The Looming Tower (68 page)

Those chosen:
Hasin al-Banyan, “The Oldest Arab Afghan Talks to ‘Al-Sharq al-Awsat’ About His Career That Finally Landed Him in Prison in Saudi Arabia,”
Al-Sharq al-Awsat,
November 25, 2001.

in triplicate:
Gunaratna,
Inside al-Qaeda,
56.

142
$1,000 a month:
interview with Jack Cloonan.

round-trip ticket home:
Details of the al-Qaeda employment contract can be found in the Harmony Documents, drawn from a United States Department of Defense database. www.ctc.usma.edu/aq_harmonylist.asp.

constitution and by-laws:
ibid.

143
“We are your soldiers”:
interview with Abdullah Anas.

discovered and disarmed a powerful bomb:
“Saudi ‘Afghan’ Talks About Involvement with al-Qa‘ida, bin Ladin,”
Al-Sharq al-Awsat,
November 25, 2001.

“It’s better to leave”:
interview with Ahmed Badeeb.

They embraced for a long time:
Tahta al-Mijhar
[Under the Microscope], al-Jazeera, Feb. 20, 2003.

twenty kilograms of TNT:
Gunaratna,
Inside al-Qaeda,
23.

144
spreading rumors:
interview with Usama Rushdi.

7. Return of the Hero

145
27 million Saudi riyals:
interview with bin Laden family spokesperson. Jamal Khalifa, who is married to one of bin Laden’s half sisters, told me the annual share is “not even a million riyals”—$266,000, a figure that was confirmed by the bin Laden family spokesperson. That amount is considerably less than even the downsized figure given by the 9/11 Commission, which states: “from 1970 through 1994, bin Ladin received about $1 million per year—a significant sum, to be sure, but not a $300 million fortune that could be used to fund jihad.” National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States,
The 9/11 Commission Report, 170
. Jamal Khashoggi told me that when bin Laden returned from Afghanistan, he informed his brothers that he had spent his share of his inheritance on the jihad, and that they made it up to him out of their own pockets; a bin Laden family spokesperson disputes this, however.

build roads in Taif and Abha:
Robert Fisk, “The Saudi Businessman Who Recruited Mujahedin Now Uses Them for Large-Scale Building Projects in Sudan,”
Independent,
December 6, 1993.

146
“Othman of his age”:
interview with Monsour al-Njadan.
482-foot yacht:
Simons,
Saudi Arabia
, 28.
blackjack and roulette dealers:
Marie Colvin, “The Squandering Sheikhs,”
Sunday Times
, August 29, 1993.
“whores, pornography”:
David Leigh and David Pallister, “Murky Shadows Amid the Riviera Sunshine,”
Guardian
, March 5, 1999.

147
shooting at them:
interview with Mohammed al-Rasheed.
modest, one-story house:
interview with Frank Anderson.
raised ostriches:
Jamal Khashoggi, personal communication.
White Knight
:
Petition by Despina Sahini v. Turki Saeed or Turki al-Faisal bin Abdulaziz al-Saud
, Court of First Instance, Athens, Greece, February 2, 2003.
banana daiquiri:
Coll,
Ghost Wars
, 73.

148
“This man has defamed”:
interview with Ahmed Badeeb.

149
ex-convicts:
ibid.
taught and studied in Mecca:
interview with Sami Angawi.
forbade the Shia:
Simons,
Saudi Arabia
, 34.
1
percent of the world Muslim population:
Yamani,
To Be a Saudi
, 63.
90
percent of the expenses:
Dawood al-Shirian, “What Is Saudi Arabia Going to Do?”
Al-Hayat
, May 19, 2003.

150
“They have attacked our brothers”:
Osama bin Laden speech in the bin Laden family mosque in Jeddah, April 1990, filmed by Essam Deraz.

151
“when America permitted”:
bin Laden videotape, al-Jazeera, October 29, 2004.
“Thank you”:
www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/.

152
America and Saudi Arabia:
cf. Lippman,
Inside the Mirage
.
more than thirty thousand:
Peterson,
Saudi Arabia and the Illusion of Security
, 46.
more than 200,000 Americans:
Prince Turki al-Faisal, address to Seton Hall University, October 14, 2003.
United States was the tenth:
Aburish,
The Rise, Corruption, and Coming Fall
, 169.

153
In 1989 bin Laden approached:
interviews with Saeed Badeeb and Ahmed Badeeb.
Americans had a secret agreement:
interview with Jamal Khashoggi.
suitcases full of cash:
Randal,
Osama
, 100.

154
a number of trips to the new republic:
interviews with Ahmed Badeeb and Saeed Badeeb.

154
assassinate socialist leaders:
The Yemeni government maintained that “Yemeni Afghan groups executed several socialist figures and mounted 158 operations…between 1990 and 2004 on the strength of fatwas issued by Osama bin Laden.” Quoted in Anonymous,
Through Our Enemies’ Eyes
, 112. The Yemenis apparently did not realize that a new organization, al-Qaeda, was responsible for these operations.
“I was working”:
interview with Ahmed Badeeb.

155
he immediately doubled the figure:
interview with Nawaf E. Obaid.
a little over 5 million:
Professor William B. Quandt, personal communication.
moved its foreign headquarters:
Simons,
Saudi Arabia
, 214.
“I said many times”:
Osama bin Laden, interviewed by Peter L. Bergen and Peter Arnett, CNN, May 10, 1997.
“burn half of Israel”:
Amatzia Baram, “The Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait,” in
The Saddam Hussein Reader
, edited by Turi Munthe, 259.
non-aggression pact:
According to Leslie and Alexander Cockburn, “Royal Mess,”
New Yorker
, November 28, 1994, the Saudis had also been funding Iraqi research into nuclear weapons. On the other hand, Richard A. Clarke contends, in an interview, that scenario is “quite unbelievable,” since a nuclear-armed Saddam was Saudi Arabia’s greatest fear.
no intention of invading Kuwait:
www.kingfahdbinabdulaziz.com/main/1300.htm.
raid bin Laden’s farm:
“Biography of Usamah bin-Ladin, written by brother Mujahid with minor modifications,” Islamic Observation Center, trans. FBIS, April 22, 2000.

156
One battalion:
Woodward,
The Commanders
, 248.
bin Laden wrote a letter:
Esposito,
Unholy War
, 12.
royal family itself was divided:
Abir,
Saudi Arabia
, 174.
satellite images:
Later press reports questioned the accuracy of these images, pointing out that commercial Russian satellite photos showed empty stretches of sand along the Saudi border. Scott Peterson, “In War, Some Facts Less Factual,”
Christian Science Monitor
, September 6, 2002. Richard A. Clarke, in an interview, says that the images General Schwarzkopf presented were not of the border area but of the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait.

157
Cheney pledged:
Clarke,
Against All Enemies
, 58.
“Come with all”:
interview with Richard A. Clarke.
bin Laden spoke to Prince Sultan:
Burke,
Al-Qaeda
, 124; also, Anonymous,
Through Our Enemies’ Eyes
, 114;
Thomas E. Burnett, Sr., v. Al Baraka Investment and Development Corporation, et al., Final Third Amended Complaint
.
“I am ready”:
al-Hammadi, “The Inside Story of al-Qa’ida,” part 8, March 26, 2005.
“no caves”:
Douglas Jehl, “Holy War Lured Saudis as Rulers Looked Away,”
New York Times
, December 27, 2001.
proposals to the CIA:
Prince Turki al-Faisal speech to Contemporary Arab Studies Department, Georgetown University, February 3, 2002.
in a theater:
interviews with Ahmed Badeeb and Hassan Yassin.

158
fifty-eight thousand men:
Abir,
Saudi Arabia
, 176.
“We pushed the Soviets”:
interview with Ahmed Badeeb.
The prince laughed:
Arnaud de Borchgrave, “Osama’s Saudi moles,”
Washington Times
, August 1, 2003.
“radical changes”:
Jamal Khashoggi, “Osama Offered to Form Army to Challenge Saddam’s Forces: Turki,”
Arab News
, November 7, 2001.
Prince Turki argued:
Jamal Khashoggi, “Kingdom Has a Big Role to Play in Afghanistan,”
Arab News
, November 6, 2001.
that Caliph Omar:
Lewis,
The Crisis of Islam
, xxix-xxx.
“inadmissible”:
al-Hammadi, “The Inside Story of al-Qa’ida,” part 8, March 26, 2005.

159
1,500 foreign journalists:
al-Rasheed,
A History of Saudi Arabia
, 166.
“infidels”:
Wright, “Kingdom of Silence.”

160
“Letter of Demands”:
al-Rasheed,
A History of Saudi Arabia
, 170; also, Champion,
The Paradoxical Kingdom
, 218ff.; Abir,
Saudi Arabia
, 186ff.
more shocked:
Champion,
The Paradoxical Kingdom
, 221.

161
“There’s a role”:
interview with Jamal Khashoggi.
Worried about the influence:
interview with Michael Scheuer, who talked to Turki during this period.
Saudi Arabia had recruited:
Stephen Engelberg, “One Man and a Global Web of Violence,”
New York Times
, January 14, 2001.

8. Paradise

163
fifteen and twenty-five thousand:
interview with Steven Simon. Other estimates range from five to fifteen thousand. Reeve,
The New Jackals, 3
; also, Halliday,
Two Hours That Shook the World
, 166. Marc Sageman cautions in a personal communication: “I wanted to zero in on the numbers myself. What I found out is that no one knew, and did not even know how to go about even estimating this number. So far, all the numbers are arbitrary, based on a very wild guess.”
directly to jail:
interview with Saeed Badeeb.

164
“even with Red Indians”:
interview with Hasan al-Turabi.
four trusted associates:
testimony of Jamal al-Fadl,
U.S. v. Usama bin Laden, et al
.
“it is Sudan!”:
interview with Mohammed Loay Baizid.
gave Fadl $
250,000: testimony of Jamal al-Fadl,
United States v. Usama bin Laden et al
.

165
which brought Osama:
interview with Dr. Ghazi Salaheddin.
seventeen children:
interview with Zaynab Abdul Khadr.
leader of Sudan greeted:
Ahmad Zaydan, “The Search for al-Qaeda,” al-Jazeera, September 10, 2004.
Nearly every month:
interview with Ibrahim al-Sanoussi.
heresy in bin Laden’s eyes:
interview with Jamal Khalifa.
“art, music, singing”:
interview with Hasan al-Turabi.
“The Prophet himself”:
interview with Hasan al-Turabi.

167
The neighbors claimed:
al-Nour Ahmed al-Nour, “His Neighbor Claims He Does Not Speak Much,”
Al-Hayat
, November 19, 2001.
what his guests left:
interview with Issam Eldin Turabi.

167
al-Qaeda soccer teams:
interview with Jack Cloonan.

168
“great Islamic investor”:
“Part One of a Series of Reports on bin Ladin’s Life in Sudan: Islamists Celebrated Arrival of ‘Great Islamic Investor,’ ”
Al-Quds al-Arabi
, November 24, 2001. Translated by FBIS.
$350 million:
Ibid.
$50 million:
Thomas E. Burnett, Sr. v. Al Baraka Investment and Development Corporation, et al
. Final Third Amended complaint.
“larger than Bahrain”:
interview with Dr. Khaled Batarfi.
leather for the Italian market:
Bergen,
Holy War
, 81.
a million acres:
Burr,
Revolutionary Sudan
, 71.
near monopoly:
U.S. State Department fact sheet on Usama bin Laden, August 14, 1996.

169
filled out in triplicate:
interview with Bruce Hoffman.
between $50 and $120:
al-Hammadi, “The Inside Story of al-Qa’ida,” part 9, March 28, 2005.
Saudis got more:
interview with Dan Coleman.
five hundred people working:
interview with Hassabulla Omer.
a hundred of them who were active members:
ibid. The testimony of Jamal al-Fadl
(U.S. v. Usama bin Laden, et al.)
is confusing because he apparently conflates the number of employees of bin Laden’s companies with the actual number of people who had formally pledged
bayat
to bin Laden.
$1 million a day:
Burr,
Revolutionary Sudan
, 36.
holy men…fasting:
al-Nour Ahmed al-Nour, “His Neighbor Claims He Does Not Speak Much,”
Al-Hayat
, November 19, 2001.
blessings of peace:
interview with Ghazi Salah Eddin Atabani.

170
Abu Hajer:
interviews with Tom Corrigan, Daniel Coleman, Allan P. Haber, Jamal Khalifa, and Mohammed Loay Baizid.
he deserted:
interrogation of Mamdouh Mahmoud Salim Ahmed, Munich, September 17, 1998.
made bin Laden weep:
interview with Daniel Coleman.