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the situation room was watching satelite imagery.
High Temperatures Disabled Sikorsky
Black Hawk In Bin Laden Raid
Hartford Courant
By ANDREA SHALAL-ESA, Reuters
8:43 AM EDT, May 4, 2011
The loss of a U.S. Black Hawk helicopter during the mission that killed
Osama bin Laden reveals the vulnerability of such aircraft, but also
reflects important lessons learned from earlier helicopter accidents.
U.S. government officials say the helicopter destroyed during the
mission in Pakistan was a newer version of the two Sikorsky UH-60 Black
Hawks that were shot down during a raid in Somalia in October 1993 that
killed 18 soldiers.
In Pakistan, the helicopter packed with soldiers made a "controlled but
hard landing" after encountering higher-than-expected temperatures at
bin Laden's compound near Islamabad, Senator Dianne Feinstein told
reporters on Tuesday.
The accident was not unusual, military experts said.
Dozens of U.S. helicopters have crashed or been shot down in
Afghanistan and Iraq, challenged by sandstorms and high temperatures
that reduce the lifting capability of aircraft powered by rotors. In
mountainous Afghanistan, there is the added challenge of flying at high
altitudes.
"Helicopters are way more reliable than they were in the 1950s, but
unfortunately, they're still very sensitive to the environment," said
Joseph Trevithick, an analyst with the globalsecurity.org website.
The Pentagon is still investigating the problem in the bin Laden raid,
but the helicopter was not damaged by enemy fire, said one defense
official, who was not authorized to speak on the record. Officials said
it suffered mechanical failure.
U.S. forces quickly destroyed the Black Hawk, which was built by
Sikorsky Aircraft, a unit of United Technologies Corp, to avoid any of
its sensitive equipment falling into enemy hands, said the defense
official. Sikorsky has not commented.
Unlike fixed wing aircraft, helicopters are more prone to crash if they
sustain damage to any one area, Trevithick said.
Helicopter problems forced the U.S. military to abort another
high-profile mission in 1980 -- an attempt to rescue U.S. citizens held
hostage at the U.S. embassy in Iran.
"They agonized over that. A lot of lessons were learned," including the
need for extra helicopters to carry out the mission, and rescue
helicopters, said John Pike, founder of the globalsecurity.org website.
Still, helicopters offer huge advantages to the military, allowing the
transport of troops and cargo in areas where the few existing roads are
often heavily mined with explosives, and providing commanders the
ability to get close to targets.
In Sunday's mission, two Black Hawk helicopters were supposed to hover
over the bin Laden compound and allow Navy special operations forces to
rappel to the ground.
When one of the helicopters ran into problems -- including temperatures
that were 17 degrees higher than expected -- and had to land abruptly,
two Boeing Co Chinook helicopters were called in to help get the U.S.
troops out, said one U.S. government official, speaking on condition of
anonymity.
One Chinook would have sufficed, but a second one was sent in case that
helicopter also ran into trouble, said Pike.
One retired military helicopter pilot said the Black Hawk likely ran
into an issue called "settling with power," when high temperatures, a
heavy load and high altitudes force an unplanned landing. "Those
conditions just suck the RPM out of the rotor," he said.
Sikorsky's Black Hawks, which typically have a range of 360 miles, are
considered reliable and have been real workhorses during the last
decade of war, said one congressional aide.
A House Armed Services subcommittee is due to finalize a spending bill
for fiscal 2012 that includes $1.3 billion for 71 new UH-60 Black Hawk
helicopters.
The Black Hawk, which first began flying in 1978, has a crew of three
or four and can carry 11 soldiers equipped for combat. It has a maximum
gross weight of 22,000 pounds and can carry up to 9,000 pounds on an
external cargo hook. It has a top speed of 187 miles per hour.
3 May 2011 Last updated at
09:18 ET
What was life like in the Bin Laden
compound?
Pakistani media personnel and local
residents gather outside the hideout of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden
following his death by US Special Forces in a ground operation in
Abbottabad on May 3, 2011 The compound was opened to the media on
Tuesday
How the Bin Ladens lived
A fortified compound in a quiet suburb was home to the world's most
wanted man, Osama Bin Laden, and a few close associates. The building
was also reportedly home to several of his wives, numerous children and
domestic helpers. But what kind of life did they lead?
They certainly lived an isolated existence and had barely any contact
with their affluent and congenial neighbours, residents in the area
told the BBC's M Ilyas Khan in Abbottabad. Their desire for
privacy was so marked that people left them well alone. They did not
mix with others and were never seen at local wedding celebrations or
other community occasions. A reporter from Pakistan's Express TV
even tweeted that one neighbour said when local children hit a cricket
ball into the compound, they were not allowed to retrieve it.
Every now and then what looked like bullet-proof vehicles would go in
and out of the compound, but security gates would slide shut
immediately afterwards, locals told the BBC.
Goat delivery
But living in an urban area such as Abbottabad does require some
contact with the outside world and a few people have spoken about the
Bin Ladens' habits and routines. A newspaper hawker told the BBC
that he delivered newspapers to the compound every day and at the end
of each month his bill was promptly paid, always by the same man.
He never stepped inside the compound and his impression was that only
one person lived there but, he added, that every now and then he saw a
red pick-up vehicle, with a goat inside, being driven to the compound.
US officials said their long-term observation of the compound revealed
that the inhabitants burned their rubbish inside the compound, rather
than leaving it outside to be collected.
Another neighbour also told the BBC's M Ilyas Khan that there was a
domestic helper who lived in the area and who went into the compound to
clean and to work in the kitchen. She divulged very few details but
said that she never saw Osama Bin Laden in the house. The
residents of the compound clearly employed a number of domestic
helpers. Abbottabad hospital staff have told the BBC Urdu service that
among those being treated in the wake of the raid are two women
believed to be maids employed by the family.
The area around the compound was opened up to the media on Tuesday and
among those reporters in the vicinity was Associated Press
correspondent Nahal Toosi, who was tweeting her observations.
"I am in a bldg across from cpd. Looks like servants quarters. Piles of
clothes, pillows on floor. Broken clock on ground. Stopped at 2:20," he
reports. He also notes a mouldy lentil stew in a pot, half-eaten bread
and an old television set.
"I report, you decide," he tweets, when he observes a bicycle covered
with fake flowers now parked outside one of the entry ways.
Who else lived there?
US officials say that satellite spying technology allowed them to
determine that a family was living in the house with two men. Two
Pakistani men were seen around the compound, according to BBC Urdu's
Rahimullah Yusufzai, who has also kept in touch with a network of local
journalists.
He says all their researches indicate the house was being rented by two
brothers. These are not to be confused with the "couriers" that the CIA
appears to have been tracking. These two men, according to neighbours,
seemed to be in control of the household.
When our correspondent asked the neighbour if there were any children
living in the compound, he said that there were none. But then his
14-year-old son interjected saying that there were a few boys who lived
in that compound and that they used to go to one of the shops in the
area to buy goods. But, he told our reporter, he never spoke to
the boys. Other media reports say that children from the compound were
despatched to buy food from local shops.
Kitchen garden
As media access to the area increases, all kinds of observations have
been trickling out.
Mr Yusufzai was told by other neighbours that one
man from the house would go out on his own for a large shopping trip in
which he purchased many items
Local police told al Jazeera's Imtiaz Tyab that
there was a kitchen garden and some chickens were kept too, indicating,
they say, that it was a self-sufficient compound where they could grow
their own food
Nick Robertson of CNN observed on Twitter that
neighbours say the "Osama entourage" passed themselves off as gold
merchants
Sky News quotes Jibran Khan who said that tall
Pakistani men lived in the house and said that a friend of his who ran
into the men at a local bakery said they were always very courteous.
One point on which all observers are united is that the women were
rarely seen. Most people assumed that this is because they were
Pashtun, and they tend to observe strict purdah. The children of
the compound were not thought to be attending school, neighbours told
local journalists. They assumed that they were simply schooled at home
- although this cannot be verified.
Staff at the hospital where the injured were taken told local
journalists that the wounded from the compound speak Pashto and Arabic.
Waziristan 'Mansion'
The spacious and prosperous homes in these areas are known as "havelis"
and, according to local journalists speaking to the BBC, the Bin Laden
home was known as "Waziristan Haveli" or "mansion" - named after the
semi-autonomous tribal area where many until now assumed Bin Laden was
sheltering.
Although the compound sits in relative isolation, it is situated in an
up-and-coming area and a number of people have recently built their
homes nearby. But Pakistan's Express TV says that people in
Abbottabad report it is common to go for up to 16 hours a day without
electricity.
Satellite images between 2005 and 2011 reflect the change in the area
and also show how the compound itself has expanded as more
outbuildings, walls and privacy features have been built.
And there are notices placed on Pakistani property and land websites,
advertising land for sale in the "delightful climate and surroundings"
of Abbottabad. Land for sale can also be found in the Hashmi Colony
area, very close to the Bin Laden compound. The area is seen as secure
and stable.
Just a few hundred metres north is Pakistan's prestigious Kakul
Military Academy. And property is available here too. According to the
seller, "it's a very secuir [sic] place near army farm house army jeeps
takes 100 rounds in a day so very safe place to live".
Details from US officials reveal that there were no phone or internet
lines into the house and that there were very few windows. US officials
also refer to a private 7ft high wall surrounding a room on the second
floor of the building.
US officials released an image of a bedroom on the second floor,
showing a double bed strewn with pillows and cushions. The floors are
blood-stained: this is said to be the room in which Bin Laden was
killed.
Pakistan army soldier stands on top of
house
A Pakistan army soldier stands on top of the house where it is believed
al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden lived in Abbottabad, Pakistan on
Monday, May 2, 2011. Bin Laden, the mastermind behind the Sept. 11,
2001, terror attacks that killed thousands of people, was slain in his
hideout in Pakistan early Monday in a firefight with U.S. forces,
ending a manhunt that spanned a frustrating decade.
(AP Photo/Anjum Naveed)
Well, that's
not how it went down...
CIA: If caught, bin Laden would be sent to Gitmo
YAHOO
By EILEEN SULLIVAN, Associated Press
16 Feb. 2011
WASHINGTON – What would the government do if Osama bin Laden, an FBI
most-wanted terrorist for more than a decade, were captured?
Washington is abuzz about questions whether bin Laden would ever see
the inside of an American courtroom or where he might be imprisoned if
he doesn't stand trial. The discussion, which on Wednesday bounced from
Capitol Hill to the White House, is still mostly an academic exercise
because there is no suggestion that the government is any closer to
finding or capturing bin Laden, believed to be hiding in Pakistan.
For years, President Barack Obama's administration has maintained that
criminal courts were more than equipped to handle even the most serious
terror cases, but when faced with that question Wednesday during a
Senate hearing, CIA Director Leon Panetta said the administration
probably would just send bin Laden to the U.S. prison at Guantanamo
Bay, Cuba.
That suggests that, at least under current U.S. law, bin Laden would
never be transferred to U.S. soil to be tried in the civilian court
system. Congress last year ordered that no federal money could be spent
to ship prisoners from Guantanamo Bay to the U.S. mainland.
Bin Laden, who has evaded capture for more than 10 years, has been
indicted and could stand trial in New York City.
Panetta's remarks indicate that given the choice, Obama would opt to
use the Bush administration policy that the president has long
criticized.
National Intelligence Director James Clapper told senators if bin Laden
was caught, there likely would be a debate about whether to try him.
These plans were not echoed by the White House.
"The president remains committed to closing the prison at Guantanamo
Bay because as our military commanders have made clear, it's a national
security priority to do so," spokesman Jay Carney said when asked about
this. "I'm not going to speculate about what, you know, would happen if
we were to capture Osama bin Laden."
Attorney General Eric Holder has been asked a similar question which he
deflected, saying he hoped the U.S. will capture and interrogate bin
Laden, but he doesn't expect the al-Qaida leader will be taken alive.
The varied answers from Obama administration officials show that nearly
10 years after the worst terror attack on U.S. soil, there is still not
a clear message for what to do with the people behind it. So far, no
one has been prosecuted for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Panetta and Clapper offered their plans in response to a hypothetical
question from the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee,
Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia. Chambliss asked what the government
would do if it captured two of America's most wanted terrorists — bin
Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri.
"We would probably move them quickly into military jurisdiction at
Bagram (in Afghanistan) for questioning, and then eventually move them
probably to Guantanamo," Panetta said.
Clapper said, "If we were to capture either one of those two luminaries
— if I can use that term — I think that that would probably be a matter
of some interagency discussions as to what their ultimate disposition
would be and whether they would be tried or not."
A CIA spokesman, George Little, later said the decision about bin
Laden's capture would be left to senior government officials.
"As Director Clapper made clear, and as Director Panetta agrees, any
decision about what might happen if Osama bin Laden and other
terrorists are captured would be a decision for policymakers, and would
have to be informed by the circumstances of his capture," Little said
after the hearing. Little said Panetta supports the president's plan to
close the prison at Guantanamo.
The Obama administration maintains that terrorists can and should be
tried in the U.S. The fight over bringing Guantanamo detainees to the
U.S. became a political issue for the White House after Holder
announced in November 2009 that professed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh
Mohammed would be brought before a civilian court in New York City to
stand trial. Criticism from Republicans and New York Democrats forced
the administration to back away from that plan.
The administration still has not announced a decision on how to proceed
with trials or shutter the Guantanamo prison that still holds 172
detainees.
Tales from the Bin Laden clan
By SUSANNAH CAHALAN
Last Updated: 9:02 AM, October 11, 2009
Posted: 2:57 AM, October 11, 2009
One night in Khartoum, Sudan, Osama bin Laden decides to take his
family -- four wives, 14 children -- on a camping trip.
He drives into the desert, finds an isolated spot, then has his oldest
sons dig ditches in the sand, long enough to fit each person. It's the
early 1990s, and bin Laden believes there's a war coming between
Muslims and the Western infidels. This is training.
"You must be gallant. Do not think about foxes or snakes," he says.
"Challenging trials are coming to us."
Each child, including a few 1- and 2-year-olds, lies in a hollow. There
is no water or food.
As night falls, a child's voice whispers in the darkness, "I'm cold."
"Cover yourself with dirt or grass," bin Laden snaps. "You will be warm
under what nature provides."
Bin Laden's first wife, Najwa, doesn't like that idea, but, "I reminded
myself that my husband knew much more about the big world than any of
us. We were all pearls to my husband, and he wanted to protect us."
That's what it was like "Growing Up bin Laden," the title of a
forthcoming memoir (St. Martin's Press) co-written by Najwa, who
remains married to the monster, though she now lives apart from him in
an undisclosed Middle Eastern location, with her fourth son -- of 11
children -- Omar.
It's a world where women are never allowed outside the house,
12-year-old daughters are married off to 30-year-old al Qaeda fighters,
pet dogs are used for target practice and the biggest household fight
is over whether Islam allows refrigerators. "Jon & Kate Plus 8" it
ain't.
It is not the life that Najwa, now 51, would necessarily have chosen
for herself, though she accepts it because "my husband says it is so."
She neither defends nor lashes out at Osama. Terrorism is what he does
for a living; all she needed to worry about was keeping his house in
order.
Despite her neutrality, her story is still an indictment -- showing us
a terrorist leader who is embarrassed easily, obsessed with a long-dead
father, terrified of women, and who thinks of his children as nothing
more than cannon fodder.
Najwa grew up a rebel in the port city of Latakia in Syria. She refused
to hide her hair and wore colorful dresses that didn't cover her face
or arms. She attended school, played tennis and was a fledgling artist
who painted portraits and landscapes.
She met her first cousin Osama, the 9-year-old son of her father's
sister, when she was just 7.
"He was such a serious, conscientious boy," she writes. "He was proud,
but not arrogant. He was delicate, but not weak. He was grave, but not
severe."
He was also "shyer than a virgin under the veil."
Osama was the son of Mohammed bin Laden, a construction kingpin and one
of the wealthiest men in Saudi Arabia. He had the habit of calling his
sons for inspection, then whipping them with a cane if they did not
line up exactly by height.
Though conservative in most other ways, Mohammed delighted in having
his wives re move their veils, then asking his nervous servants to pick
the most beautiful one. Osama's mother, tired of these shenanigans,
divorced him.
Osama had a one-on-one conversation with his father only once. At age
9, he decided he would like a car. Escorted by his stepfather, he
petitioned Mohammed.
"I will not give you a car. I will give you a bicycle," the father
replied. Osama went home crushed and gave the bike to a younger brother.
Then, as Osama recounted to his son Omar years later in the Tora Bora
mountains of Afghanistan, "one day several weeks later I received the
biggest shock of my life. A shiny new car was delivered. For me! That
was the happiest day of my young life."
Soon after, Mohammed was killed in a plane crash, an event Omar
believes left deep scars.
"Although my father was never one to complain, it is believed that he
keenly felt her lack of status, genuinely suffering from his father's
lack of personal care and love."
Osama concentrated on reli gious schooling, becoming more conservative
by the year. His way of flirting was by saving the best grapes from
Najwa's back yard for her.
Their wedding in 1974 -- she was 15, he was 17 -- was a telling
precursor to a joyless marriage. Dancing, joking and laughing were
forbidden at the nuptials.
They immediately departed for Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where she was
forced to wear the "dreaded veil" and full-length black robes. Her
schooling was discontinued, tennis lessons canceled, her artwork
forgotten. Najwa was almost perpetually pregnant, as Osama said it was
important to make many warriors for Islam.
She lived a life in purdah, where females socialize only with members
of their family. In nearly 30 years of marriage, she left the confines
of her home only to visit relatives and to move to a different house.
Air conditioning, televisions, phones were all banned. Toys given as
gifts to the children were destroyed.
Omar's asthma was treated with honeycombs and onions, since modern
medicine wasn't allowed. Everything the family ate had to be bought the
same day, since refrigerators were out of the question.
Bin Laden took three more wives -- one picked by Najwa, though she
admits that "few women dance with joy when they contemplate sharing
their husband with other women."
In 1979, the couple visited America. Bin Laden went to see Abdullah
Azzam, a teacher and mentor of bin Laden who preached about jihad in
Los Angeles, while Najwa stayed in Indianapolis with a family friend.
She recalls how a man stared at her black Saudi robes, veil and head
scarf as they waited for a return flight to Saudi Arabia at the airport.
"With a jaw dropped open in surprise, and curious eyes growing as large
as big bugs popping out of his skull, he actually stopped to gape at my
veiled face," she says.
"I wondered what my husband was thinking. I took a side glance at Osama
and saw that he was intently studying the curious man."
Najwa says Americans were kind and friendly, but the country was not to
her conservative tastes. "My husband and I did not hate America, yet we
did not love it," she writes.
Bin Laden became a hero in Saudi Arabia because he fought the Russians
in Afghanistan. But he began to clash with the royal family after they
ignored his offers of military aid and instead let Americans liberate
Kuwait in 1991.
The final straw, Omar writes, was when his father saw female American
troops on his soil.
"Women! Defending Saudi men!" he cried.
Under pressure from the king, Osama went into a self-imposed exile in
the Sudan.
Najwa and Omar describe two Osamas here. One happily tends his garden,
delighting in sunflowers. The other walks with a Kalashnikov and a
cane, wielded if any of his sons showed their eye teeth while smiling.
One is so embarrassed when his boat goes out of control that he slips
into the water so no one can see him. The other rants into a
Dictaphone, spouting epithets about America and Israel, pausing only to
listen to his favorite station -- the BBC -- on a small radio.
One is a legend who has radicals visiting "to breathe the same air."
The other is a wounded man, secretly blinded in his right eye by a
flying chunk of metal in his youth, who trained himself to use his left
hand rather than being seen as weak by a culture that rejected the
disabled, Omar says.
Pets met horrible ends. A monkey the children loved was run over by one
of Osama's men. Bin Laden had told him that "the monkey was not a
monkey at all, but was a Jewish person turned into a monkey by the hand
of God."
A litter of puppies the boys adopted was gassed by al Qaeda fighters to
see how long it would take them to die.
Finally, under pressure from the royal family and after assassination
attempts, Sudan kicked Osama out.
In 1996, he found shelter with the Taliban and set up camp in earthen
huts in the mountains of Tora Bora. Najwa's kitchen consisted only of a
portable gas burner to make food for 10 kids. The children slept on
cotton mattresses on the concrete floor, and there was no furniture.
Bin Laden drafted his sons to be suicide bombers.
"Listen, my sons, there is a paper on the wall of the mosque. This
paper is for men who are good Muslims, men who volunteer to be suicide
bombers," Omar recalls him saying repeatedly. One of Osama's youngest
sons ran to the mosque to sign up; his father did nothing to stop him.
When Omar responded with anger, bin Laden told him, "You hold no more a
place in my heart than any other man or boy in the entire country."
Omar once approached his father about his jihad obsession.
"My father, when is this killing and war going to stop?" he asked his
father.
Bin Laden responded, "Would you ask a Muslim when he was going to stop
praying to God? I will fight until my dying day! I will fight until I
breathe my last breath! I will never stop my fight for justice! I will
never stop this jihad!"
As for why bin Laden focused on America, he said: "Remember this:
America and Israel are one bicycle with two wheels. The wooden wheel
represents the United States. The steel wheel represents Israel. Omar,
Israel is the stronger power of the two. Does a general attack the
strongest line in battle? No, he concentrates on the weakest part of
the line."
A 20-year-old Omar eventually fled Afghanistan and begged his mother to
do the same. Najwa decided to leave; her husband reluctantly conceded.
In the first week of September, Najwa handed Osama a ring as a token of
her love.
"No matter what you might be told, I will never divorce you," he said.
As she stepped foot in Syria a few days later with three of her
children, the world changed. She watched the television in horror as
the Twin Towers fell, claiming the lives of 2,991 people.
Though she refuses to criticize -- or even implicate -- her husband,
she says: "I can only think and feel with my mother's heart. For every
child lost, a mother's heart harbors the deepest pain. None can see our
sons grow to men. None can see our daughters become mothers."
Najwa says she has not spoken to Osama since the attacks and does not
know where he is.
Omar, who has completely rejected his father and is petitioning to live
in England, was at his uncle's house in Saudi Arabia when he learned of
the attacks.
"Come quickly!" his uncle said. "Come and see what my brother has done!
See what your father has done! He has ruined our lives! He has
destroyed us!"
Money, loathing for United States fuel
bin Laden’s network
By The Boston Globe
Published on 09/14/2001
London — The Saudi exile Osama bin Laden, whom investigators were
zeroing in on Thursday as a prime suspect in the most devastating
attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor, has waged his “holy war”
from caves in the mountains of Afghanistan backed by his fortune, his
faith, his loathing for America, and what those around him describe as
a death wish.
His grandiose vision of a global jihad, or Islamic holy war,
against corrupt and secular governments of the Middle East and their
U.S. backers seemed like the plot from a bad action
movie when he first began to shape it in the late 1980s.
But that vision, according to federal investigators,
terrorism specialists, and even a former associate interviewed
Thursday, became an American nightmare that before Tuesday seemed
unimaginable.
The scion of a Saudi construction magnate who inherited a
fortune that was in the hundreds of millions of dollars, bin Laden
arrived in Afghanistan in 1987. He used muddy camps there to shape a
ragtag group of holy warriors from around the Arab Muslim world, and
instilled in them a single mission: to create an international network
that would bring all Muslims under a militant and centuries-old
interpretation of Islamic law.
His organization became known as Al Qaeda, Arabic for "The
Base,” and it brought together Algerians, Egyptians, Palestinians
and Filipinos. It even attracted American Muslims who, once the Soviets
were defeated in Afghanistan and
the United States led the Persian Gulf War, joined their brethren in Al
Qaeda and turned their well-honed
skills against America.
U.S. State Department documents show that Al Qaeda has up to
several thousand
members who are funded by bin Laden's roughly $300 million inheritance.
The group has established
a network of terrorist cells and operatives, known as “sleepers,” who
investigators say were scattered
around the world and across the United States, with an apparent
concentration in New England.
Bin Laden also has strong family ties and a group of
supporters in Boston,
where the two hijacked planes used in the World Trade Center attacks
departed. One of his brothers
set up scholarship funds at Harvard, while another relative owns
condominiums in Charlestown. Two bin
Laden associates also once worked as Boston cab drivers.
The soft-spoken and devout 44-year-old, with his signature
long beard,
camouflage, and head scarf, is known by his associates as “The
Contractor,” a nom de guerre that came
from his family's background in the Saudi construction industry. He was
born in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, one of 50 children to a father who
had, by some estimates, 10 wives. He received a degree in public
administration from King Abdul-Aziz
University in Jeddah.
Mission begins
After he arrived in Afghanistan flush with cash and full of
his grandiose
plans, bin Laden began working on his mission, which some of his own
fighters saw as implausible because
of the fractious extremist elements within the Middle East.
There was the Egyptian terrorist group Gama al-Islamiya,
which tried to
topple Hosni Mubarak, the secular, U.S.-backed president whom they
considered corrupt. There also
was the Algerian group GIA, which carried out its own bloody civil war
to replace a brutal military
regime with an Islamic state. The Pakistanis, the Palestinians and the
Sudanese each had very different agendas.
Bin Laden pulled them all together.
Through the years, “The Contractor” built bridges between
these groups
and created orphanages, hospitals, and other development projects in
Afghanistan. During the 1980s, the United States supported the
mujahideen, or Afghan
resistance fighters, in their war against the Soviet Union, with an
estimated $10 billion in covert aid
that was funneled by the CIA
“The reality was that this was their war, their jihad,”
said Milt Bearden,
the former CIA station chief in Islamabad, Pakistan, who coordinated
the mission. In a telephone interview from Washington Thursday, Bearden
added, “We hijacked
a piece of it because it met with our large policy objectives to defeat
the Soviet Union.
That was a point when you could say bin Laden didn't despise us. He
didn't love us, either.”
After the Soviets were defeated in Afghanistan, bin Laden
moved to Sudan.
He set up lucrative import-export businesses and a construction firm.
It was from his base in Sudan that his movement began to turn its rage
toward the United States in the summer of 1990, when Saudi King Fahd
permitted American troops to use Saudi
Arabia as a staging ground for the Persian Gulf War, allowing a
U.S.-led alliance to liberate
Kuwait from Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's invading army.
Investigators now believe the involvement of Al Qaeda in a
1993 attack
on U.S. troops stationed in Somalia may have been an early expression
of bin Laden's hatred for the
United States. Eighteen servicemen were killed in the attack, and the
image of an American soldier
being dragged through the streets became a searing image of America's
vulnerability.
His title of The Contractor soon took on a different and more
sinister
tone after 1993, when bin Laden became known for financing, or
contracting out, attacks through a network
of underground terrorist organizations — Egyptian, Palestinian,
Sudanese and Pakistani — that carried
out a truck bombing beneath the World Trade Center.
Evidence presented at a federal trial in Manhattan showed
that the mastermind
of the bombing, a Pakistan national named Ramzi Yousef, received wire
transfers of money
from bin Laden and that his computer files had contact numbers for bin
Laden and associates. Authorities
also believed Yousef served under bin Laden in Afghanistan.
Dan Byman, an specialist on terrorism and the director of
research for
the RAND Corp.'s Middle East Center, said bin Laden brought an
administrator's touch to the fledgling
movement.
“What stands out most about bin Laden is his managerial
capabilities ...
his long-term planning,” Byman said. “He managed to pull people
together who would not even talk to each
other a decade ago.
Despite bin Laden's image for unifying extremist groups,
there were those
who resented him, said a former bin Laden associate who served in the
brigade of Afghan resistance
fighters who clustered around bin Laden in the late 1980s. The man, who
was granted political asylum in England in the early 1990s,
said there were many who felt that bin Laden ignored the Palestinian
cause and had done little to
fund their efforts. He also said that some fighters were alienated by
bin Laden's obsession with control
and power and the way he used his wealth to keep that control.
“His persona is greatly exaggerated,” the former fighter told
the Globe
through an interpreter Thursday on the condition of anonymity. “He is a
very religious man. He has become
America's convenient monster.”
It was in February 1998 that bin Laden announced his
intentions to the
world. He introduced The International Islamic Front for Jihad Against
Jews and
Crusaders, a new tent under
which Al Qaeda and other militant factions from Egypt, Pakistan,
Algeria
and Bangladesh gathered.
Americans targeted
According to intelligence documents released by the U.S.
State Department,
the front issued a chilling new “fatwa,” or religious decree: “To kill
Americans and their allies,
both civil and military, is an individual duty of every Muslim who is
able, in any country where this
is possible.”
Such decrees are seen by Muslim scholars worldwide as a
perversion of Islam,
and adherence to such interpretations exists only on the farthest
fringes of the faith, they
say. But to bin Laden, these decrees helped unify his disparate
followers.
On Aug. 7, 1998 — the anniversary of U.S. military forces'
entry into Saudi
Arabia before the Gulf War — the front carried out its first action
under the decree. Two massive
bombs exploded just hours apart at the U.S. embassies in Kenya and
Tanzania. According to intercepts
by U.S. intelligence officials, the plot was coordinated with phone
calls made directly from
the planners — an international force of Saudis, Jordanians, and others
who traced their net work to the
Afghan resistance — to bin Laden.
The United States reacted by launching airstrikes in remote
areas of Afghanistan
where bin Laden was believed to be holed up. Over the next two years,
the United States exerted
pressure on international governments to target Al Qaeda. More than 100
militants in 20 different
countries from Jordan to England were arrested.