The Looming Tower (77 page)

In the mornings, bin Laden walked to the mosque, followed by acolytes, and would linger to study with holy men, often breakfasting with them before going to his office.

Osama bin Laden returned to Afghanistan in 1996. He habitually carried the Kalikov AK-74 that had been awarded to him in the jihad against the Soviets.
Opposite, top: Zawahiri and bin Laden holding a press conference in Afghanistan in May 1998. In Afghanistan, the destinies of bin Laden and Zawahiri became irrevocably intertwined, and eventually their terrorist organizations, al-Qaeda and al-Jihad, merged into one.

Taliban fighters headed to the front to fight against the Northern Alliance in 2001. The Taliban arose out of the chaos of mujahideen rule in 1994 and swiftly moved to consolidate their control of Afghanistan. At first, bin Laden and his followers had no idea who they were—there were rumors that they were communists.

The Dar-ul-Aman Palace, Kabul. The palace was caught between the lines during the civil war that followed the Soviet withdrawal. After twenty-five years of continuous warfare, much of Afghanistan was left in ruins.

Above: The ruins of the American Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, which was bombed on August 7, 1998—al-Qaeda’s first documented terrorist strike. The attack killed 213 people and injured thousands. More than 150 people were blinded by flying glass.

Right: The American Embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, was bombed nine minutes later, killing 11 and wounding 85.

Left: The Clinton administration responded by destroying several al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan and the al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum, pictured here. A night watchman was killed in the plant, which later proved to have nothing to do with producing chemical or biological weapons.

The USS Cole after a suicide attack by two al-Qaeda operatives in a fishing skiff in October 2000. The attack nearly sank one of the most invulnerable ships in the U.S. Navy. Seventeen sailors died. “The destroyer represented the capital of the West,” said bin Laden, “and the small boat represented Mohammed.”

Michael Scheuer, who created Alec Station, the CIA’s virtual Osama bin Laden station. He and the FBI’s John O’Neill were bitter rivals.

Richard Clarke, the counterterrorism czar in the White House, proposed that O’Neill succeed him in his job—an offer that may have led to his downfall.

Valerie James saw John O’Neill in a bar in Chicago in 1991 and bought him a drink because “he had the most compelling eyes.” O’Neill was married at the time, a fact he failed to reveal to the many women he courted.