The Longest War (98 page)

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The shuttered U.S. embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan in 1993—an all too apt metaphor for the United States’ neglect of Afghanistan before the 9/11 attacks.
Photo by Peter Bergen.

During the mid-1990s’ civil war that tore Afghanistan apart, child soldiers like these were a common sight. It was out of this chaos that the Taliban would arise.
Photo by Peter Bergen.

Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda’s top leaders, in Afghanistan in early November 2001. During this interview, they improbably claimed al-Qaeda possessed some kind of nuclear weapon.
Visual News/ Getty Images.

An exceptionally rare photograph of the reclusive Taliban leader Mullah Omar, taken in Kandahar sometime before the 9/11 attacks. Face partially concealed, third from left.
Photo courtesy of CNN.

Noman Benotman, seen here in Afghanistan, a onetime companion-in-arms of Osama bin Laden, who met with him a year before 9/11 and warned him of the folly of attacking the United States.
Photo courtesy of Noman Benotman.

CIA al-Qaeda expert Barbara Sude in Yemen. The 9/11 Commission Report identified her as one of the principal authors of the August 6, 2001 briefing to President Bush entitled “Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in U.S.”
Photo courtesy of Barbara Sude.

Gary Berntsen headed CIA operations on the ground in Afghanistan in the winter of 2001.
Photo courtesy of Gary Berntsen.

CIA Director George Tenet briefs President Bush and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice about the Agency’s plans to attack the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, at Camp David in Maryland on September 29, 2001.
White House photo by Eric Draper. Courtesy of the George W. Bush Presidential Library.

Inside a cave in Tora Bora, the last confirmed location of Osama bin Laden, in eastern Afghanistan. The caves there are rudimentary affairs, but can withstand heavy bombing.
Photo by Peter Bergen.

Future Afghan president Hamid Karzai surrounded by the team of U.S. Special Forces who helped him in the fight against the Taliban, outside Kandahar on December 3, 2001.
Photo courtesy of Major Jason Amerine.

Ali Soufan, left, one of the few Arabic-speaking agents at the FBI before 9/11, was able to solicit a great deal of uncoerced information from al-Qaeda insiders.
Photo courtesy of Ali Soufan.