The Looming Tower (76 page)

Abdullah Azzam, who issued a fatwa in 1984 that called upon Muslims everywhere to “join the caravan” of the Afghan jihad. He and bin Laden set up the Services Bureau in Peshawar to facilitate the movement of Arabs into the war.

Bin Laden in a cave in Jalalabad in 1988, at about the time that he began al-Qaeda

Below: Azzam in the Panjshir Valley in 1988, where he traveled to meet with Ahmed Shah Massoud, the greatest of the Afghan commanders in the war against the Soviet invasion. Massoud sits next to Azzam with his arm around Azzam’s son Ibrahim. Shortly after this visit Azzam and two of his sons, including Ibrahim, were assassinated in a bombing that has never been solved.

General Hamid Gul, who ran the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence during the Afghan jihad. The United States and Saudi Arabia funneled hundreds of millions of dollars through the ISI, which was largely responsible for creating the Taliban when the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan.

Right: Prince Turki al-Faisal, head of Saudi intelligence, held the file on Afghanistan and worked with bin Laden. Later he negotiated with Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Taliban leader, but came away empty-handed.

Prince Turki after the Soviet occupation, negotiating among the warring mujahideen. He is on the far left, next to Burhanuddin Rabbani, the head of Ahmed Shah Massoud’s political party. Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sherif sits on the right.

The World Trade Center as seen from New Jersey, where the followers of Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman plotted to bring it down

Ramzi Yousef was the mastermind of the first World Trade Center bombing. It was his dark imagination that gave shape to al-Qaeda’s ambitious agenda.

Hasan al-Turabi, the loquacious and provocative ideologue who organized the Islamist coup in Sudan and courted bin Laden to invest in the country. “Bin Laden hated Turabi,” a friend confided. “He thought he was a Machiavelli.” Bin Laden came to Sudan a wealthy man; he left with little more than his wardrobe.

While bin Laden was in Sudan, the king of Saudi Arabia revoked bin Laden’s citizenship and sent an emissary to collect his passport. Bin Laden threw it at the man. “Take it, if having it dictates anything on my behalf!”