by Adrian Levy
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______. On the Road to Kandahar: Travels through Conflict in the Islamic World. London: Allen Lane, 2006.
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______. The Kingdom: Arabia & the House of Sa’ud. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1982.
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______. The Siege: 68 Hours inside the Taj Hotel. New York: Penguin, 2013.
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______. Triple Agent: The al-Qaeda Mole Who Infiltrated the CIA. New York: Doubleday, 2011.
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Wright, Lawrence. The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11. New York: Allen Lane, 2006.
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NATIONAL SECURITY ARCHIVE
The September 11th Sourcebooks. “Volume II: Afghanistan: Lessons from the Last War.” National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 57. Edited by John Prados and Svetlana Savranskaya. October 9, 2001. nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB57/.
The September 11th Sourcebooks. “Volume IV: The Once and Future King? From the Secret Files on King Zahir’s Reign in Afghanistan, 1970–1973.” National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 59. Edited by William Burr. October 26, 2001. nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB59/.
The September 11th Sourcebooks. “Volume VI: The Hunt for Bin Laden: Background on the Role of Special Forces in U.S. Military Strategy.” National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 63. December 21, 2001. nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB63/.
The September 11th Sourcebooks. “Volume VII: The Taliban File.” National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 97. Edited by Sajit Gandhi. September 11, 2003. nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB97/index.htm.
The September 11th Sourcebooks. “The Taliban File Part III.” Edited by Sajit Gandhi. March 19, 2004. nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB97/index3.htm.
The September 11th Sourcebooks. “The Taliban File Part IV.” National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 134. Edited by Barbara Elias. August 18, 2005. nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB134/index.htm.
The September 11th Sourcebooks. “Update: The Taliban File Part IV.” National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 134. Edited by Barbara Elias. August 18, 2005. nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB134/index2.htm.
“Pakistan: ‘The Taliban’s Godfather’?” National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 227. Edited by Barbara Elias. August 14, 2007. nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB227/index.htm.
“1998 Missile Strikes on Bin Laden May Have Backfired.” National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 253. Edited by Barbara Elias. August 20, 2008. nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB253/index.htm.
“The Taliban Biography.” National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 295. Edited by Barbara Elias. November 13, 2009. nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB295/index.htm.
“ ‘No-Go’ Tribal Areas Became Basis for Afghan Insurgency Documents Show.” National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 325. Edited by Barbara Elias. September 13, 2010. nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB325/index.htm.
“Secret U.S. Message to Mullah Omar: ‘Every Pillar of the Taliban Regime Will Be Destroyed.’ ” National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 358. Edited by Barbara Elias. September 11, 2011. nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB358a/index.htm.
“The Central Intelligence Agency’s 9/11 File.” National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 381. Edited by Barbara Elias-Sanborn. June 19, 2012. nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB381/.
“The Haqqani History: Bin Ladin’s Advocate Inside the Taliban.” National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 389. Edited by Barbara Elias-Sanborn. September 11, 2012. nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB389/.
See also this excellent list by Alex Strick von Linschoten, “Reading the Afghan Taliban: 67 Sources You Should Be Studying.” www.alexstrick.com/blog/2015/12/reading-the-afghan-taliban-67-sources-you-should-be-studying.
Notes
CHAPTER ONE
1. Peter Bergen, The Osama Bin Laden I Know (New York: Si
mon & Schuster, 2005).
2. The guard was Al Hamza al-Bahlul, and he told this story to American interrogators at Guantánamo Bay. His account can be found at wikileaks.org/gitmo/prisoner/39.html.
3. His Egyptian deputies Abu Hafs the Commander and Dr. Ayman al-Zawahir; were also there, along with Osama’s chief bodyguard, a Moroccan called Abdullah Tabarak.
4. Robert Lacey, Inside the Kingdom: Kings, Clerics, Modernists, and the Struggle for Saudi Arabia (London: Arrow Books, 2010), 226.
5. The wedding was in January 2001. The journalist was Ahmad Zaidan: author interview with Zaidan, Islamabad, January 2015.
6. Carmen bin Laden, who was married to a brother of Osama, describes Najwa’s timidity and fear of her husband in Inside the Kingdom: My Life in Saudi Arabia (New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2005), 85–86.
7. Author interviews with bin Laden family members, 2012–2016.
8. Othman said this during a speech recorded at Mohammed’s wedding; author copy of video.
9. Carmen bin Laden, Inside the Kingdom: My Life in Saudi Arabia, 85–86.
10. Najwa bin Laden, Omar bin Laden, and Jean Sasson, Growing Up Bin Laden (New York: St. Martin’s, 2009).
11. Author interviews with bin Laden family members.
12. Multiple author interviews with Mahfouz Ibn El Waleed, Nouakchott, December 2014, January 2015, and June 2015.
13. It was named after the large pomegranate trees in its garden, per author interviews with Mahfouz.
14. Early poems that won him prizes were about the Palestinian intifada, such as one entitled “Child of Stones.”
15. Mahfouz described this meeting in 1998 at which he was also present.
16. Author interviews with Hamid Mir, Islamabad, May 2014 and February 2015.
17. Mir claimed that the visitor also delivered a handwritten note from Osama that declared: “I praise all those who conducted the attacks.”
18. Author interview with General Javed Alam Khan, Rawalpindi, May 2015.
