The Looming Tower (61 page)

In her feverish condition, Azza said that she had never realized who her husband actually was. “I never knew he was an emir,” she said. “I can’t believe it.” It seemed strange to Maha, because everyone else knew.

Azza was carrying her youngest, Aisha, the Down syndrome child, who was still in diapers although she was four years old. Azza worried that if she died no one else could take care of Aisha. The girl was wide-eyed and so small and needful.

By now it had gotten bitterly cold, although the war was still in the cities, the men of al-Qaeda were making their stand in Tora Bora, and their families decided to head to Pakistan. A large convoy formed and they made a slow drive through the mountains. Azza and her children stopped in Gardez at the guesthouse of Jalaladin Haqqanni, a Taliban government official, but Maha’s family went on to Khost. That night there were two thundering explosions, so great that some of the children vomited and others had diarrhea. In the morning, one of Maha’s sons went to check on the Zawahiris. He found that the house they were in had been struck. The cement roof had collapsed, pinning Azza underneath. The rescuers had found little Aisha injured but still alive, and they set her outside on a bed while they tried to save Azza. She was still alive, but she refused to be excavated because of her fear that men would see her face. Eventually, her cries stopped. When the rescuers finally returned to take care of the child, they discovered that she had frozen to death.

I
N THE CAVES OF
T
ORA
B
ORA,
bin Laden and Zawahiri visited the remaining al-Qaeda fighters and urged them to hold their positions and wait for the Americans. Instead, the al-Qaeda warriors found themselves fighting Afghans in the first two weeks of December, while the Americans flew overhead in B-52s, so far out of reach, dropping Daisy Cutter bombs on their caverns. “We were about three hundred mujahideen,” bin Laden recounted. “We dug one hundred trenches that were spread in an area that does not exceed one square mile, one trench for every three brothers, so as to avoid the huge human losses resulting from the bombardment.” Despite his preparations, on December
3,
after American bombers struck a cave complex, Afghan ground troops uncovered more than a hundred bodies; they were able to identify eighteen of them as top al-Qaeda lieutenants.

Bin Laden felt betrayed by the Muslims who had failed to join him. Even the Taliban slipped away. “Only a few remained steadfast,” he complained. “The rest surrendered or fled before they encountered the enemy.” He wrote this on December 17. The brief battle of Tora Bora was over—a crushing loss for al-Qaeda, but also for the United States and its allies, who failed to nab their quarry. Bin Laden and the remaining al-Qaeda fighters had escaped into Pakistan, getting away with their lives but losing Afghanistan. Bin Laden chose this time to write what he described as his final bequest.

In his will, bin Laden tried to salvage his legacy. “I consider all Muslims in this immensely miserable time as my relatives,” he wrote. He pointed to the bombings of the embassies in East Africa, the destruction of the World Trade Center, and the attack on the Pentagon: They were great victories. “Despite the setbacks that God has inflicted upon us, these painful blows will mark the beginning of the wiping out of America and the infidel West after the passing of tens of years, God willing.”

Then he addressed his own family. “My wives, may God bestow His blessings on you,” he wrote. “You knew from the very first day that the road is surrounded with thorns and mines. You have given up the pleasures of life, your families, and chosen the hardship of living by my side.” He adjured them not to think of marrying again. “My sons, forgive me because I have given you very little of my time ever since I have chosen the path of jihad…. I have chosen a perilous course, filled with all sorts of tribulations that ruffle one’s life…. If it were not for treason I would have triumphed.” He then advised them not to join al-Qaeda. “In that I follow the example of Omar bin al-Khatab, the commandant of the faithful, who directed his son Abdullah not to proceed to the caliphate after his death. He said, ‘If it is good we have had enough of it; if not, then Omar’s suffering was enough.’”

I
N
M
ARCH
2002
AL
-Q
AEDA REGROUPED
in the mountains near Khost, close to the Lion’s Den. Predator drones were circling the skies and American and Afghan troops, along with soldiers from Canada, Australia, Denmark, France, Germany, and Norway, were sweeping through the mountains in an operation called Anaconda. The fighting had narrowed down to the Shah-e-Kot valley on the ragged eastern edge of Afghanistan. Regional warlords had been bought off, the borders supposedly sealed, and the al-Qaeda fighters were under constant bombardment. And yet a band of horsemen rode unhindered to Pakistan.

They came to the village of a local militia leader named Gula Jan, whose long beard and black turban might have signaled that he was a Taliban sympathizer. “I saw a heavy, older man, an Arab, who wore dark glasses and had a white turban,” Jan said four days later. “He was dressed like an Afghan, but he had a beautiful coat, and he was with two other Arabs who had masks on.” The man in the beautiful coat dismounted and began talking in a polite and humorous manner. He asked Jan and an Afghan companion about the location of American and Northern Alliance troops. “We are afraid we will encounter them,” he said. “Show us the right way.”

While the men were talking, Jan slipped off to examine a flyer that had been dropped into the area by American airplanes. It showed a photograph of a man in a white turban and glasses. His face was broad and meaty, with a strong, prominent nose and full lips. His untrimmed beard was gray at the temples and ran in milky streaks below his chin. On his high forehead, framed by the swaths of his turban, was a darkened callus formed by many hours of prayerful prostration. His eyes reflected the sort of decisiveness one might expect in a medical man, but they also showed a measure of serenity that seemed oddly out of place in a Wanted poster. The flyer noted that Zawahiri had a price of $25 million on his head.

Jan returned to the conversation. The man he now believed to be Zawahiri said to him, “May God bless you and keep you from the enemies of Islam. Try not to tell them where we came from and where we are going.”

There was a telephone number on the Wanted poster, but Gula Jan did not have a phone. Zawahiri and the masked Arabs disappeared into the mountains.

PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS

Abu Hafs al-Masri:
Former Egyptian policeman and member of al-Jihad who was al-Qaeda’s military commander after the death of Abu Ubaydah. His real name is Mohammed Atef. One of bin Laden’s closest advisors, he was killed by an American air strike in November 2001.

Abu Hajer al-Iraqi:
Former Iraqi military officer and electrical engineer who joined the jihad in Afghanistan and became a close advisor of bin Laden’s in Sudan. Although not theologically trained, he was head of the al-Qaeda fatwa committee and rendered two opinions that justified violence against American forces and the killing of innocents. Currently in an American prison after stabbing a prison guard with a sharpened comb. His real name is Mamdouh Mahmoud Salem.

Abu Jandal:
Like bin Laden, Abu Jandal is a Saudi citizen of Yemeni extraction. In
2000,
he became bin Laden’s chief bodyguard in Afghanistan. Delivered the bride price to Yemen to secure bin Laden’s fifth wife. Captured by Yemeni authorities after the USS
Cole
bombing, he became a significant source for the FBI. Currently free from custody, he lives in Yemen.

Abu Rida al-Suri:
Businessman from Damascus who immigrated to Kansas City, then joined the jihad in Afghanistan in 1985. He is allegedly the author of the handwritten notes of the August
11, 1988,
meeting in which the organization of al-Qaeda is first openly discussed. Later, he became bin Laden’s friend and business advisor in Khartoum, where he still lives and operates a candy factory. His real name is Mohammed Loay Baizid.

Abu Ubaydah al-Banshiri:
Former Egyptian policeman who gained a reputation on the battlefield in Afghanistan before Zawahiri introduced him to bin Laden. He became al-Qaeda’s first military commander. Died in a ferry accident in Lake Victoria in May 1996. His real name is Amin Ali al-Rashidi.

Saif al-Adl:
Al-Qaeda’s military commander since 2002. It is unclear what his real name is. He may be Mohammed Ibrahim Makkawi, a former Egyptian military officer. Thought to be in hiding in Iran.

Abdullah Anas:
Algerian mujahid who fought with Ahmed Shah Massoud and married Abdullah Azzam’s daughter. Worked in the Services Bureau with Osama bin Laden and Jamal Khalifa. Perhaps the greatest warrior of the Arab Afghans. His real name is Boudejema Bounoua. Currently lives in London, where he serves as an imam at the Finsbury Park mosque.

John Anticev:
FBI agent on the I
-49
squad who obtained the crucial telephone number in Yemen belonging to Ahmed al-Hada, which served as an al-Qaeda switchboard.

Mohammed Atta:
The Egyptian leader of the 9/11 hijacking team; pilot of American Airlines Flight #11 that struck the World Trade Center.

Abdullah Azzam:
Charismatic Palestinian cleric who founded the Services Bureau in Peshawar in 1984. His fatwa summoning Muslims to repel the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan began the Arab involvement in that war. He was assassinated on November
24, 1989,
a crime that has never been solved.

Mahfouz Azzam:
Ayman al-Zawahiri’s mother’s uncle; the family patriarch and longtime lawyer and political figure in Cairo. He was Sayyid Qutb’s protégé and later his attorney. He still lives in Helwan, Egypt.

Umayma Azzam:
Ayman al-Zawahiri’s mother. She still lives in Maadi, Egypt.

Ahmed Badeeb:
Osama bin Laden’s former teacher at the Thagr School, Badeeb became Prince Turki’s chief of staff. After the Afghan jihad, Badeeb became chairman of the board of United Press International. He is now a businessman in Jeddah and ran a losing campaign in the first municipal elections in that country in 2005.

Saeed Badeeb:
Prince Turki’s director of analysis and Ahmed Badeeb’s brother; now retired and living in Jeddah and Washington, D.C.

Hasan al-Banna:
Founder and Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood; murdered by Egyptian authorities in 1949.

Khaled Batarfi:
Neighbor and boyhood friend of Osama bin Laden in Jeddah; now an editor at
Al-Medina
newspaper and frequent columnist for
Arab News.

Ramzi bin al-Shibh:
Member of the Hamburg cell who oversaw the 9/11 plot. Captured in Karachi, Pakistan, on September
11, 2002,
and is now in American custody in an undisclosed location.

Abdullah bin Laden:
Osama’s oldest child, now living in Jeddah and working for a division of the Saudi Binladin Group.

Abdul Rahman bin Laden:
Son of bin Laden and Umm Abdullah and born with a birth defect called hydrocephalus, which has caused him permanent mental damage. He now lives with his mother in Syria.

Mohammed bin Laden:
Creator of the Saudi Binladin Group and father of the bin Laden dynasty. Born in Rubat, in the Hadramout section of Yemen; as a young man left Yemen for Ethiopia and made his way to Arabia in 1931. Died in 1967 at the age of fifty-nine in an air crash in southern Saudi Arabia.

Osama bin Laden:
Born in Riyadh in January
1958;
became a fund-raiser for the Afghan jihad after the Soviet invasion in
1979;
founded al-Qaeda in 1988. Whereabouts unknown.

Steven Bongardt:
FBI agent and member of the I
-49
squad, now teaching at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia.

Richard A. Clarke:
Former counterterrorism coordinator in the National Security Council. Clarke retired from government in 2003 and became the best-selling author of
Against All Enemies.
He is also the founder of Good Harbor Consulting.

Jack Cloonan:
Former member of the I
-49
squad who handled Jamal al-Fadl and Ali Mohammed. Now president of Clayton Consultants, a risk-management firm specializing in negotiating kidnappings, and a consultant for ABC News.

Daniel Coleman:
FBI agent and member of the I
-49
squad who became the representative of the New York office of the FBI at the CIA’s Alec Station in 1996. There he opened the first case on bin Laden in
1996,
and his interrogation of Jamal al-Fadl exposed the al-Qaeda network. Now retired from the bureau, Coleman works for Harbinger, a company that provides training for law enforcement, military, and intelligence agencies.

Essam Deraz:
Egyptian filmmaker and bin Laden biographer who chronicled the Arab Afghans in 1988. Currently lives in Cairo.

Anna DiBattista:
Former girlfriend of John O’Neill; now working for the Marriott Corporation in Bethesda, Maryland.

Dr. Fadl:
Titular leader of al-Jihad during Zawahiri’s imprisonment and later in Afghanistan, until he resigned in 1993—reputedly to become a shepherd in Yemen. His real name is Sayyid Imam al-Sharif, although he writes under the name Dr. Abdul Aziz bin Abdul Salam. He is now in prison in Egypt.

Jamal al-Fadl:
Sudanese secretary for bin Laden in Khartoum who became al-Qaeda’s first defector when he stole $
110,000
and fled into the embrace of American authorities. Testified in the New York trial of four al-Qaeda members in the embassy bombings case,
United States v. Usama bin Laden, et al.
Currently in the witness protection program somewhere in the United States.