Fadl,
U.S. v. Usama bin Laden, et al
.
“The Minister escaped”:
“Al-Sharq al-Awsat Publishes Extracts from al-Jihad Leader al-Zawahiri’s New Book,” by FBIS,
Al-Sharq al-Awsat
, December 2, 2001.

186
been to Iran:
“Confessions from Last Leader of al-Jihad Organization,”
Rose el-Youssef
, February 2, 1997. Translated by FBIS.
Zawahiri distributed cassettes:
Salah,
Waqai’ Sanawat al-Jihad
.
“Terrorism is the enemy”:
“Egyptian Mourners Condemn Terrorists,”
AP
, November 27, 1993.
“The unintended death”:
Ayman al-Zawahiri, “Al-Sharq al-Awsat Publishes Extracts from al-Jihad Leader al-Zawahiri’s New Book,”
Al-Sharq al-Awsat
, December 2, 2001. Translated by FBIS.
“This meant”:
ibid.

10. Paradise Lost

188
350,000 lives:
Huband,
Warriors of the Prophet
, 36.
250 men:
Anonymous,
Through Our Enemies’ Eyes
, 136.
a handful:
interview with Hassabulla Omer. The testimony of L’Houssaine Kherchtou mentions only a couple of al-Qaeda fighters, who were sent to Somalia because they were dark-skinned and could pass as natives.
U.S. v. Usama bin Laden et al
. The extent of al-Qaeda’s involvement in Somalia remains unresolved. Mary Deborah Doran, who concentrated on the Somali question for the FBI, wrote me: “I think there’s no doubt AQ played a role in Somalia, and I believe that AQ had a role in the killing of our Rangers in October 1993—that even if they weren’t the ones to pull the trigger (something we won’t know until we find the people who did pull the triggers or were there when they were pulled), I believe it wouldn’t have happened without them.”
“Somalis treated us”:
al-Hammadi, “The Inside Story of al-Qa’ida,” part 2, March 24, 2005.

189
“Based on the reports”:
Taysir Aluni interview with Osama bin Laden, al-Jazeera, October 2001.
Ali Mohammed, taught:
interview with Jack Cloonan.
Qari el-Said:
interview with Abdullah Anas.

190
two months of 1994:
Wiktorowicz, “The New Global Threat.”
“Thank God”:
interview with Abdullah Anas.
“better image”:
Evan Kohlmann, “The Legacy of the Arab-Afghans: A Case Study” (international politics honors thesis, Georgetown University, 2001).
“too flexible”:
interview with Abdullah Anas.
More than a hundred thousand:
Kepel,
Jihad
, 254.
chemical agents…smuggling:
testimony of Jamal al-Fadl,
U.S. v. Usama bin Laden, et al
.

191
Jamal al-Fadl:
interviews with Jack Cloonan and Mark Rossini.
The general wanted $1.5 million:
testimony of Jamal al-Fadl,
U.S. v. Usama bin Laden, et al
. Mohammed Loay Baizid (Abu Rida al-Suri), who allegedly purchased the “uranium” for bin Laden, claims that this entire episode never happened. His statement is supported by Hassabulla Omer, who was working in Sudanese intelligence at the time. Both men say there were similar rumors and scams operating in Khartoum that might have been the basis for Fadl’s testimony.

191
red mercury:
personal correspondence with Roy Schwitters.
nuclear warheads:
Anonymous,
Through Our Enemies’ Eyes
, 125.

192
Ansar al-Sunnah Mosque:
Details about the assassination attempt come from Mohammed Ibrahim Naqd, “The First Attempt to Assassinate bin Laden Was Attempted by a Libyan Who Was Trained in Lebanon,”
Al-Hayat
, November 18, 2001; and Ibrahim Hassan Ardi, “Al-Watan Places the Period the Head of al-Qaeda Spent in Sudan,”
Al-Watan
, October 25, 2001; “Ossama bin-Ladin: Muslims Who Live in Europe Are Kafirs,”
Rose al-Yousef
, December 9, 1996; al-Hammadi, “The Inside Story of al-Qa’ida,” part 3, March 21, 2005; and from interviews with Issam al-Turabi, Sadiq el-Mahdi, Hassabulla Omer, and Khaled Yusuf. A number of sources state that there were actually two assassination attempts on bin Laden, sometimes given as being several weeks apart, but those reports stem from bin Laden himself, who counts the shooting at the mosque the night before as an attempt on his life.
suffered from asthma:
interview with Jamal Khalifa. Some of the details about bin Laden’s son Abdullah come from al-Hammadi, “The Inside Story of al-Qa’ida,” part 3, March 21, 2005.
“At that moment”:
“Ossama bin-Ladin: Muslims Who Live in Europe Are Kafirs,”
Rose al-Yousef
, December 9, 1996.

193
“They had targeted”:
ibid.
“regimes in our Arabic region”:
Wright, “The Man Behind bin Laden.”
Egyptian intelligence:
interview with Jamal Khashoggi.
CIA believed:
interview with Michael Scheuer.
kept their university jobs:
interview with anonymous Sudanese source.

194
“We have not been”:
interview with Jamal Khalifa.
It was Egypt:
ibid.

195
Fahd personally decided:
interview with Saeed Badeeb.
“Take it,”:
“Walidee Ramama al-Aqsa Bilkhasara” [My Father Renovated al-Aqsa Mosque, with a Loss],
Al-Umma al-Islamiyya
, October 18, 1991.
seeking asylum:
Daniel McGrory, “The Day When Osama bin Laden Applied for Asylum—in Britain,”
Times
, September 29, 2005.
about $7 million:
interview with bin Laden family spokesperson.

196
depended on the monthly stipend:
interview with Jamal Khalifa.
spreading money around:
interview with Hassabulla Omer.
rock-crushing machines:
Benjamin Weiser, “Ex-Aide Tells of Plot to Kill bin Laden,”
New York Times
, February 21, 2001.
“Business is very bad”:
testimony of Jamal al-Fadl,
U.S. v. Usama bin Laden, et al
. Interview with Mohammed Loay Baizid.