The Looming Tower (70 page)

197
“lost all my money”:
testimony of L’Houssaine Kherchtou,
U.S. v. Usama bin Laden, et al
.
a billionaire:
testimony of Jamal al-Fadl,
U.S. v. Usama bin Laden, et al
.
nearly $1 million:
ibid. The actual amounts were $795,200.49 from the Witness Protection Program and $151,047.02 from the FBI. That does not include money that may have been given to Fadl by the CIA, who were the first to interview him.
New Jersey Lottery:
interview with Jack Cloonan.

198
two cameras:
ibid.
“Bin Laden looked”:
plea,
U.S. v. Ali Mohamed
.

199
“I am tired”:
Hasin al-Banyan, “The Oldest Arab Afghan Talks to ‘Al-Sharq al-Awsat’ About His Career That Finally Landed Him in Prison in Saudi Arabia,” trans. FBIS,
Al-Sharq al-Awsat
, November 25, 2001.
Medani al-Tayeb:
interview with Jamal Khalifa.
several delegations:
Anonymous,
Through Our Enemies’ Eyes
, 146.
“It means that Abdullah”:
interview with Mohammed Loay Baizid.
conciliatory note:
interview with Jamal Khashoggi.
if he pledged to give up jihad:
interview with Ahmed Badeeb.

11. The Prince of Darkness

202
“O’Neill”:
interview with Richard A. Clarke.

203
“nightclub wardrobe”:
interview with Steven Simon.

204
paint its jet:
interview with Admiral Paul E. Busick.
$12 million:
Naftali,
Blind Spot
, 242.

205
Su-Casa:
Reeve,
New Jackals
, 104.

207
“Sons of John”:
interview with Mark Rossini.

209
“This battle is not between al-Qaeda and the U.S.”:
Taysir Aluni interview with Osama bin Laden, al-Jazeera, October 2001.

210
new basing agreements:
interview with Richard A. Clarke.
former Egyptian minister:
Alain Geresh,
From Index on Censorship
, www.geocities.com/saudhouse_p/endofan.htm, April 1996.

211
“Why would my car”:
Kevin Dennehy, “Cape Man Relives Close Call with Terrorist Bombing While in Saudi Arabia,”
Cape Cod Times
, October 25, 2001.
torturing confessions:
A vivid account of the roundup and torture of Arab Afghans following the 1995 bombing can be found in Jerichow,
The Saudi File
, 136-40.
Farouk camp:
Kohlmann,
Al-Qaida’s Jihad in Europe
, 158.
nearly identical confessions:
Teitelbaum,
Holier Than Thou
, 76.
“heroes”:
Anonymous,
Through Our Enemies’ Eyes
, 141.
fatwa urging jihad:
Salah Najm and Jamal Ismail, “Osama bin Laden: The Destruction of the Base,” al-Jazeera, June 10, 1999.

212
“first terrorist blow”:
Prince Turki al-Faisal speech to Seton Hall University, October 14, 2003.

12. The Boy Spies

213
Egyptian intelligence learned:
Al-Ahram
, July 5, 1995.

214
married local women:
interview with David Shinn.
smuggled weapons:
interview with Sadiq al-Mahdi.
motivational talk:
Al-Ahram
, July 5, 1995.
The plan:
interview with Saeed Badeeb.
Mubarak’s plane:
interview with Hisham Kassem.
grenade launcher malfunctioned:
interview with Mohammed el-Shafey.
return to the airport:
interview with Saeed Badeeb.
“The sons”:
Petterson,
Inside Sudan
, 179.

215
Houses were burned:
interview with Hisham Kassem.
thousands of suspects:
Human-rights organizations estimate the number of Islamists still incarcerated in Egypt at 15,000; Islamists put the figure at 60,000.
fiendish plan:
interviews with Yassir el-Sirri, Montassir el-Zayyat, and Hani el-Sibai.
a senior member:
Mohammed el-Shafey, “Al-Zawahiri’s Secret Papers,” part 6,
Al-Sharq al-Awsat
, December 18, 2002.
“It could even”:
interview with Yassir el-Sirri.

216
“state within a state”:
Mohammed el-Shafey, “Al-Zawahiri’s Secret Papers,” part 6,
Al-Sharq al-Awsat
, December 18, 2002.
fewer than a hundred:
confessions of Ahmed Ibrahim al-Sayed al-Najjar, “Returnees from Albania” case, September 1998.
“These are bad times”:
ibid.

217
November 19, 1995:
The account of the Egyptian Embassy bombing comes from al-Hammadi, “The Inside Story of al-Qa’ida,” part 9, March 28, 2005.
cab driver:
“Al-Qaida, Usama bin Laden’s Vehicle for Action,” unsigned CIA document, July 12, 2001. The document describes Abu Khabab as a “limousine driver,” which in the Middle East is usually a euphemism for cab driver.

218
government rounded up:
interview with Ismail Khan.
there were no innocents:
Maha Azzam, “Al-Qaeda: The Misunderstood Wahhabi Connection and the Ideology of Violence,”
Royal Institute of International Affairs Briefing Paper No. 1
, February 2003.
“A man may”:
Sahih Bukhari
, vol. 8, bk. 77, no. 60.

219
“a generation of mujahideen”:
Mohammed el-Shafey, “Al-Zawahiri’s Secret Papers,” part 6,
Al-Sharq al-Awsat
, December 18, 2002.
“Do you remember”:
interview with Issam al-Turabi.
his right testicle:
Randal,
Osama
, 147.
French had issued a similar indictment:
interview with Ghazi Salah Eddin Atabani.

220
“if he apologizes”:
interview with Timothy Carney.
“We are ready”:
interview with Elfatih Erwa. Both Richard A. Clarke, who was the national coordinator for security, infrastructure protection, and counterterrorism at the time, and his deputy Steven Simon dispute the point that the Sudanese ever formally offered bin Laden to the United States, but neither man was in the meeting, and it seems clear that the director of national security at the time, Sandy Berger, did explore the possibility of accepting bin Laden. The 9/11 Commission, however, stated that it found “no credible evidence” that Erwa had made the offer.
9/11 Commission Report
, 110.

221
nurtured the fantasy:
Barton Gellman, “U.S. Was Foiled Multiple Times in Efforts to Capture bin Laden or Have Him Killed,”
Washington Post
, October 3, 2001.
Bashir offered:
“Arabs and Muslims Must Break Barriers, Contact Others: Turki,”
Saudi Gazette
, November 11, 2002.
“Give us proof”:
interview with Ahmed Badeeb.
“Ask him to leave”:
interview with Ahmed Badeeb.
Turabi and bin Laden argued:
al-Hammadi, “The Inside Story of al-Qa’ida,” part 3, March 21, 2005.

222
Turabi did bin Laden the favor:
Jason Burke, “The Making of bin Laden: Part 1,”
Observer
, October 28, 2001.
$12 million:
Robert Block, “In the War Against Terrorism, Sudan Struck a Blow by Fleecing bin Laden,”
Wall Street Journal
, December 3, 2001.
“a mixture”:
ibid.

223
check for $2,400:
testimony of L’Houssaine Kherchtou,
U.S. v. Usama bin Laden, et al
.
Tupolev jet:
interview with Jack Cloonan.
Two of bin Laden’s young sons:
al-Hammadi, “The Inside Story of al-Qa’ida,” part 3, March 21, 2005.
He held America responsible:
interview with Jamal Khashoggi.

13. Hijira

224
given him money:
interview with Ahmed Badeeb.
abducted children:
interview with Rahimullah Yusufzai.

225
disabled 4 percent:
Tim Friend, “Millions of Land Mines Hinder Afghan Recovery,”
USA Today
, November 27, 2001.
most of them orphans:
According to Thomas Gouttierre, director of the Center for Afghanistan Studies at the University of Nebraska-Omaha, 80 percent of the Taliban forces were orphans from the Soviet war. Anna Mulrine, “Unveiled Threat,”
U.S. News and World Report
, October 15, 2001.
three former mujahideen:
Burke,
Al-Qaeda
, 145.
Younis Khalis:
interview with Rahimullah Yusufzai.
teenage brides:
Coll,
Ghost Wars
, 327.

226
hired pilots:
U.S. Embassy (Islamabad) confidential cable, “Finally, a Talkative Talib: Origins and Membership of the Religious Students’ Movement,” February 20, 1995.
four Talibs in a jeep:
interview with anonymous Pakistani diplomat.
lost his right eye:
Arnaud de Borchgrave, “Osama bin Laden—‘Null and Void,’ ”
UPI
, June 14, 2001.
crack marksman:
Ismail Khan, “Mojaddedi Opposes Elevation of Taliban’s Omar,”
Islamabad the News
, April 6, 1996.
passable Arabic:
interview with Farraj Ismail.

227
“Corruption and moral disintegration”:
Zaidan,
Bin Laden Bila Qina
’.
vision of the Prophet:
U.S. Embassy (Islamabad) confidential cable, “Finally, a Talkative Talib: Origins and Membership of the Religious Students’ Movement,” February 20, 1995.
2,500 men:
Nojumi,
The Rise of the Taliban
, 118.
students in a vocational school:
Coll,
Ghost Wars
, 294-95.
three million Afghan refugees:
interview with Prince Turki al-Faisal.
Sufi shrines:
Juan Cole, personal communication.

228
monthly stipend:
Nojumi,
The Rise of the Taliban
, 119.
beggars and sissies:
Lamb,
The Sewing Circles of Heart
, 105.
twelve thousand fighters:
Burke,
Al-Qaeda
, 113.

228
10 percent tax:
Nojumi,
The Rise of the Taliban
, 136.

229
tents for the wives:
Robert Fisk, “Small Comfort in bin-Ladin’s Dangerous Exile,”
Independent
, July 11, 1996.
former Soviet collective:
Jason Burke, “The Making of bin Laden: Part 1,”
Observer
, October 28, 2001.
Najm al-Jihad
:
“The Story of the Arab Afghans from the Time of Arrival in Afghanistan Until Their Departure with the Taliban, part 3,”
Al-Sharq al-Awsat
, December 10, 2004.
men bunked nearby:
interview with Rahimullah Yusufzai.
trade in honey:
interview with Peter L. Bergen.
Electricity:
Mohammed el-Shafey, “Son of al-Qai’da Financier: ‘Lived Next to bin Ladin’s Family, Who Disliked Electricity and Called for Austerity,’ ”
Al-Sharq al-Awsat
, April 16, 2004.
no international telephone:
Robert Fisk, “Small Comfort in bin-Ladin’s Dangerous Exile,”
Independent
, July 11, 1996.
Americans were monitoring:
Actually, according to Jack Cloonan, U.S. intelligence did not learn about the phone until 1997.
He was suspicious:
“Biography of Usamah bin-Ladin, Written by Brother Mujahid with Minor Modifications,” Islamic Observation Center, April 22, 2000. Translated by FBIS.
killed in an ambush:
Burke,
Al-Qaeda
, 156.
taught his wives:
“The Story of the Arab Afghans from the Time of Arrival in Afghanistan Until Their Departure with the Taliban, Part 3,”
Al-Sharq al-Awsat
, December 10, 2004. Translated by FBIS.

230
“We don’t want subversive”:
Tim McGirk, “Home Away from Home,”
Time
, December 16, 1996.
beaten and tortured:
Rashid,
Taliban
, 49.
“Women you should”:
from appendix 1 of ibid., 217ff. Rashid reproduced the Taliban decrees that had been translated from Dari and passed to reporters. He left the grammar and spelling as in the original. Statistics of female employment come from Anna Mulrine, “Unveiled Threat,”
U.S. News and World Report
, October 15, 2001.

231
“unclean things”:
Amy Waldman, “No TV, No Chess, No Kites: Taliban’s Code, from A to Z,”
New York Times
, November 22, 2001.
“Beatle-ly”…“her home will be marked”:
ibid.
only animals that survived:
interview with Bahram Rahman.
“Throw reason”:
Burke,
Al-Qaeda
, 111.

232
overloaded ferry:
testimony of Ashif Mohamed Juma,
U.S. v. Usama bin Laden, et al
.

234
“You are not unaware”:
Osama bin Laden, “Declaration of War Against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places,”
Al-Quds al-Arabi
, August 23, 1996.

235
secretary for…Sayyaf:
interview with Yosri Fouda.
poorly trained:
Fouda and Fielding,
Masterminds of Terror
, 116.
month in the Philippines:
interview with Frank Pellegrino.
“Bojinka”:
9/11 Commission Report
, 488 n. Previous reports have erroneously stated that the term was a Serbo-Croatian word for “big bang.”

236
Haruki Ikegami:
Reeve,
The New Jackals
, 79.
did not know Yousef:
interview with Jamal Khashoggi, who says bin Laden “swore” to him that he did not know Yousef. Yousef did spend time in al-Qaeda camps and safe houses in 1989, however, and may have been in Peshawar at the same time that bin Laden was mediating the civil war in Afghanistan. Coll,
Ghost Wars
, 249. Mohammed Saleh, the
Al-Hayat
correspondent in Cairo, told me that Ramzi Yousef and bin Laden met in Pakistan, but he would not reveal the source of this information.
sent a messenger:
Reeve,
The New Jackals
, 76.
sent to bin Laden diagrams:
interview with Michael Scheuer.
kill Pope John Paul II:
Reeve,
The New Jackals
, 86.
training pilots:
9/11 Commission Report
, 149.