American Jihad: The Terrorists Living Among Us (14 page)

Bin Laden’s years in Sudan overlapped with many other terrorists’ residencies, and helped him turn al Qaeda into a global umbrella organization. Among his Sudanese compatriots were the conspirators who failed in a brazen attempt to assassinate Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak on June 26, 1995, in Addis Ababa. These well-equipped killers—who possessed rocket grenade launchers, anti-tank missiles, explosives, and automatic weapons—failed only because of the tardiness of Mubarak’s motorcade. Credit was claimed by al-Gama‘at al-Islamiyya, whose members were trained in the Sudan. Dr. al-Turabi personally blocked their subsequent extradition. In September 1995, the Organization of African Unity condemned Sudan for supporting the attack and called upon the regime to turn over three suspects. Ethiopian Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin also charged that Sudan was using diplomatic cover to smuggle weapons and explosives into Ethiopia.

Al-Gama‘at al-Islamiyya was hardly the only group there, however. The Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a militant cadre that specializes in dismembering and mutilating its victims, used Sudan as a base. Dr. al-Turabi gave diplomatic passports to Palestinian Islamic Jihad leaders such as Sheikh Abdel Aziz Odeh and Fathi Shikaki, who was killed in Malta in October 1995—to be replaced by Ramadan Abdullah Shallah of the University of South Florida. Employing Iranian funds, al-Turabi was able to help the Palestinian Islamic Jihad to return to Israel, where it carried out extensive terror operations. Hamas, Algerian Islamic Salvation Army fighters, Iranian Revolutionary Guards, and al-Gama‘at al-Islamiyya also relied on Sudan. By 1995, half the 3,000 Iranian Revolutionary Guards sent to Khartoum had come from Lebanon. Of these, more that 1,000 were Lebanese Hizballah.

Until he arrived in Sudan, Osama bin Laden’s greatest accomplishment had been his financial backing of Ramzi Yousef, mastermind of the World Trade Center bombing, who was now formulating plots to bomb a series of American aircraft flying from the Far East. In Sudan, bin Laden began assembling a worldwide network of front companies, Islamic charities, nongovernmental organizations, and recruitment centers that would help carry out attacks against American, Egyptian, Israeli, Saudi, and European targets. In the process, bin Laden helped the Sudanese build an airport in Port Sudan, an ocean port, and a network of north-to-south roads. In return, the NIF gave their guest monopolistic control over Sudanese agricultural exports and exclusive purchase rights over large domains of farmland.

In the early 1990s, bin Laden sponsored his first effort against the United States—Muslim militias that attacked the U.S. servicemen sent to Somalia to protect civilians. The result was a stunning defeat for the United States, which included the gruesome spectacle of dead American soldiers being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu. The encounter emboldened bin Laden, who said later he was surprised how quickly the American government was willing to retreat.

Next, U.S. authorities believe—but do not have “smoking gun” evidence—that the Saudi expatriate directed twin attacks against barracks housing U.S. servicemen on the Arabian peninsula in November 1995 and June 1996. More than a dozen American were killed and scores more wounded. In May 1996, Dr. al-Turabi finally yielded to diplomatic pressure from the United States and other countries and deported bin Laden. The wealthy Saudi refugee was offered the chance to renounce his jihad and return to Saudi Arabia. Instead, he went back to Afghanistan, where the Taliban had now overrun much of the northern region of the country. There, bin Laden began plotting terrorist acts that would one day announce his declaration of war to every American.

In the fall of 1996, Osama bin Laden issued a 60-page
fatwa,
soon dubbed the “Ladenese Epistle.” It constituted a formal declaration of war against the United States. “Clearly, after Belief, there is no more important duty than pushing the American enemy out of the Holy Land,” bin Laden wrote. “Due to the imbalance of power between our armed forces and the enemy forces, a suitable means of fighting must be adopted, i.e., using fast-moving light forces that work under complete secrecy. In other words to initiate a guerrilla warfare, where the sons of the nation, and not the military forces, take part in it.”
⁸

The Epistle is a remarkable document. It revealed a hitherto unexpressed articulateness in bin Laden. In fact, it was so brilliant that bin Laden was forced to defend himself from public charges in the Islamic community that he had used a ghost-writer. Predictably, the Epistle dripped with rage against “crusaders” (the Christian West) and Jews, invoking incendiary citations from Islamic militant theology that mandated a war to avenge the “attack on Islam.” Obviously approaching paranoia, bin Laden raged against the United States for nearly every adverse event ever suffered by the Muslim
Ummah
(nation)—even though the
Ummah
predates the founding of the United States by nearly a millennium.

Bin Laden’s 1996 declaration of war was virtually ignored by the American media, an omission not unnoticed by bin Laden himself. To correct this oversight, he began giving interviews to Arab and Western journalists from his hideout in Afghanistan. In each interview he was careful to repeat his avowed threats to attack the United States. Then, on February 23, 1998, he issued a new
fatwa
calling for Muslims to kill Americans and Jews everywhere in the world. This time his declarations were noticed by the CIA, which sent a memorandum to Congress warning that bin Laden was authorizing terrorist attacks on Americans throughout the world. Inside the government, there was growing awareness that bin Laden was a very dangerous person, ready to unleash death and destruction wherever he could. The only question was when and where.

Most of what was known about Osama bin Laden at that point appeared in the investigations of a New York grand jury. In 1996, when bin Laden operatives Ramzi Yousef and Wali Khan Amin Shah were convicted in the trial of the first World Trade Center bombing and a plot to bomb American airliners in the Philippines, Shah soon began cooperating with the grand jury investigating the “Day of Terror” case. Other bin Laden followers had defected after arrests in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, but this was the first significant breakthrough.

Through foreign intelligence channels, timely analysis of electronic intelligence overseas, and the information gleaned from Shah and other informants, federal officials’ worst fears were confirmed: Osama bin Laden intended to strike at the United States in a series of bomb attacks, although the identity of the targets could not be determined. Unfortunately, the evidence tying bin Laden to other terrorist schemes was circumstantial. His connections to the bombing of American servicemen in Saudi Arabia in 1995 and 1996 were even weaker. The 1997 arrest in Saudi Arabia of Hani al-Sayegh, suspected of participating in the 1996 attack on U.S. troops in that country, provided prosecutors with one link. But the case quickly fell apart when al-Sayegh recanted his confession and withdrew his guilty plea. It was in June of 1997, as a result of mounting evidence of the strength of al Qaeda and other groups, that I stated in an interview that America should “get ready for twenty World Trade Center bombings.”
⁹

By the spring of 1998, federal officials finally felt confident in pursuing an indictment against him. But this left one huge question—how could bin Laden be arrested? The decision about whether to use American forces in a raid to arrest bin Laden could only be decided at the presidential level. Within the government, some argued that spilling American blood to arrest bin Laden would be a Pyrrhic victory—particularly if he were subsequently acquitted in the legal process. The case against him certainly wasn’t foolproof. Still, many argued that a commando-style arrest should be pursued.

Then on the morning of August 7, 1998, the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed nine minutes apart by members of al Qaeda, who drove trucks filled with explosives into them. It was hardly the most successful operation of Osama bin Laden’s organization. No Americans died in the Tanzania bombing, but eleven Tanzanians did. In Nairobi, 201 Kenyans and twelve Americans were killed in the explosion.

Outraged, President Clinton lobbed a few cruise missiles into Afghanistan, trying to hit bin Laden’s underground headquarters. He also pursued two more tracks: preparing a commando arrest team for insertion into Afghanistan, while at the same time getting the Taliban to cooperate in forcing the surrender of bin Laden to the United States. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Bill Richardson was dispatched to Afghanistan and Pakistan to negotiate with the Taliban for the handover of bin Laden. Yet after months of discussions at various levels of both governments, nothing happened.

The U.S. military effort finally petered out. President Clinton and the rest of the country were distracted by the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Events in Afghanistan seemed very remote. An entire Presidential election and change of administration occurred without any further developments. On the legal front, however, major progress was made. Four men were quickly arrested after the bombing and in 2001, a New York federal jury returned guilty verdicts against all four, including Wadih el-Hage. The exhibits and trial proceedings provided a riveting view into the shadowy world of al Qaeda. The evidence revealed an umbrella organization that shelters a wide range of Islamist groups, including Hizballah, Islamic Jihad, and the Armed Islamic Group, plus a raft of Iraqi, Sudanese, Pakistani, Afghan, and Jordanian terror “cells.” Each functions semi-autonomously and has the capacity to carry out its own recruiting and operations. All these groups coordinate through al Qaeda’s “Shura Council,” a kind of board of directors that includes representatives from all the constituents far and wide. The board meets on a regular basis in Afghanistan to review and approve proposed operations. Most representatives have maintained close relationships with each other since the end of the war in Afghanistan against the Soviets. They are a smooth and efficient operation.

We learned from the trial that when operations in one place are shut down, the rest of the network soldiers on, virtually unaffected. Even if bin Laden himself were to be killed, this Islamist network would survive and in all likelihood continue to expand, sustained by its ideological adhesion. Islamism is the fuel that fires the group and the glue that holds it together.

Perhaps the most disconcerting revelations from the trial concern al Qaeda’s entrenchment in the West. All of the organization’s procurement of such material as night-vision goggles, construction equipment, cell phones, and satellite telephones, for example, was from the West, including from such countries as the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Denmark, Bosnia, and Croatia. Chemicals purchased for the manufacture of chemical weapons came from the Czech Republic.

During the long waits between terrorist attacks, al Qaeda’s member organizations maintained readiness by operating under the cover of nonprofit, tax-deductible religious charities and civil rights organizations. These “NGOs”—non-governmental organizations—many of which still operate, are headquartered in the United States and Britain, as well as in the Middle East. The Qatar Charitable Society, for example, was identified by a witness at the Embassy bombings trial as one of bin Laden’s de facto banks, raising money and transferring funds all around the globe.

Operating in the freewheeling and tolerant environment of the United States, bin Laden was able to set up a whole array of “cells” in a loosely organized network that included Tucson, Arizona; Brooklyn, New York; Orlando, Florida; Dallas, Texas; Santa Clara, California; Columbia, Missouri; and Herndon, Virginia.

*  *  *

I have already discussed the case of Ali Mohammed, bin Laden’s “Special Operations Man” (in
Chapter 3
) and that of Wadih el-Hage, bin Laden’s personal secretary. Another telling example of bin Laden’s recruitment of American citizens is the story of Khalil Said Khalil Deek.