Even with the capture or death of key al-Qaeda leaders in both Iran and Pakistan, al-Qaeda can continue to sustain blows because the members of the group firmly believe that they are doing God’s work. In their own narrative of their struggle, setbacks here on earth simply recall the Prophet Mohammed’s many years of exile in the wilderness fighting the enemies of Islam. For al-Qaeda’s leaders and foot soldiers, setbacks are, in fact, simply more evidence of their part in God’s plan to prevail over the infidels.
Despite the difficulty it remains a vital interest of the United States to catch or kill bin Laden. While bin Laden is on the lam, al-Qaeda is far from defeated. Ahmed Zaidan, the Al Jazeera reporter who has written an Arabic biography of bin Laden, explains, “As long as Osama bin Laden is alive he has defeated America.” “How do we close the 9/11 chapter with him still being out there?” says Roger Cressey, who was responsible for the coordination of counterterrorism policy at the time of the September 11 attacks. John McLaughlin, the deputy director of the CIA until 2004, pointed out that there would be other advantages in taking al-Qaeda’s leader out of commission: “It would create fractures within the movement, renew a debate on broad strategy, and remove the one figure best able to inspire new recruits.”
Should bin Laden be eliminated, that would likely trigger a succession battle within al-Qaeda. While Ayman al-Zawahiri is the deputy leader of the terror group and therefore technically bin Laden’s successor, he is not regarded as a natural leader. Indeed, even among his fellow Egyptian militants Zawahiri is seen as a divisive force and so he is unlikely to be able to step into the role of leader of al-Qaeda and of the global jihadist movement that is occupied by bin Laden.
It may take years but it’s likely bin Laden—who turned 54 almost a decade after 9/11—will eventually be apprehended or killed. So what are the implications of either of those outcomes? If bin Laden were to be captured alive, where, for instance, should he be put on trial? A U.S. official involved in the hunt for bin Laden said that if al-Qaeda’s leader were captured, it would likely produce a subsequent significant problem—Americans being taken hostage with the aim to free him. And in the unlikely event that bin Laden ever was put on trial, he would inevitably try to turn the proceeding into a platform for his views.
Of course, capturing bin Laden alive is, in any event, less likely than him being killed. His former bodyguard Abu Jandal explains that al-Qaeda’s leader gave him a pistol that “had only two bullets, for me to kill Sheikh Osama with in case we were surrounded or he was about to fall into the enemy’s hands so that he would not be caught alive.” In a tape posted to Islamist websites in 2006, bin Laden confirmed his willingness to be martyred: “I have sworn to only live free. Even if I find bitter the taste of death, I don’t want to die humiliated or deceived.”
In the short term bin Laden’s death would likely trigger violent anti-American attacks around the globe, while in the medium term his death would be a serious blow to al-Qaeda, the formal organization, since bin Laden’s charisma played a critical role in the success of his group. As Julie Sirrs, a former intelligence officer at the Defense Intelligence Agency, put it, “No one can fit into his size twelve shoes.” (However, bin Laden does have eleven sons, some of whom might choose to go into Dad’s line of work. Saad bin Laden, one of his older sons, has already played some kind of role in al-Qaeda.)
In the longer term bin Laden’s “martyrdom” would likely give a boost to the power of his ideas. Sayyid Qutb, generally regarded as the Lenin of the jihadist movement, was a relatively obscure writer before his execution by the Egyptian government in 1966. After his death, Qutb’s writings, which called for holy wars against the enemies of Islam, became influential. The same process will likely happen with the death of bin Laden, but to a larger degree, as bin Laden’s prestige and fame far eclipses Qutb’s. And so, in death, bin Laden’s ideas will likely attain some lasting currency. As bin Laden himself put it to his bodyguard, Abu Jandal, in death “his blood would become a beacon that arouses the zeal and determination of his followers.”
“Bin Ladenism” will never enjoy the mass appeal of other destructive ideologies of the modern era, such as communism, but it certainly enjoys some measure of support today. And this is important, because many thousands of underemployed, disaffected men in the Muslim world will continue to embrace bin Laden’s doctrine of violent anti-Westernism. In a telling 2008 survey of opinion in the Muslim world in countries as diverse as Morocco, Indonesia, Jordan, and Turkey, people expressed more “confidence” in bin Laden than in President Bush by significant margins. Thus while eliminating the top leadership of al-Qaeda will be useful in terms of seeking justice for the victims of 9/11 and heading off other spectacular attacks by the group, make no mistake: This will not end the war of the terrorists. Bin Laden’s ideas have circulated widely and will continue to attract adherents for years to come. Arresting people is generally a relatively simple matter. Arresting ideas is another thing entirely.
Whatever the ultimate fate of bin Laden, and even of al-Qaeda itself, Michael Scheuer, who founded the bin Laden unit at the CIA in 1996, points this out: “Their mission is accomplished: worldwide instigation and inspiration.”
The Longest War continues.
Note on Sources
I was able to interview many of the sources in the book on more than one occasion and the dates and places of all those interviews are noted in the footnotes. A partial list of the several hundred interviews I conducted for this history can be found in the next section. (A number of the people I interviewed were subsequently jailed, killed by security services, assassinated, or have gone into hiding, and I have noted those in the list of interviewees.) Of course, many interviewees chose to remain anonymous.
I have also drawn on documents filed in criminal cases involving jihadist militants in the United States, Italy, Belgium, Spain, Germany, and the United Kingdom. And I have mined books written by al-Qaeda’s leaders and former Taliban officials; thousands of pages of transcripts of U.S. military tribunal proceedings of prisoners held at Guantánamo Bay; first-hand accounts about al-Qaeda from newspapers from around the Muslim world; and a trove of al-Qaeda-related documents and publications going back to the late 1980s that I have collected over the years.
I also used material derived from several hundred books that touch on aspects of the story and thousands of articles and government documents and other reports that I have collected on this subject, the most useful of which are referenced in the endnotes and bibliography. Also useful were the many publications and statements by al-Qaeda’s leaders or other militant strategists.
When it comes to transliterating Arabic names or terms, I have used conventional English spellings, for instance, Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda, and Omar Abdel Rahman.
Interviewees
Hassan Abbas
Dr. Abdullah
Zachary Abuza
David Albright
“Matthew Alexander”
Sydney Alford
Hazarat Ali
Imtiaz Ali
Jason Amerine
Abdullah Anas (Boudjema Bounoua)
Peter Arnett
Abdel Bari Atwan
Hussein al-Awadi
Salman al-Awdah
Hutaifa Azzam
Mahfouz Azzam
Robert Baer
Omar Bakri Mohamed
Kenneth Ballen
Arianna Barbazza
David Barno
Khaled Batarfi
Milt Bearden
Noman Benotman
James Bernazzan
Gary Berntsen
Benazir Bhutto (Assassinated in Pakistan in 2007)
Stephen Biddle
Cofer Black
Antony Blinken
Jason Burke
Daniel Byman
Vincent Cannistraro
Yigal Carmon
Frank Cilluffo
Peter Clarke
Richard A. Clarke
Jack Cloonan
/>
Eliot Cohen
David Cohen
Daniel J. Coleman
Aukai Collins
Elizabeth Colton
Conrad Crane
Roger Cressey
Henry “Hank” Crumpton
Robert Dannenberg
Mohammed Daud
Essam Deraz
James Dobbins
Brian Doyne
Joshua Dratel
Assad Durrani
Jason Dye
Paul Eedle
Karl Eikenberry
Charles “Sam” Faddis
Saad al-Fagih
Christine Fair
William J. Fallon
Mahmoun Fandy
Khaled al-Fauwaz (Jailed in the UK in 1998)
Yosri Fouda
Tommy Franks
Joe Frost
“Dalton Fury”
Brad Garrett
Baltasar Garzon
Fawaz Gerges
Abdul Rashid Ghazi (Killed by Pakistani security forces in 2007)
Susan Glasser
David Gordon
Karen Greenberg
Robert Grenier
Stephen Grey
Alain Grignard
Abdul Rahman al-Hadlag
Stephen Hadley
Mohammed Hafez
Moinuddin Haider
Hamid al-Haiys
Kemal Halbawy
Abu Hamza (Mustafa Kamel Mustafa, jailed in the UK in 2004)
Abdul Haq Hanif (Jailed in Afghanistan)
Sami ul-Haq
Husain Haqqani
Ali Hatem
Neil Herman
Thomas Hegghammer
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar (In hiding)
Andrew Higgins
Bruce Hoffman
Richard Holbrooke
Pervez Hoodbhoy
Ed Husain
Zahid Husain
Mansoor Ijaz
Faraj Ismail
Jamal Ismail
Imdadullah (Jailed in Afghanistan)
Abd al-Jabbar
Saad al-Jabri
Wael Jalaidan
Sadritdin Jalilov
Said Jawad
Sterling Jensen
Seth Jones
Sydney Jones
Peter Jouvenal
Fred Kagan
Hekmat Karzai
Rita Katz
Art Keller
Jack Keane
John Kerry
Mullah Abdul Samad Khaksar (Assassinated in Kandahar in 2006)
Jamal Khalifa (Murdered in Madagascar in 2007)
Rhamad Khan
Ismail Khan
Jamal Khashoggi
Khalid Khawaja (Assassinated by Taliban in 2010)
David Kilcullen
Daniel Kimmage
Osama bin Laden (In hiding)
Arif Lalani
William Lambert
Robert Lambert
Patrick Lang
Carie Lemack
Clare Lockhart
Douglas Lute
Norine MacDonald
Jean MacKenzie
Michael Maloof
Michele Malvesti
Omar Khan Masoudi
Ahmad Shah Massoud (Assassinated in Afghanistan in 2001)
Brett McGurk
John McLaughlin
Richard Melton
Joseph Melrose
John Miller
Khary Miller
Hamid Mir
Assaf Moghadam
Haji Deen Mohammed
Saad Mohseni
Vahid Mojdeh
Rolf Mowatt-Larssen
Philip Mudd
Ursula Mueller
Abdul Hakim Mujahid
Mohammed Musa
Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil
Muzhgan
John Nagl
Syed Mohsin Naqvi
Octavia Nasr
Vali Nasr
Maajid Nawaz
Shuja Nawaz
Raymond Odierno
Michael O’Hanlon
Abu Omar (Osama Hassan Mustafa Nasr)
Meghan O’Sullivan
Ralph Paredes
David Petraeus
William Pierce
George Piro
Kenneth Pollack
Mohammed Asif Qazizanda
Amir Rana
Ahmed Rashid
Joel Rayburn
Bruce Riedel
Nic Robertson
Michael A. Rolince
Eric Rosenbach
Barnett Rubin
Osama Rushdi
Thomas Ruttig
Marc Sageman
Omar Samad
Habiba Sarabi
Michael Scheuer
Michael Semple
Mohammed al-Shafey
Michael Sheehan
Mitch Silber
Steven Simon
Yasser al-Sirri
Julie Sirrs
Emma Sky
Leonid Smirnov
Ali Soufan
Armando Spataro
Frank Sturek
Barbara Sude
Abu Musab al-Suri (Mustafa Setmariam Nasar—captured in 2005, now jailed, location not known, perhaps Syria)
Jassim Suwaydawi
Camille Tawil
Frances Fragos Townsend
Tom Tullius
Ben Venzke
John Vines
Hussein al-Wadi
Doug Wankel
Dale Watson
Matthew Waxman
Gabriel Weimann
Mary Jo White
Andy Worthington
Daoud Yacub
Judith Yaphe
Jameel Yusuf
Rahimullah Yusufzai
Asif Zadari
Mohammed Zahir
Mohammed Haji Zahir
Ahmed Zaidan
Juan Zarate
Montasser al-Zayyat
Notes
Part I
1 “As a general rule”: Christopher Andrew, For the President’s Eyes Only (New York: Harper Collins, 1996), p. 538.
1 “No one loves”: Maximilien Robespierre, “On the War,” Speech to the Jacobin Club, Paris, January 11, 1792.
Chapter 1
3 a riddle: Yosri Fouda and Nick Fielding, Masterminds of Terror: The Truth Behind the Most Devastating Attack The World Has Ever Seen (New York: Arcade, 2003), p. 140.
3 turned down: National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States Final Report (Washington, D.C.: 2004) (“9/11 Commission Report,”), p. 168.
3 “Jenny”: Fouda and Fielding, Masterminds of Terror, pp. 158, 139.
4 dispatched a messenger: ibid. pp. 140–141.
4 trainers at the facility said: Musad Omar is a Yemeni being held at Guantánamo Bay. Omar claims to have gone to Afghanistan “to observe the situation” under the Taliban after being recruited to do so by an acquaintance in Yemen. In extracts from his testimony before a U.S. military tribunal at Guantánamo he recalls what it was like to be in al-Qaeda’s camps around the time of the 9/11 attacks. He says he saw bin Laden in Khost in mid-October 2001 a month before the fall of Kabul on November 12, 2001. Guantánamo Bay tribunal transcripts. Author’s collection.
4 In Kandahar: According to Abu Musab al-Suri, the Syrian jihadist who had sometimes had clashed with bin Laden, in September 2001, the al-Qaeda leader told some of his followers that it was time to leave Kandahar and go back to Yemen. Abu Musab al Suri, The Call for Global Islamic Resistance, published on jihadist websites, 2004.
4 Feroz Ali Abbasi: Feroz Ali Abbasi, Guantánamo Bay Prison Memoirs, 2002–2004.
4 Lindh heard an instructor: FBI report, “Interview of John Philip Walker Lindh,” December 9–10, 2001. Author’s collection.
4 Atyani asked bin Laden: Bakr Atyani, phone interview, Islamabad, Pakistan, August 22, 2005.
4 an open secret: Vernon Loeb, “U.S. forces in Gulf on highest alert; threats also prompt travel warning,” Washington Post, June 23, 2001.
; 4 tightly held: 9/11 Commission Report, p. 532 fn 180. According to KSM, only bin Laden, Mohamed Atef, Abu Turab al-Jordani, Ramzi Binalshibh, and a few of the senior hijackers knew the specific targets, timing, operatives, and methods of attack. Intelligence reports, interrogations of KSM, Oct. 27, 2003.
4 formally contracted its alliance: 9/11 Commission Report, op. cit., p. 470, fn. 82: Intelligence report, interrogation of KSM, Jan. 9, 2004.
5 learned about the attacks: Osama bin Laden, December 13, 2001, op. cit.
5 for a suicide mission: Osama bin Laden, December 13, 2001, op. cit.
5 suicide “wills”: Fouda and Fielding op. cit., p. 141; Such tapes were released in April 2002, September 2002, September 2003, and September 2006. Joel Roberts, “Video shows bin Laden, 9/11 hijackers,” CBS News, September 7, 2006, http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/
09/07/terror/main1982773.shtml.
5 Despite his increasing militancy: Terry McDermott, Perfect Soldiers: The 9/11 Hijackers: Who They Were, Why They Did It (New York: HarperCollins, 2005), pp. 50–53; “personality clashes”: 9/11 Commission Report op. cit., p. 246; “the Ayatollah”: McDermott, Perfect Soldiers, p. 37.
5 “How do you feel?”: Yosri Fouda interview with Ramzi Binalshibh, Karachi, Pakistan, April 20–21, 2002. Aired in Al Jazeera documentary, September 11, 2002. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/sep/09/
september11.afghanistan.
5 “Holy Tuesday”: Yosri Fouda, “We left out nuclear targets, for now,” The Guardian, March 4, 2003, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/mar/
04/alqaida.terrorism.
5 three or four floors: Tape transcript available from CNN.com, December 13, 2001. http://archives.cnn.com/2001/U.S./12/13/tape.transcript/. The tape was translated by George Michael, a translator at Diplomatic Language Services and Dr. Kassem M. Wahba, of Johns Hopkins University for the Department of Defense.
6 gathered around radios: United States of America v. Ali Hamza Ahmad Sulayman al Bahlul. Obtained through www.findlaw.com.
6 “Be patient”: Osama bin Laden, mid-November 2001, Kandahar, Afghanistan. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,40750,00.html.
6 “Our brother Marwan”: Fouda, Yosri. “Top Secret: The Road to September 11.” Al-Jazeera (Qatar). First aired: September 11, 2002. Author collection.
6 Binalshibh remembers: Fouda and Fielding op. cit., p. 159.
The Longest War Page 46
