"Constitution Under Hoof," by Confetti
2
THE FOUNDATION OF THE NEW TERRORISM
In February 1998, the 40-year-old Saudi exile Usama Bin
Ladin and a fugitive Egyptian physician, Ayman al Zawahiri, arranged from
their Afghan headquarters for an Arabic newspaper in London to publish
what they termed a fatwa issued in the name of a "World Islamic Front." A
fatwa is normally an interpretation of Islamic law by a respected Islamic
authority, but neither Bin Ladin, Zawahiri, nor the three others who
signed this statement were scholars of Islamic law. Claiming that America
had declared war against God and his messenger, they called for the murder
of any American, anywhere on earth, as the "individual duty for every
Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it."1
Three months later, when interviewed in Afghanistan by
ABC-TV, Bin Ladin enlarged on these themes.2 He claimed it was
more important for Muslims to kill Americans than to kill other infidels.
"It is far better for anyone to kill a single American soldier than to
squander his efforts on other activities," he said. Asked whether he
approved of terrorism and of attacks on civilians, he replied: "We believe
that the worst thieves in the world today and the worst terrorists are the
Americans. Nothing could stop you except perhaps retaliation in kind. We
do not have to differentiate between military or civilian. As far as we
are concerned, they are all targets."
Note: Islamic names often do not follow the Western
practice of the consistent use of surnames. Given the variety of names we
mention, we chose to refer to individuals by the last word in the names by
which they are known: Nawaf al Hazmi as Hazmi, for instance, omitting the
article "al" that would be part of their name in their own societies. We
generally make an exception for the more familiar English usage of "Bin"
as part of a last name, as in Bin Ladin. Further, there is no universally
accepted way to transliterate Arabic words and names into English. We have
relied on a mix of common sense, the sound of the name in Arabic, and
common usage in source materials, the press, or government documents. When
we quote from a source document, we use its transliteration, e.g ,"al Qida"
instead of al Qaeda.
Though novel for its open endorsement of indiscriminate
killing, Bin Ladin's 1998 declaration was only the latest in the long
series of his public and private calls since 1992 that singled out the
United States for attack.
In August 1996, Bin Ladin had issued his own self-styled
fatwa calling on Muslims to drive American soldiers out of Saudi Arabia.
The long, disjointed document condemned the Saudi monarchy for allowing
the presence of an army of infidels in a land with the sites most sacred
to Islam, and celebrated recent suicide bombings of American military
facilities in the Kingdom. It praised the 1983 suicide bombing in Beirut
that killed 241 U.S. Marines, the 1992 bombing in Aden, and especially the
1993 firefight in Somalia after which the United States "left the area
carrying disappointment, humiliation, defeat and your dead with you."3
Bin Ladin said in his ABC interview that he and his
followers had been preparing in Somalia for another long struggle, like
that against the Soviets in Afghanistan, but "the United States rushed out
of Somalia in shame and disgrace." Citing the Soviet army's withdrawal
from Afghanistan as proof that a ragged army of dedicated Muslims could
overcome a superpower, he told the interviewer: "We are certain that we
shall-with the grace of Allah-prevail over the Americans." He went on to
warn that "If the present injustice continues . . . , it will inevitably
move the battle to American soil."4
Plans to attack the United States were developed with
unwavering single-mindedness throughout the 1990s. Bin Ladin saw himself
as called "to follow in the footsteps of the Messenger and to communicate
his message to all nations,"5 and to serve as the rallying
point and organizer of a new kind of war to destroy America and bring the
world to Islam.
It is the story of eccentric and violent ideas sprouting
in the fertile ground of political and social turmoil. It is the story of
an organization poised to seize its historical moment. How did Bin Ladin-with
his call for the indiscriminate killing of Americans-win thousands of
followers and some degree of approval from millions more?
The history, culture, and body of beliefs from which Bin
Ladin has shaped and spread his message are largely unknown to many
Americans. Seizing on symbols of Islam's past greatness, he promises to
restore pride to people who consider themselves the victims of successive
foreign masters. He uses cultural and religious allusions to the holy
Qur'an and some of its interpreters. He appeals to people disoriented by
cyclonic change as they confront modernity and globalization. His rhetoric
selectively draws from multiple sources-Islam, history, and the region's
political and economic malaise. He also stresses grievances against the
United States widely shared in the Muslim world. He
Usama Bin Ladin at a news conference in Afghanistan in 1998
inveighed against the presence of U.S. troops in Saudi
Arabia, the home of Islam's holiest sites. He spoke of the suffering of
the Iraqi people as a result of sanctions imposed after the Gulf War, and
he protested U.S. support of Israel.
Islam
Islam (a word that literally means "surrender to the will of God") arose
in Arabia with what Muslims believe are a series of revelations to the
Prophet Mohammed from the one and only God, the God of Abraham and of
Jesus. These revelations, conveyed by the angel Gabriel, are recorded in
the Qur'an. Muslims believe that these revelations, given to the greatest
and last of a chain of prophets stretching from Abraham through Jesus,
complete God's message to humanity. The Hadith, which recount Mohammed's
sayings and deeds as recorded by his contemporaries, are another
fundamental source. A third key element is the Sharia, the code of law
derived from the Qur'an and the Hadith.
Islam is divided into two main branches, Sunni and Shia.
Soon after the Prophet's death, the question of choosing a new leader, or
caliph, for the Muslim community, or Ummah, arose. Initially, his
successors could be drawn from the Prophet's contemporaries, but with
time, this was no longer possible. Those who became the Shia held that any
leader of the Ummah must be a direct descendant of the Prophet; those who
became the Sunni argued that lineal descent was not required if the
candidate met other standards of faith and knowledge. After bloody
struggles, the Sunni became (and remain) the majority sect. (The Shia are
dominant in Iran.) The Caliphate-the institutionalized leadership of the
Ummah-thus was a Sunni institution that continued until 1924, first under
Arab and eventually under Ottoman Turkish control.
Many Muslims look back at the century after the
revelations to the Prophet Mohammed as a golden age. Its memory is
strongest among the Arabs. What happened then-the spread of Islam from the
Arabian Peninsula throughout the Middle East, North Africa, and even into
Europe within less than a century-seemed, and seems, miraculous.6
Nostalgia for Islam's past glory remains a powerful force.
Islam is both a faith and a code of conduct for all
aspects of life. For many Muslims, a good government would be one guided
by the moral principles of their faith. This does not necessarily
translate into a desire for clerical rule and the abolition of a secular
state. It does mean that some Muslims tend to be uncomfortable with
distinctions between religion and state, though Muslim rulers throughout
history have readily separated the two.
To extremists, however, such divisions, as well as the
existence of parliaments and legislation, only prove these rulers to be
false Muslims usurping God's authority over all aspects of life.
Periodically, the Islamic world has seen surges of what, for want of a
better term, is often labeled "fundamentalism."7 Denouncing
waywardness among the faithful, some clerics have appealed for a return to
observance of the literal teachings of the Qur'an and Hadith. One scholar
from the fourteenth century from whom Bin Ladin selectively quotes, Ibn
Taimiyyah, condemned both corrupt rulers and the clerics who failed to
criticize them. He urged Muslims to read the Qur'an and the Hadith for
themselves, not to depend solely on learned interpreters like himself but
to hold one another to account for the quality of their observance.8
The extreme Islamist version of history blames the
decline from Islam's golden age on the rulers and people who turned away
from the true path of their religion, thereby leaving Islam vulnerable to
encroaching foreign powers eager to steal their land, wealth, and even
their souls.
Bin Ladin's Worldview
Despite his claims to universal leadership, Bin Ladin
offers an extreme view of Islamic history designed to appeal mainly to
Arabs and Sunnis. He draws on fundamentalists who blame the eventual
destruction of the Caliphate on leaders who abandoned the pure path of
religious devotion.9 He repeatedly calls on his followers to
embrace martyrdom since "the walls of oppression and humiliation cannot be
demolished except in a rain of bullets."10 For those yearning
for a lost sense of order in an older, more tranquil world, he offers his
"Caliphate" as an imagined alternative to today's uncertainty. For others,
he offers simplistic conspiracies to explain their world.
Bin Ladin also relies heavily on the Egyptian writer
Sayyid Qutb. A member of the Muslim Brotherhood11 executed in
1966 on charges of attempting to overthrow the government, Qutb mixed
Islamic scholarship with a very superficial acquaintance with Western
history and thought. Sent by the Egyptian government to study in the
United States in the late 1940s, Qutb returned with an enormous loathing
of Western society and history. He dismissed Western achievements as
entirely material, arguing that Western society possesses "nothing that
will satisfy its own conscience and justify its existence."12
Three basic themes emerge from Qutb's writings. First,
he claimed that the world was beset with barbarism, licentiousness, and
unbelief (a condition he called jahiliyya, the religious term for
the period of ignorance prior to the revelations given to the Prophet
Mohammed). Qutb argued that humans can choose only between Islam and
jahiliyya. Second, he warned that more people, including Muslims, were
attracted to jahiliyya and its material comforts than to his view of
Islam; jahiliyya could therefore triumph over Islam. Third, no middle
ground exists in what Qutb conceived as a struggle between God and
Satan.All Muslims-as he defined them-therefore must take up arms in this
fight.Any Muslim who rejects his ideas is just one more nonbeliever worthy
of destruction.13
Bin Ladin shares Qutb's stark view, permitting him and
his followers to rationalize even unprovoked mass murder as righteous
defense of an embattled faith. Many Americans have wondered, "Why do
'they' hate us?" Some also ask, "What can we do to stop these attacks?"
Bin Ladin and al Qaeda have given answers to both these
questions. To the first, they say that America had attacked Islam; America
is responsible for all conflicts involving Muslims. Thus Americans are
blamed when Israelis fight with Palestinians, when Russians fight with
Chechens, when Indians fight with Kashmiri Muslims, and when the
Philippine government fights ethnic Muslims in its southern islands.
America is also held responsible for the governments of Muslim countries,
derided by al Qaeda as "your agents." Bin Ladin has stated flatly, "Our
fight against these governments is not separate from our fight against
you."14 These charges found a ready audience among millions of
Arabs and Muslims angry at the United States because of issues ranging
from Iraq to Palestine to America's support for their countries'
repressive rulers.
Bin Ladin's grievance with the United States may have
started in reaction to specific U.S. policies but it quickly became far
deeper. To the second question, what America could do, al Qaeda's answer
was that America should abandon the Middle East, convert to Islam, and end
the immorality and godlessness of its society and culture: "It is
saddening to tell you that you are the worst civilization witnessed by the
history of mankind." If the United States did not comply, it would be at
war with the Islamic nation, a nation that al Qaeda's leaders said
"desires death more than you desire life."15
History and Political Context
Few fundamentalist movements in the Islamic world gained
lasting political power. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries,
fundamentalists helped articulate anticolonial grievances but played
little role in the overwhelmingly secular struggles for independence after
World War I. Western-educated lawyers, soldiers, and officials led most
independence movements, and clerical influence and traditional culture
were seen as obstacles to national progress.
After gaining independence from Western powers following
World War II, the Arab Middle East followed an arc from initial pride and
optimism to today's mix of indifference, cynicism, and despair. In several
countries, a dynastic state already existed or was quickly established
under a paramount tribal family. Monarchies in countries such as Saudi
Arabia, Morocco, and Jordan still survive today. Those in Egypt, Libya,
Iraq, and Yemen were eventually overthrown by secular nationalist
revolutionaries.
The secular regimes promised a glowing future, often
tied to sweeping ideologies (such as those promoted by Egyptian President
Gamal Abdel Nasser's Arab Socialism or the Ba'ath Party of Syria and Iraq)
that called for a single, secular Arab state. However, what emerged were
almost invariably autocratic regimes that were usually unwilling to
tolerate any opposition-even in countries, such as Egypt, that had a
parliamentary tradition. Over time, their policies-repression, rewards,
emigration, and the displacement of popular anger onto scapegoats
(generally foreign)-were shaped by the desire to cling to power.
The bankruptcy of secular, autocratic nationalism was
evident across the Muslim world by the late 1970s.At the same time, these
regimes had closed off nearly all paths for peaceful opposition, forcing
their critics to choose silence, exile, or violent opposition. Iran's 1979
revolution swept a Shia theocracy into power. Its success encouraged Sunni
fundamentalists elsewhere.
In the 1980s, awash in sudden oil wealth, Saudi Arabia
competed with Shia Iran to promote its Sunni fundamentalist interpretation
of Islam, Wahhabism. The Saudi government, always conscious of its duties
as the custodian of Islam's holiest places, joined with wealthy Arabs from
the Kingdom and other states bordering the Persian Gulf in donating money
to build mosques and religious schools that could preach and teach their
interpretation of Islamic doctrine.
In this competition for legitimacy, secular regimes had
no alternative to offer. Instead, in a number of cases their rulers sought
to buy off local Islamist movements by ceding control of many social and
educational issues. Emboldened rather than satisfied, the Islamists
continued to push for power-a trend especially clear in Egypt. Confronted
with a violent Islamist movement that killed President Anwar Sadat in
1981, the Egyptian government combined harsh repression of Islamic
militants with harassment of moderate Islamic scholars and authors,
driving many into exile. In Pakistan, a military regime sought to justify
its seizure of power by a pious public stance and an embrace of
unprecedented Islamist influence on education and society.
These experiments in political Islam faltered during the
1990s: the Iranian revolution lost momentum, prestige, and public support,
and Pakistan's rulers found that most of its population had little
enthusiasm for fundamentalist Islam. Islamist revival movements gained
followers across the Muslim world, but failed to secure political power
except in Iran and Sudan. In Algeria, where in 1991 Islamists seemed
almost certain to win power through the ballot box, the military preempted
their victory, triggering a brutal civil war that continues today.
Opponents of today's rulers have few, if any, ways to participate in the
existing political system. They are thus a ready audience for calls to
Muslims to purify their society, reject unwelcome modernization, and
adhere strictly to the Sharia.
Social and Economic Malaise
In the 1970s and early 1980s, an unprecedented flood of
wealth led the then largely unmodernized oil states to attempt to shortcut
decades of development. They funded huge infrastructure projects, vastly
expanded education, and created subsidized social welfare programs. These
programs established a widespread feeling of entitlement without a
corresponding sense of social obligations. By the late 1980s, diminishing
oil revenues, the economic drain from many unprofitable development
projects, and population growth made these entitlement programs
unsustainable. The resulting cutbacks created enormous resentment among
recipients who had come to see government largesse as their right. This
resentment was further stoked by public understanding of how much oil
income had gone straight into the pockets of the rulers, their friends,
and their helpers.
Unlike the oil states (or Afghanistan, where real
economic development has barely begun), the other Arab nations and
Pakistan once had seemed headed toward balanced modernization. The
established commercial, financial, and industrial sectors in these states,
supported by an entrepreneurial spirit and widespread understanding of
free enterprise, augured well. But unprofitable heavy industry, state
monopolies, and opaque bureaucracies slowly stifled growth. More
importantly, these state-centered regimes placed their highest priority on
preserving the elite's grip on national wealth. Unwilling to foster
dynamic economies that could create jobs attractive to educated young men,
the countries became economically stagnant and reliant on the safety valve
of worker emigration either to the Arab oil states or to the West.
Furthermore, the repression and isolation of women in many Muslim
countries have not only seriously limited individual opportunity but also
crippled overall economic productivity.16
By the 1990s, high birthrates and declining rates of
infant mortality had produced a common problem throughout the Muslim
world: a large, steadily increasing population of young men without any
reasonable expectation of suitable or steady employment-a sure
prescription for social turbulence. Many of these young men, such as the
enormous number trained only in religious schools, lacked the skills
needed by their societies. Far more acquired valuable skills but lived in
stagnant economies that could not generate satisfying jobs.
Millions, pursuing secular as well as religious studies,
were products of educational systems that generally devoted little if any
attention to the rest of the world's thought, history, and culture. The
secular education reflected a strong cultural preference for technical
fields over the humanities and social sciences. Many of these young men,
even if able to study abroad, lacked the perspective and skills needed to
understand a different culture.
Frustrated in their search for a decent living, unable
to benefit from an education often obtained at the cost of great family
sacrifice, and blocked from starting families of their own, some of these
young men were easy targets for radicalization.
Bin Ladin's Historical Opportunity
Most Muslims prefer a peaceful and inclusive vision of
their faith, not the violent sectarianism of Bin Ladin. Among Arabs, Bin
Ladin's followers are commonly nicknamed takfiri, or "those who define
other Muslims as unbelievers," because of their readiness to demonize and
murder those with whom they disagree. Beyond the theology lies the simple
human fact that most Muslims, like most other human beings, are repelled
by mass murder and barbarism whatever their justification.
"All Americans must recognize that the face of terror is
not the true face of Islam," President Bush observed. "Islam is a faith
that brings comfort to a billion people around the world. It's a faith
that has made brothers and sisters of every race. It's a faith based upon
love, not hate."17 Yet as political, social, and economic
problems created flammable societies, Bin Ladin used Islam's most extreme,
fundamentalist traditions as his match. All these elements-including
religion-combined in an explosive compound.
Other extremists had, and have, followings of their own.
But in appealing to societies full of discontent, Bin Ladin remained
credible as other leaders and symbols faded. He could stand as a symbol of
resistance-above all, resistance to the West and to America. He could
present himself and his allies as victorious warriors in the one great
successful experience for Islamic militancy in the 1980s: the Afghan jihad
against the Soviet occupation.
By 1998, Bin Ladin had a distinctive appeal, as he
focused on attacking America. He argued that other extremists, who aimed
at local rulers or Israel, did not go far enough. They had not taken on
what he called "the head of the snake."18
Finally, Bin Ladin had another advantage: a substantial,
worldwide organization. By the time he issued his February 1998
declaration of war, Bin Ladin had nurtured that organization for nearly
ten years. He could attract, train, and use recruits for ever more
ambitious attacks, rallying new adherents with each demonstration that his
was the movement of the future.
A decade of conflict in Afghanistan, from 1979 to 1989,
gave Islamist extremists a rallying point and training field. A Communist
government in Afghanistan gained power in 1978 but was unable to establish
enduring control. At the end of 1979, the Soviet government sent in
military units to ensure that the country would remain securely under
Moscow's influence. The response was an Afghan national resistance
movement that defeated Soviet forces.19
Young Muslims from around the world flocked to
Afghanistan to join as volunteers in what was seen as a "holy war"-jihad-against
an invader. The largest numbers came from the Middle East. Some were
Saudis, and among them was Usama Bin Ladin.
Twenty-three when he arrived in Afghanistan in 1980, Bin
Ladin was the seventeenth of 57 children of a Saudi construction magnate.
Six feet five and thin, Bin Ladin appeared to be ungainly but was in fact
quite athletic, skilled as a horseman, runner, climber, and soccer player.
He had attended Abdul Aziz University in Saudi Arabia. By some accounts,
he had been interested there in religious studies, inspired by tape
recordings of fiery sermons by Abdullah Azzam, a Palestinian and a
disciple of Qutb. Bin Ladin was conspicuous among the volunteers not
because he showed evidence of religious learning but because he had access
to some of his family's huge fortune. Though he took part in at least one
actual battle, he became known chiefly as a person who generously helped
fund the anti-Soviet jihad.20
Bin Ladin understood better than most of the volunteers
the extent to which the continuation and eventual success of the jihad in
Afghanistan depended on an increasingly complex, almost worldwide
organization. This organization included a financial support network that
came to be known as the "Golden Chain," put together mainly by financiers
in Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf states. Donations flowed through
charities or other nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Bin Ladin and the
"Afghan Arabs" drew largely on funds raised by this network, whose agents
roamed world markets to buy arms and supplies for the mujahideen, or "holy
warriors."21
Mosques, schools, and boardinghouses served as
recruiting stations in many parts of the world, including the United
States. Some were set up by Islamic extremists or their financial backers.
Bin Ladin had an important part in this activity. He and the cleric Azzam
had joined in creating a "Bureau of Services" (Mektab al Khidmat, or MAK),
which channeled recruits into Afghanistan.22
The international environment for Bin Ladin's efforts
was ideal. Saudi Arabia and the United States supplied billions of dollars
worth of secret assistance to rebel groups in Afghanistan fighting the
Soviet occupation. This assistance was funneled through Pakistan: the
Pakistani military intelligence service (Inter-Services Intelligence
Directorate, or ISID), helped train the rebels and distribute the arms.
But Bin Ladin and his comrades had their own sources of support and
training, and they received little or no assistance from the United
States.23
April 1988 brought victory for the Afghan jihad. Moscow
declared it would pull its military forces out of Afghanistan within the
next nine months. As the Soviets began their withdrawal, the jihad's
leaders debated what to do next.
Bin Ladin and Azzam agreed that the organization
successfully created for Afghanistan should not be allowed to dissolve.
They established what they called a base or foundation (al Qaeda) as a
potential general headquarters for future jihad.24 Though Azzam
had been considered number one in the MAK, by August 1988 Bin Ladin was
clearly the leader (emir) of al Qaeda. This organization's
structure included as its operating arms an intelligence component, a
military committee, a financial committee, a political committee, and a
committee in charge of media affairs and propaganda. It also had an
Advisory Council (Shura) made up of Bin Ladin's inner circle.25
Bin Ladin's assumption of the helm of al Qaeda was
evidence of his growing self-confidence and ambition. He soon made clear
his desire for unchallenged control and for preparing the mujahideen to
fight anywhere in the world. Azzam, by contrast, favored continuing to
fight in Afghanistan until it had a true Islamist government. And, as a
Palestinian, he saw Israel as the top priority for the next stage.26
Whether the dispute was about power, personal
differences, or strategy, it ended on November 24, 1989, when a remotely
controlled car bomb killed Azzam and both of his sons. The killers were
assumed to be rival Egyptians. The outcome left Bin Ladin indisputably in
charge of what remained of the MAK and al Qaeda.27
Through writers like Qutb, and the presence of Egyptian
Islamist teachers in the Saudi educational system, Islamists already had a
strong intellectual influence on Bin Ladin and his al Qaeda colleagues. By
the late 1980s, the Egyptian Islamist movement-badly battered in the
government crackdown following President Sadat's assassination-was
centered in two major organizations: the Islamic Group and the Egyptian
Islamic Jihad. A spiritual guide for both, but especially the Islamic
Group, was the so-called Blind Sheikh, Omar Abdel Rahman. His preaching
had inspired the assassination of Sadat. After being in and out of
Egyptian prisons during the 1980s,Abdel Rahman found refuge in the United
States. From his headquarters in Jersey City, he distributed messages
calling for the murder of unbelievers.28
The most important Egyptian in Bin Ladin's circle was a
surgeon, Ayman al Zawahiri, who led a strong faction of the Egyptian
Islamic Jihad. Many of his followers became important members in the new
organization, and his own close ties with Bin Ladin led many to think of
him as the deputy head of al Qaeda. He would in fact become Bin Ladin's
deputy some years later, when they merged their organizations.29
Bin Ladin Moves to Sudan
By the fall of 1989, Bin Ladin had sufficient stature
among Islamic extremists that a Sudanese political leader, Hassan al
Turabi, urged him to transplant his whole organization to Sudan. Turabi
headed the National Islamic Front in a coalition that had recently seized
power in Khartoum.30 Bin Ladin agreed to help Turabi in an
ongoing war against African Christian separatists in southern Sudan and
also to do some road building. Turabi in return would let Bin Ladin use
Sudan as a base for worldwide business operations and for preparations for
jihad.31 While agents of Bin Ladin began to buy property in
Sudan in 1990,32 Bin Ladin himself moved from Afghanistan back
to Saudi Arabia.
In August 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait. Bin Ladin, whose
efforts in Afghanistan had earned him celebrity and respect, proposed to
the Saudi monarchy that he summon mujahideen for a jihad to retake Kuwait.
He was rebuffed, and the Saudis joined the U.S.-led coalition. After the
Saudis agreed to allow U.S. armed forces to be based in the Kingdom, Bin
Ladin and a number of Islamic clerics began to publicly denounce the
arrangement. The Saudi government exiled the clerics and undertook to
silence Bin Ladin by, among other things, taking away his passport. With
help from a dissident member of the royal family, he managed to get out of
the country under the pretext of attending an Islamic gathering in
Pakistan in April 1991.33 By 1994, the Saudi government would
freeze his financial assets and revoke his citizenship.34 He no
longer had a country he could call his own.
Bin Ladin moved to Sudan in 1991 and set up a large and
complex set of intertwined business and terrorist enterprises. In time,
the former would encompass numerous companies and a global network of bank
accounts and nongovernmental institutions. Fulfilling his bargain with
Turabi, Bin Ladin used his construction company to build a new highway
from Khartoum to Port Sudan on the Red Sea coast. Meanwhile, al Qaeda
finance officers and top operatives used their positions in Bin Ladin's
businesses to acquire weapons, explosives, and technical equipment for
terrorist purposes. One founding member, Abu Hajer al Iraqi, used his
position as head of a Bin Ladin investment company to carry out
procurement trips from western Europe to the Far East. Two others,Wadi al
Hage and Mubarak Douri, who had become acquainted in Tucson, Arizona, in
the late 1980s, went as far afield as China, Malaysia, the Philippines,
and the former Soviet states of Ukraine and Belarus.35
Bin Ladin's impressive array of offices covertly
provided financial and other support for terrorist activities. The network
included a major business enterprise in Cyprus; a "services" branch in
Zagreb; an office of the Benevolence International Foundation in Sarajevo,
which supported the Bosnian Muslims in their conflict with Serbia and
Croatia; and an NGO in Baku, Azerbaijan, that was employed as well by
Egyptian Islamic Jihad both as a source and conduit for finances and as a
support center for the Muslim rebels in Chechnya. He also made use of the
already-established Third World Relief Agency (TWRA) headquartered in
Vienna, whose branch office locations included Zagreb and Budapest. (Bin
Ladin later set up an NGO in Nairobi as a cover for operatives there.)36
Bin Ladin now had a vision of himself as head of an
international jihad confederation. In Sudan, he established an "Islamic
Army Shura" that was to serve as the coordinating body for the consortium
of terrorist groups with which he was forging alliances. It was composed
of his own al Qaeda Shura together with leaders or representatives of
terrorist organizations that were still independent. In building this
Islamic army, he enlisted groups from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan,
Lebanon, Iraq, Oman, Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, Morocco, Somalia, and
Eritrea. Al Qaeda also established cooperative but less formal
relationships with other extremist groups from these same countries; from
the African states of Chad, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, and Uganda; and from the
Southeast Asian states of Burma, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Bin
Ladin maintained connections in the Bosnian conflict as well.37
The groundwork for a true global terrorist network was being laid.
Bin Ladin also provided equipment and training
assistance to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front in the Philippines and
also to a newly forming Philippine group that called itself the Abu Sayyaf
Brigade, after one of the major Afghan jihadist commanders.38
Al Qaeda helped Jemaah Islamiya (JI), a nascent organization headed by
Indonesian Islamists with cells scattered across Malaysia, Singapore,
Indonesia, and the Philippines. It also aided a Pakistani group engaged in
insurrectionist attacks in Kashmir. In mid-1991, Bin Ladin dispatched a
band of supporters to the northern Afghanistan border to assist the
Tajikistan Islamists in the ethnic conflicts that had been boiling there
even before the Central Asian departments of the Soviet Union became
independent states.39
This pattern of expansion through building alliances
extended to the United States. A Muslim organization called al Khifa had
numerous branch offices, the largest of which was in the Farouq mosque in
Brooklyn. In the mid1980s, it had been set up as one of the first outposts
of Azzam and Bin Ladin's MAK.40 Other cities with branches of
al Khifa included Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Pittsburgh, and Tucson.41
Al Khifa recruited American Muslims to fight in Afghanistan; some of them
would participate in terrorist actions in the United States in the early
1990s and in al Qaeda operations elsewhere, including the 1998 attacks on
U.S. embassies in East Africa.
Bin Ladin began delivering diatribes against the United
States before he left Saudi Arabia. He continued to do so after he arrived
in Sudan. In early 1992, the al Qaeda leadership issued a fatwa calling
for jihad against the Western "occupation" of Islamic lands. Specifically
singling out U.S. forces for attack, the language resembled that which
would appear in Bin Ladin's public fatwa in August 1996. In ensuing weeks,
Bin Ladin delivered an often-repeated lec ture on the need to cut off "the
head of the snake."42
By this time, Bin Ladin was well-known and a senior
figure among Islamist extremists, especially those in Egypt, the Arabian
Peninsula, and the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region. Still, he was just
one among many diverse terrorist barons. Some of Bin Ladin's close
comrades were more peers than subordinates. For example, Usama Asmurai,
also known as Wali Khan, worked with Bin Ladin in the early 1980s and
helped him in the Philippines and in Tajikistan. The Egyptian spiritual
guide based in New Jersey, the Blind Sheikh, whom Bin Ladin admired, was
also in the network. Among sympathetic peers in Afghanistan were a few of
the warlords still fighting for power and Abu Zubaydah, who helped operate
a popular terrorist training camp near the border with Pakistan. There
were also rootless but experienced operatives, such as Ramzi Yousef and
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who-though not necessarily formal members of
someone else's organization-were traveling around the world and joining in
projects that were supported by or linked to Bin Ladin, the Blind Sheikh,
or their associates.43
In now analyzing the terrorist programs carried out by
members of this network, it would be misleading to apply the label "al
Qaeda operations" too often in these early years. Yet it would also be
misleading to ignore the significance of these connections. And in this
network, Bin Ladin's agenda stood out. While his allied Islamist groups
were focused on local battles, such as those in Egypt, Algeria, Bosnia, or
Chechnya, Bin Ladin concentrated on attacking the "far enemy"-the United
States.
Attacks Known and Suspected
After U.S. troops deployed to Somalia in late 1992, al
Qaeda leaders formulated a fatwa demanding their eviction. In December,
bombs exploded at two hotels in Aden where U.S. troops routinely stopped
en route to Somalia, killing two, but no Americans. The perpetrators are
reported to have belonged to a group from southern Yemen headed by a
Yemeni member of Bin Ladin's Islamic Army Shura; some in the group had
trained at an al Qaeda camp in Sudan.44
Al Qaeda leaders set up a Nairobi cell and used it to
send weapons and trainers to the Somali warlords battling U.S. forces, an
operation directly supervised by al Qaeda's military leader.45
Scores of trainers flowed to Somalia over the ensuing months, including
most of the senior members and weapons training experts of al Qaeda's
military committee. These trainers were later heard boasting that their
assistance led to the October 1993 shootdown of two U.S. Black Hawk
helicopters by members of a Somali militia group and to the subsequent
withdrawal of U.S. forces in early 1994.46
In November 1995, a car bomb exploded outside a Saudi-U.S.
joint facility in Riyadh for training the Saudi National Guard. Five
Americans and two officials from India were killed. The Saudi government
arrested four perpetrators, who admitted being inspired by Bin Ladin. They
were promptly executed. Though nothing proves that Bin Ladin ordered this
attack, U.S. intelligence subsequently learned that al Qaeda leaders had
decided a year earlier to attack a U.S. target in Saudi Arabia, and had
shipped explosives to the peninsula for this purpose. Some of Bin Ladin's
associates later took credit.47
In June 1996, an enormous truck bomb detonated in the
Khobar Towers residential complex in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, that housed
U.S. Air Force personnel. Nineteen Americans were killed, and 372 were
wounded. The operation was carried out principally, perhaps exclusively,
by Saudi Hezbollah, an organization that had received support from the
government of Iran. While the evidence of Iranian involvement is strong,
there are also signs that al Qaeda played some role, as yet unknown.48
In this period, other prominent attacks in which Bin
Ladin's involvement is at best cloudy are the 1993 bombing of the World
Trade Center, a plot that same year to destroy landmarks in New York, and
the 1995 Manila air plot to blow up a dozen U.S. airliners over the
Pacific. Details on these plots appear in chapter 3.
Another scheme revealed that Bin Ladin sought the
capability to kill on a mass scale. His business aides received word that
a Sudanese military officer who had been a member of the previous
government cabinet was offering to sell weapons-grade uranium. After a
number of contacts were made through intermediaries, the officer set the
price at $1.5 million, which did not deter Bin Ladin. Al Qaeda
representatives asked to inspect the uranium and were shown a cylinder
about 3 feet long, and one thought he could pronounce it genuine. Al Qaeda
apparently purchased the cylinder, then discovered it to be bogus.49
But while the effort failed, it shows what Bin Ladin and his associates
hoped to do. One of the al Qaeda representatives explained his mission:
"it's easy to kill more people with uranium."50
Bin Ladin seemed willing to include in the confederation
terrorists from almost every corner of the Muslim world. His vision
mirrored that of Sudan's Islamist leader, Turabi, who convened a series of
meetings under the label Popular Arab and Islamic Conference around the
time of Bin Ladin's arrival in that country. Delegations of violent
Islamist extremists came from all the groups represented in Bin Ladin's
Islamic Army Shura. Representatives also came from organizations such as
the Palestine Liberation Organization, Hamas, and Hezbollah.51
Turabi sought to persuade Shiites and Sunnis to put
aside their divisions and join against the common enemy. In late 1991 or
1992, discussions in Sudan between al Qaeda and Iranian operatives led to
an informal agreement to cooperate in providing support-even if only
training-for actions carried out primarily against Israel and the United
States. Not long afterward, senior al Qaeda operatives and trainers
traveled to Iran to receive training in explosives. In the fall of 1993,
another such delegation went to the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon for further
training in explosives as well as in intelligence and security. Bin Ladin
reportedly showed particular interest in learning how to use truck bombs
such as the one that had killed 241 U.S. Marines in Lebanon in 1983.The
relationship between al Qaeda and Iran demonstrated that Sunni-Shia
divisions did not necessarily pose an insurmountable barrier to
cooperation in terrorist operations. As will be described in chapter 7, al
Qaeda contacts with Iran continued in ensuing years.52
Bin Ladin was also willing to explore possibilities for
cooperation with Iraq, even though Iraq's dictator, Saddam Hussein, had
never had an Islamist agenda-save for his opportunistic pose as a defender
of the faithful against "Crusaders" during the Gulf War of 1991. Moreover,
Bin Ladin had in fact been sponsoring anti-Saddam Islamists in Iraqi
Kurdistan, and sought to attract them into his Islamic army.53
To protect his own ties with Iraq, Turabi reportedly
brokered an agreement that Bin Ladin would stop supporting activities
against Saddam. Bin Ladin apparently honored this pledge, at least for a
time, although he continued to aid a group of Islamist extremists
operating in part of Iraq (Kurdistan) outside of Baghdad's control. In the
late 1990s, these extremist groups suffered major defeats by Kurdish
forces. In 2001, with Bin Ladin's help they re-formed into an organization
called Ansar al Islam. There are indications that by then the Iraqi regime
tolerated and may even have helped Ansar al Islam against the common
Kurdish enemy.54
With the Sudanese regime acting as intermediary, Bin
Ladin himself met with a senior Iraqi intelligence officer in Khartoum in
late 1994 or early 1995. Bin Ladin is said to have asked for space to
establish training camps, as well as assistance in procuring weapons, but
there is no evidence that Iraq responded to this request.55 As
described below, the ensuing years saw additional efforts to establish
connections.
Sudan Becomes a Doubtful Haven
Not until 1998 did al Qaeda undertake a major terrorist
operation of its own, in large part because Bin Ladin lost his base in
Sudan. Ever since the Islamist regime came to power in Khartoum, the
United States and other Western governments had pressed it to stop
providing a haven for terrorist organizations. Other governments in the
region, such as those of Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and even Libya, which were
targets of some of these groups, added their own pressure. At the same
time, the Sudanese regime began to change. Though Turabi had been its
inspirational leader, General Omar al Bashir, president since 1989, had
never been entirely under his thumb. Thus as outside pressures mounted,
Bashir's supporters began to displace those of Turabi.
The attempted assassination in Ethiopia of Egyptian
President Hosni Mubarak in June 1995 appears to have been a tipping point.
The would-be killers, who came from the Egyptian Islamic Group, had been
sheltered in Sudan and helped by Bin Ladin.56 When the Sudanese
refused to hand over three individuals identified as involved in the
assassination plot, the UN Security Council passed a resolution
criticizing their inaction and eventually sanctioned Khartoum in April
1996.57
A clear signal to Bin Ladin that his days in Sudan were
numbered came when the government advised him that it intended to yield to
Libya's demands to stop giving sanctuary to its enemies. Bin Ladin had to
tell the Libyans who had been part of his Islamic army that he could no
longer protect them and that they had to leave the country. Outraged,
several Libyan members of al Qaeda and the Islamic Army Shura renounced
all connections with him.58
Bin Ladin also began to have serious money problems.
International pressure on Sudan, together with strains in the world
economy, hurt Sudan's currency. Some of Bin Ladin's companies ran short of
funds. As Sudanese authorities became less obliging, normal costs of doing
business increased. Saudi pressures on the Bin Ladin family also probably
took some toll. In any case, Bin Ladin found it necessary both to cut back
his spending and to control his outlays more closely. He appointed a new
financial manager, whom his followers saw as miserly.59
Money problems proved costly to Bin Ladin in other ways.
Jamal Ahmed al Fadl, a Sudanese-born Arab, had spent time in the United
States and had been recruited for the Afghan war through the Farouq mosque
in Brooklyn. He had joined al Qaeda and taken the oath of fealty to Bin
Ladin, serving as one of his business agents. Then Bin Ladin discovered
that Fadl had skimmed about $110,000, and he asked for restitution. Fadl
resented receiving a salary of only $500 a month while some of the
Egyptians in al Qaeda were given $1,200 a month. He defected and became a
star informant for the United States. Also testifying about al Qaeda in a
U.S. court was L'Houssaine Kherchtou, who told of breaking with Bin Ladin
because of Bin Ladin's professed inability to provide him with money when
his wife needed a caesarian section.60
In February 1996, Sudanese officials began approaching
officials from the United States and other governments, asking what
actions of theirs might ease foreign pressure. In secret meetings with
Saudi officials, Sudan offered to expel Bin Ladin to Saudi Arabia and
asked the Saudis to pardon him. U.S. officials became aware of these
secret discussions, certainly by March. Saudi officials apparently wanted
Bin Ladin expelled from Sudan. They had already revoked his citizenship,
however, and would not tolerate his presence in their country. And Bin
Ladin may have no longer felt safe in Sudan, where he had already escaped
at least one assassination attempt that he believed to have been the work
of the Egyptian or Saudi regimes, or both. In any case, on May 19, 1996,
Bin Ladin left Sudan-significantly weakened, despite his ambitions and
organizational skills. He returned to Afghanistan.61
2.5 AL QAEDA'S RENEWAL IN AFGHANISTAN (1996-1998)
Bin Ladin flew on a leased aircraft from Khartoum to
Jalalabad, with a refueling stopover in the United Arab Emirates.62
He was accompanied by family members and bodyguards, as well as by al
Qaeda members who had been close associates since his organization's 1988
founding in Afghanistan. Dozens of additional militants arrived on later
flights.63
Though Bin Ladin's destination was Afghanistan, Pakistan
was the nation that held the key to his ability to use Afghanistan as a
base from which to revive his ambitious enterprise for war against the
United States.
For the first quarter century of its existence as a
nation, Pakistan's identity had derived from Islam, but its politics had
been decidedly secular. The army was-and remains-the country's strongest
and most respected institution, and the army had been and continues to be
preoccupied with its rivalry with India, especially over the disputed
territory of Kashmir.
From the 1970s onward, religion had become an
increasingly powerful force in Pakistani politics. After a coup in 1977,
military leaders turned to Islamist groups for support, and
fundamentalists became more prominent. South Asia had an indigenous form
of Islamic fundamentalism, which had developed in the nineteenth century
at a school in the Indian village of Deoband.64 The influence
of the Wahhabi school of Islam had also grown, nurtured by Saudi-funded
institutions. Moreover, the fighting in Afghanistan made Pakistan home to
an enormous-and generally unwelcome-population of Afghan refugees; and
since the badly strained Pakistani education system could not accommodate
the refugees, the government increasingly let privately funded religious
schools serve as a cost-free alternative. Over time, these schools
produced large numbers of half-educated young men with no marketable
skills but with deeply held Islamic views.65
Pakistan's rulers found these multitudes of ardent young
Afghans a source of potential trouble at home but potentially useful
abroad. Those who joined the Taliban movement, espousing a ruthless
version of Islamic law, perhaps could bring order in chaotic Afghanistan
and make it a cooperative ally. They thus might give Pakistan greater
security on one of the several borders where Pakistani military officers
hoped for what they called "strategic depth."66
It is unlikely that Bin Ladin could have returned to
Afghanistan had Pakistan disapproved. The Pakistani military intelligence
service probably had advance knowledge of his coming, and its officers may
have facilitated his travel. During his entire time in Sudan, he had
maintained guesthouses and training camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
These were part of a larger network used by diverse organizations for
recruiting and training fighters for Islamic insurgencies in such places
as Tajikistan, Kashmir, and Chechnya. Pakistani intelligence officers
reportedly introduced Bin Ladin to Taliban leaders in Kandahar, their main
base of power, to aid his reassertion of control over camps near Khowst,
out of an apparent hope that he would now expand the camps and make them
available for training Kashmiri militants.67
Yet Bin Ladin was in his weakest position since his
early days in the war against the Soviet Union. The Sudanese government
had canceled the registration of the main business enterprises he had set
up there and then put some of them up for public sale. According to a
senior al Qaeda detainee, the government of Sudan seized everything Bin
Ladin had possessed there.68
He also lost the head of his military committee, Abu
Ubaidah al Banshiri, one of the most capable and popular leaders of al
Qaeda. While most of the group's key figures had accompanied Bin Ladin to
Afghanistan, Banshiri had remained in Kenya to oversee the training and
weapons shipments of the cell set up some four years earlier. He died in a
ferryboat accident on Lake Victoria just a few days after Bin Ladin
arrived in Jalalabad, leaving Bin Ladin with a need to replace him not
only in the Shura but also as supervisor of the cells and prospective
operations in East Africa.69 He had to make other adjustments
as well, for some al Qaeda members viewed Bin Ladin's return to
Afghanistan as occasion to go off in their own directions. Some maintained
collaborative relationships with al Qaeda, but many disengaged entirely.70
For a time, it may not have been clear to Bin Ladin that
the Taliban would be his best bet as an ally. When he arrived in
Afghanistan, they controlled much of the country, but key centers,
including Kabul, were still held by rival warlords. Bin Ladin went
initially to Jalalabad, probably because it was in an area controlled by a
provincial council of Islamic leaders who were not major contenders for
national power. He found lodgings with Younis Khalis, the head of one of
the main mujahideen factions. Bin Ladin apparently kept his options open,
maintaining contacts with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who, though an Islamic
extremist, was also one of the Taliban's most militant opponents. But
after September 1996, when first Jalalabad and then Kabul fell to the
Taliban, Bin Ladin cemented his ties with them.71
That process did not always go smoothly. Bin Ladin, no
longer constrained by the Sudanese, clearly thought that he had new
freedom to publish his appeals for jihad. At about the time when the
Taliban were making their final drive toward Jalalabad and Kabul, Bin
Ladin issued his August 1996 fatwa, saying that "We . . . have been
prevented from addressing the Muslims," but expressing relief that "by the
grace of Allah, a safe base here is now available in the high Hindu Kush
mountains in Khurasan." But the Taliban, like the Sudanese, would
eventually hear warnings, including from the Saudi monarchy.72
Though Bin Ladin had promised Taliban leaders that he
would be circumspect, he broke this promise almost immediately, giving an
inflammatory interview to CNN in March 1997. The Taliban leader Mullah
Omar promptly "invited" Bin Ladin to move to Kandahar, ostensibly in the
interests of Bin Ladin's own security but more likely to situate him where
he might be easier to control.73
There is also evidence that around this time Bin Ladin
sent out a number of feelers to the Iraqi regime, offering some
cooperation. None are reported to have received a significant response.
According to one report, Saddam Hussein's efforts at this time to rebuild
relations with the Saudis and other Middle Eastern regimes led him to stay
clear of Bin Ladin.74
In mid-1998, the situation reversed; it was Iraq that
reportedly took the initiative. In March 1998, after Bin Ladin's public
fatwa against the United States, two al Qaeda members reportedly went to
Iraq to meet with Iraqi intelligence. In July, an Iraqi delegation
traveled to Afghanistan to meet first with the Taliban and then with Bin
Ladin. Sources reported that one, or perhaps both, of these meetings was
apparently arranged through Bin Ladin's Egyptian deputy, Zawahiri, who had
ties of his own to the Iraqis. In 1998, Iraq was under intensifying U.S.
pressure, which culminated in a series of large air attacks in December.75
Similar meetings between Iraqi officials and Bin Ladin
or his aides may have occurred in 1999 during a period of some reported
strains with the Taliban. According to the reporting, Iraqi officials
offered Bin Ladin a safe haven in Iraq. Bin Ladin declined, apparently
judging that his circumstances in Afghanistan remained more favorable than
the Iraqi alternative. The reports describe friendly contacts and indicate
some common themes in both sides' hatred of the United States. But to date
we have seen no evidence that these or the earlier contacts ever developed
into a collaborative operational relationship. Nor have we seen evidence
indicating that Iraq cooperated with al Qaeda in developing or carrying
out any attacks against the United States.76
Bin Ladin eventually enjoyed a strong financial position
in Afghanistan, thanks to Saudi and other financiers associated with the
Golden Chain. Through his relationship with Mullah Omar-and the monetary
and other benefits that it brought the Taliban-Bin Ladin was able to
circumvent restrictions; Mullah Omar would stand by him even when other
Taliban leaders raised objections. Bin Ladin appeared to have in
Afghanistan a freedom of movement that he had lacked in Sudan. Al Qaeda
members could travel freely within the country, enter and exit it without
visas or any immigration procedures, purchase and import vehicles and
weapons, and enjoy the use of official Afghan Ministry of Defense license
plates. Al Qaeda also used the Afghan state-owned Ariana Airlines to
courier money into the country.77
The Taliban seemed to open the doors to all who wanted
to come to Afghanistan to train in the camps. The alliance with the
Taliban provided al Qaeda a sanctuary in which to train and indoctrinate
fighters and terrorists, import weapons, forge ties with other jihad
groups and leaders, and plot and staff terrorist schemes. While Bin Ladin
maintained his own al Qaeda guesthouses and camps for vetting and training
recruits, he also provided support to and benefited from the broad
infrastructure of such facilities in Afghanistan made available to the
global network of Islamist movements. U.S. intelligence estimates put the
total number of fighters who underwent instruction in Bin Ladin-supported
camps in Afghanistan from 1996 through 9/11 at 10,000 to 20,000.78
In addition to training fighters and special operators,
this larger network of guesthouses and camps provided a mechanism by which
al Qaeda could screen and vet candidates for induction into its own
organization. Thousands flowed through the camps, but no more than a few
hundred seem to have become al Qaeda members. From the time of its
founding, al Qaeda had employed training and indoctrination to identify
"worthy" candidates.79
Al Qaeda continued meanwhile to collaborate closely with
the many Middle Eastern groups-in Egypt, Algeria, Yemen, Lebanon, Morocco,
Tunisia, Somalia, and elsewhere-with which it had been linked when Bin
Ladin was in Sudan. It also reinforced its London base and its other
offices around Europe, the Balkans, and the Caucasus. Bin Ladin bolstered
his links to extremists in South and Southeast Asia, including the
Malaysian-Indonesian JI and several Pakistani groups engaged in the
Kashmir conflict.80
The February 1998 fatwa thus seems to have been a kind
of public launch of a renewed and stronger al Qaeda, after a year and a
half of work. Having rebuilt his fund-raising network, Bin Ladin had again
become the rich man of the jihad movement. He had maintained or restored
many of his links with terrorists elsewhere in the world. And he had
strengthened the internal ties in his own organization.
The inner core of al Qaeda continued to be a
hierarchical top-down group with defined positions, tasks, and salaries.
Most but not all in this core swore fealty (or bayat) to Bin
Ladin. Other operatives were committed to Bin Ladin or to his goals and
would take assignments for him, but they did not swear bayat and
maintained, or tried to maintain, some autonomy. A looser circle of
adherents might give money to al Qaeda or train in its camps but remained
essentially independent. Nevertheless, they constituted a potential
resource for al Qaeda.81
Now effectively merged with Zawahiri's Egyptian Islamic
Jihad,82 al Qaeda promised to become the general headquarters
for international terrorism, without the need for the Islamic Army Shura.
Bin Ladin was prepared to pick up where he had left off in Sudan. He was
ready to strike at "the head of the snake."
Al Qaeda's role in organizing terrorist operations had
also changed. Before the move to Afghanistan, it had concentrated on
providing funds, training, and weapons for actions carried out by members
of allied groups. The attacks on the U.S. embassies in East Africa in the
summer of 1998 would take a different form-planned, directed, and executed
by al Qaeda, under the direct supervision of Bin Ladin and his chief
aides.
The Embassy Bombings
As early as December 1993, a team of al Qaeda operatives
had begun casing targets in Nairobi for future attacks. It was led by Ali
Mohamed, a former Egyptian army officer who had moved to the United States
in the mid-1980s, enlisted in the U.S. Army, and became an instructor at
Fort Bragg. He had provided guidance and training to extremists at the
Farouq mosque in Brooklyn, including some who were subsequently convicted
in the February 1993 attack on the World Trade Center. The casing team
also included a computer expert whose write-ups were reviewed by al Qaeda
leaders.83
The team set up a makeshift laboratory for developing
their surveillance photographs in an apartment in Nairobi where the
various al Qaeda operatives and leaders based in or traveling to the Kenya
cell sometimes met. Banshiri, al Qaeda's military committee chief,
continued to be the operational commander of the cell; but because he was
constantly on the move, Bin Ladin had dispatched another operative, Khaled
al Fawwaz, to serve as the on-site manager. The technical surveillance and
communications equipment employed for these casing missions included
state-of-the-art video cameras obtained from China and from dealers in
Germany. The casing team also reconnoitered targets in Djibouti.84
As early as January 1994, Bin Ladin received the
surveillance reports, complete with diagrams prepared by the team's
computer specialist. He, his top military committee members-Banshiri and
his deputy, Abu Hafs al Masri (also known as Mohammed Atef)-and a number
of other al Qaeda leaders reviewed the reports. Agreeing that the U.S.
embassy in Nairobi was an easy target because a car bomb could be parked
close by, they began to form a plan. Al Qaeda had begun developing the
tactical expertise for such attacks months earlier, when some of its
operatives-top military committee members and several operatives who were
involved with the Kenya cell among them-were sent to Hezbollah training
camps in Lebanon.85
The cell in Kenya experienced a series of disruptions
that may in part account for the relatively long delay before the attack
was actually carried out. The difficulties Bin Ladin began to encounter in
Sudan in 1995, his move to Afghanistan in 1996, and the months spent
establishing ties with the Taliban may also have played a role, as did
Banshiri's accidental drowning.
In August 1997, the Kenya cell panicked. The London
Daily Telegraph reported that Madani al Tayyib, formerly head of al
Qaeda's finance committee, had turned himself over to the Saudi
government. The article said (incorrectly) that the Saudis were sharing
Tayyib's information with the U.S. and British authorities.86
At almost the same time, cell members learned that U.S. and Kenyan agents
had searched the Kenya residence of Wadi al Hage, who had become the new
on-site manager in Nairobi, and that Hage's telephone was being tapped.
Hage was a U.S. citizen who had worked with Bin Ladin in Afghanistan in
the 1980s, and in 1992 he went to Sudan to become one of al Qaeda's major
financial operatives. When Hage returned to the United States to appear
before a grand jury investigating Bin Ladin, the job of cell manager was
taken over by Harun Fazul, a Kenyan citizen who had been in Bin Ladin's
advance team to Sudan back in 1990. Harun faxed a report on the "security
situation" to several sites, warning that "the crew members in East Africa
is [sic] in grave danger" in part because "America knows . . .
that the followers of [Bin Ladin] . . . carried out the operations to hit
Americans in Somalia." The report provided instructions for avoiding
further exposure.87
On February 23, 1998, Bin Ladin issued his public fatwa.
The language had been in negotiation for some time, as part of the merger
under way between Bin Ladin's organization and Zawahiri's Egyptian Islamic
Jihad. Less than a month after the publication of the fatwa, the teams
that were to carry out the embassy attacks were being pulled together in
Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. The timing and content of their instructions
indicate that the decision to launch the attacks had been made by the time
the fatwa was issued.88
The next four months were spent setting up the teams in
Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. Members of the cells rented residences, and
purchased bomb-making materials and transport vehicles. At least one
additional explosives expert was brought in to assist in putting the
weapons together. In Nairobi, a hotel room was rented to put up some of
the operatives. The suicide trucks were purchased shortly before the
attack date.89
While this was taking place, Bin Ladin continued to push
his public message. On May 7, the deputy head of al Qaeda's military
committee, Mohammed Atef, faxed to Bin Ladin's London office a new fatwa
issued by a group of sheikhs located in Afghanistan. A week later, it
appeared in Al Quds al Arabi, the same Arabic-language newspaper
in London that had first published Bin Ladin's February fatwa, and it
conveyed the same message-the duty of Muslims to carry out holy war
against the enemies of Islam and to expel the Americans from the Gulf
region. Two weeks after that, Bin Ladin gave a videotaped interview to ABC
News with the same slogans, adding that "we do not differentiate between
those dressed in military uniforms and civilians; they are all targets in
this fatwa."90
By August 1, members of the cells not directly involved
in the attacks had mostly departed from East Africa. The remaining
operatives prepared and assembled the bombs, and acquired the delivery
vehicles. On August 4, they made one last casing run at the embassy in
Nairobi. By the evening of August 6, all but the delivery teams and one or
two persons assigned to remove the evidence trail had left East Africa.
Back in Afghanistan, Bin Ladin and the al Qaeda leadership had left
Kandahar for the countryside, expecting U.S. retaliation. Declarations
taking credit for the attacks had already been faxed to the joint al
Qaeda-Egyptian Islamic Jihad office in Baku, with instructions to stand by
for orders to "instantly" transmit them to Al Quds al Arabi. One
proclaimed "the formation of the Islamic Army for the Liberation of the
Holy Places," and two others-one for each embassy-announced that the
attack had been carried out by a "company" of a "battalion" of this
"Islamic Army."91
On the morning of August 7, the bomb-laden trucks drove
into the embassies roughly five minutes apart-about 10:35 A.M. in Nairobi
and 10:39 A.M. in Dar es Salaam. Shortly afterward, a phone call was
placed from Baku to London. The previously prepared messages were then
faxed to London.92
The attack on the U.S. embassy in Nairobi destroyed the
embassy and killed 12 Americans and 201 others, almost all Kenyans. About
5,000 people were injured. The attack on the U.S. embassy in Dar es Salaam
killed 11 more people, none of them Americans. Interviewed later about the
deaths of the Africans, Bin Ladin answered that "when it becomes apparent
that it would be impossible to repel these Americans without assaulting
them, even if this involved the killing of Muslims, this is permissible
under Islam." Asked if he had indeed masterminded these bombings, Bin
Ladin said that the World Islamic Front for jihad against "Jews and
Crusaders" had issued a "crystal clear" fatwa. If the instigation for
jihad against the Jews and the Americans to liberate the holy places "is
considered a crime," he said, "let history be a witness that I am a
criminal."93
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