Al-Qaeda (51 page)

15. The double bombing of US embassies in 1998 (the picture shows the Nairobi bombing) killed more than 200 people and established bin Laden and his group as major figures in Islamic militancy.

16. The attack on the USS Cole, an American destroyer, off Sana’a in Yemen in October 2000 showed the audacity and imagination of the ‘al-Qaeda hardcore’.

17. The attack on the Twin Towers of 11 September 2001 was a culmination of previous trends, not a radical new departure.

18. By December 2001 bin Laden and many militants had retreated to the cave complex at Tora Bora in eastern Afghanistan. But despite a massive bombardment, most escaped.

19. The military operation in Afghanistan killed many militants, destroyed the crucial terrorist infrastructure there and dispersed the terrorists who had gathered there. However, it was just the start of the ‘war on terror’.

20. Troops combed Afghanistan through 2002 hunting down ‘AQT’ (al-Qaeda and Taliban) elements. It was not an easy task. These British Marines did not fire a shot in anger in three months.

21. America continues to favour ‘hard’ tactics to protect against terrorism. Yet fighter planes over Washington do little to stem the continuing dissemination of the al-Qaeda ideology that is the origin of the threat.

22. A series of bombs in Bali, Indonesia, in October 2002 killed 200 people. The cell responsible had no real links to anyone from the ‘al-Qaeda hardcore’. They were inspired by bin Laden, but not under his orders.

23. Colin Powell, George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld. In 2003, six months after the invasion of Iraq, Rumsfeld, the US Defense Secretary, belatedly asked if terrorists were being made by ‘religious schools and radical clerics’ faster than they could be killed. Would a different American administration have grasped the true nature of al-Qaeda more quickly?

24. Throughout 2003 attempts to catch bin Laden continued. Repeated offers of rewards for information leading to the capture of militant leaders, publicized through leaflets dropped from planes, failed.

25. Pictures of American soldiers in holy cities in Iraq, here in Najaf, the most significant shrine in the world for Shia Muslims, played into the hands of militants claiming that the crusades had never ended.

26. American soldiers pictured with the author in Tikrit on the day the city was captured. Given America’s image in the Middle East, it was inevitable that such men, though well- intentioned, would be despised as occupiers.