Al-Qaeda (64 page)

2
. The exact number of dead is still uncertain. Early estimates have been consistently revised downwards as missing people have been identified. The final total is likely to be 3,000 or just under, of whom around 2,700 died in the World Trade Center itself.

3
. ‘Many Say US Planned for Terror but Failed to Take Action’,
New York Times
, 30 December 2001; Michael Elliott, ‘Could 9/11 have been prevented?’,
Time
, 4 August 2002; CIA Director George J. Tenet, testimony before Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, CIA website, 18 June 2002.

4
. Joint Inquiry Staff Statement, part 1, Eleanor Hill, Director, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, 18 September 2002.

5
. Reproduced in Jacquard,
Les Archives Secrètes d’al-Qaida
, p. 322.

6
. Carlyle Murphy and David B. Ottaway, ‘Some Light Shed on Saudi Suspects’,
Washington Post
, 25 September 2001.

7
. Corbin,
The Base
, p. 114.

8
. Terry McDermott, ‘A Perfect Soldier’,
Los Angeles Times
, 27 January 2002.

9
. Ibid.

10
. Insight, ‘The Road to Ground Zero’, part 1,
Sunday Times
, 6 January 2002.

11
. Australian Broadcasting Corporation,
Four Corners
, interviews with Volker Hauth, Hamburg, 18 October 2001, broadcast 12 November 2001.

12
. Christopher Walker, ‘Egypt Cracks Down on Non-violent Muslim Brothers’,
The Times
, 27 July 1995; Kepel,
Jihad
, p. 277.

13
. Australian Broadcasting Corporation,
Four Corners
, interview with Ralph Bodenstein, Beirut, Monday 15 October 2001; interview with Volker Hauth, Hamburg, 18 October 2001, broadcast 12 November 2001.

14
. Atta’s will, 4 October 2001, translated by ABC News,
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/WTCattawill.html
.

15
. Insight, ‘God’s Warrior’, part 1,
Sunday Times
, 13 January 2002; Corbin,
The Base
, p. 133.

16
. Kay Nehm, German Chief Prosecutor, press conference, Berlin, 29 August 2002.

17
. CIA Director George J. Tenet testimony before Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, CIA website, 18 June 2002.

18
. Kay Nehm, German Chief Prosecutor, press conference, 29 August 2002.

19
. Doug Frantz and Desmond Butler, ‘Germans Lay Out Early Qaeda Ties to 9/11 Hijackers’,
New York Times
, 24 August 2002.

20
. Nehm, press conference.

21
. Yosri Fouda, ‘The Masterminds’,
Sunday Times
, 8 September 2002.

22
. CIA Director George J. Tenet testimony before Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, CIA website, 18 June 2002.

23
. Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman, ‘The Hijackers we Let Escape’,
Newsweek
, 5 June 2002.

24
. Fouda, ‘The Masterminds’.

25
. FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence website, 26 September 2002.

26
. Murphy and Ottaway, ‘Some Light Shed on Saudi Suspects’.

27
. Fandy,
The Politics of Dissent
, p. 62.

28
. Molouk Y Ba-Isa and Saud al-Towaim, ‘Another Hijacker Turns Up in Tunis’,
Arab Times
, 1 October 2001.

29
. Interviews by
El Watan
, published in Murphy and Ottaway, ‘Some Light Shed on Saudi Suspects’; Insight, ‘The Highway of Death’,
Sunday Times
, 27 January 2002.

30
. Interview with Saudi intelligence source, Peshawar, September 2001.

31
. Fandy,
The Politics of Dissent
, p. 91.

32
. Insight, ‘The Highway of Death’.

33
. Corbin,
The Base
, p. 210.

34
. Molouk Y Ba-Isa and Saudal-Towaim, ‘Another Hijacker Turns Up in Tunis’.

35
. Fouda, ‘The Masterminds’.

36
. Terry McDermott, Josh Meyer and Patrick J. McDonnell, ‘The Plot and Designs of al-Qaeda’s Engineer’,
Los Angeles Times
, 22 December 2002; Terry McDermott, ‘The Plot’,
Los Angeles Times
, 1 September 2002.

37
. Fouda, ‘The Masterminds’.

38
. The Somali and Bosnian offices of the IIRO were shut down after it became clear they were acting as support offices for terrorist cells linked to bin Laden. Other charities came under scrutiny in the years before 11 September. One, called Mercy International and funded by ‘Saudi merchants’ according to witness testimony from the trial of the 1998 Embassy bombers, was a key conduit for funds for the attacks in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi. Claim, decedent john doe
v
. al-Baraka Investment and Development Corporation
et al
., in the US District Court of Colombia, civil action, third amended complaint, 2002.

39
. USA vs Enaam Arnaout, US District Court, Northern District of Illinois, no. 02 CR 892, April 2002. Arnaout was indicted on 30 April 2002 on perjury charges. In a plea bargain, he admitted one charge of racketeering. His lawyers said up to $400,000 had been diverted into ‘mujahideen’. Other charges were dropped in 2003.

40
. Statement of Matthew A. Levitt to International Trade and Finance Subcommittee, US Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, 1 August 2002; statement of FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence website, 26 September 2002.

41
. Susan Schmidt, ‘Moussaoui Linked to Plot’,
Washington Post
, 20 November 2001.

42
. Indictment, USA
v.
Zacarias Moussaoui, US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, December 2001.

43
. Antony Barnett, ‘Bin Laden Man’s Mother Blames British Extremists’,
The Observer
, 28 July 2002.

44
. Fouda, ‘The Masterminds’.

45
. Transcript of video of meeting with Saudi cleric, date and location unidentified. The cleric has been identified as a veteran of the war in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Chechnya, from Asir, called Khaled al-Harbi.

46
. Archives at
www.ict.org.il/documents/originally
translated by the
Los Angeles Times
.

16: The War on Terror

1
. Though few estimate more than 800 civilians were killed by the airstrikes themselves, the war caused the death of many tens of thousands more through hunger, disease and exposure.

2
. See Astri Suhrke, Kristian Berg Harpviken and Arne Strand, ‘Conflictual Peacebuilding: Afghanistan Two Years after Bonn’, the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo, and the Chr. Michelsen Institute, Bergen, 2004, for a useful and thorough assessment of Afghanistan’s progress, or lack of it.

3
. See Jason Burke, ‘The Terror of the Taliban is back’,
The Observer
, November 2003. Author interviews in Kandahar and Kabul, November 2003.

4
. See ‘Enduring Freedom: Abuses by US Forces in Afghanistan’ (Human Rights Watch, March 2004) for more details.

5
. Certainly the number of attacks was rising steadily. In February 2004 alone, nine aid workers were assassinated. In March President Karzai, mindful of the security situation, announced that national presidential elections, scheduled for June, would be held in September instead. British Agencies Afghan Group newsletter, February 2004.

6
. Bob Woodward,
Bush at War
, Simon and Schuster, 2002, p. 49. Jason Burke, ‘The Secret World of US Jails’,
The Observer
, 13 June 2004. Stephen Grey,
Ghost Plane
, p. 33. Author interviews with senior former CIA officers, September 2006.

7
. See Nick Fielding and Yosri Fouda,
Masterminds of Terror
, Mainstream, 2003.

8
. Jason Burke, ‘Al-Qaeda Launches Online Terrorist Manual’,
The Observer
, 18 January 2004.

9
. Al-Tubaiti arrived in Morocco on 13 January 2002 and recruited several accomplices but was arrested before he could implement any of his schemes. Moroccan Ministry of Justice Press Release on the International Terrorism Case, Casablanca, 19 June 2002.

10
. Doug Frantz and Desmond Butler, ‘Germans Lay Out Early Qaeda Ties to 9/11 Hijackers’,
New York Times
, 24 August 2002.

11
. Details from Turkish government indictment, February 2004.

12
. ‘Background of the Most Wanted Terrorists’,
Arab News
, 11 December 2003. The list included four graduates from Islamic universities, two imams, two former servicemen and a former prisons department clerk.

13
. Author interviews in Jakarta, October 2002. Rory Callinan, ‘Lessons of Terror at School in the Jungle’,
Courier Mail
, 13 December 2002; ‘How the Jemaa Islamiyya Terrorist Network Operates’, International Crisis Group, 11 December 2002; Simon Elegant, ‘Unmasking Terror’,
Time Asia
, 18 November 2002; ‘The Family behind the Bombings’,
Time Asia
, 25 November 2002; author’s telephone interview with Indonesian intelligence and police officials, January 2002; ‘Bali Bomber Denies Resort was Target’, AFP, 16 July 2003. ‘Court Convicts Bali Bomber’, BBC, 10 September 2003; ‘Bali: The Main Suspects’, BBC, 9 October 2003. The Kenya attack involved a suicide car bomb detonated outside a tourist hotel in Mombasa patronized almost exclusively by Israelis. Most of the thirteen killed were local Kenyan workers. Simultaneously, two surface-to-air missiles were fired at a charter passenger jet full of Israeli tourists taking off from Mombasa airport. Despite the trial of four men in Nairobi few reliable details of the plot have emerged, and so it is difficult to gauge who was behind it. Bin Laden has been criticized for not acting against Israeli targets and for ignoring the Palestinian conflict, and the attack may have been orchestrated by the remaining elements of the ‘al-Qaeda hardcore’ with the aim of appropriating the Palestinian struggle for the mainstream of Sunni Salafi jihadi militancy. A cell phone linked to a relatively well-known African-based ‘al-Qaeda hardcore’ member, seized from his wife, led to many of those arrested and charged. Unfortunately, it is unclear whether those it led to were those responsible for the attack. In addition, however, the missile launcher used came from the same batch as one used in a failed attack, linked to al-Qaeda, on a US warplane in Saudi Arabia in 2002, and some of the components used in the Mombasa bombs were the same as in those that destroyed the US embassy in Nairobi four years earlier. In March 2007, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed claimed he ran the attacks.