The CEO of Terror Inc.
Osama bin Laden's corporation is unique. Its only product is mayhem
The Saudi millionaire dubbed himself the Contractor--and became the boss of a kind of Terror Inc. He built camps inside Afghanistan where thousands have learned the craft of war, from surveillance to explosives, as well as bin Laden's own interpretation of Islamic law. From the beginning, his aims have been apocalyptic. A captured 200-page training manual calls for the "overthrow of the godless regimes" by "blasting and destroying the embassies and attacking vital economic centers."
Two faces. Now a more nuanced portrait of the machine bin Laden built is emerging. "Al Qaeda always had two faces to it," says Vincent Cannistraro, a former CIA counterterrorism chief. One component is loosely run, with limited help from those closest to bin Laden. This outer core, according to Cannistraro, offers financing and encouragement for Muslim militants to attack secular governments around the world. Planning is left to the individual cells: Algerian Ahmed Ressam, convicted of trying to bomb Los Angeles International Airport during millennium celebrations, testified that bin Laden gave him $12,000 to mount his attack. Ressam was left to choose the target, recruit accomplices, and raise extra money--which he was told to do by robbing banks. His plot was foiled.
Bin Laden's inner core is a more formidable group. It comprises his top lieutenants in Afghanistan, who plan the most ambitious operations. Among key allies are senior members of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, including its leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri. "When you get Islamic Jihad involved," says Cannistraro, "you get a much more cohesive group."
The inner core's hand can be seen in the events surrounding the nearly simultaneous bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998. Six months before the attacks, bin Laden issued a fatwa, or religious edict, declaring a holy war. On the ground, terrorist cells operating in Tanzania and Kenya surveilled the targets and built the weapons. Other groups carried out the attacks, which left 301 dead. Orders were transmitted by satellite phone, and operatives used code words like "tools" for weapons and "potatoes" for grenades. They were instructed to hold legitimate jobs, shave their beards, and dress in Western garb--a violation of al Qaeda's practices. There were missteps, though: The bombers failed to fully penetrate the embassy complexes, which saved lives.
Still, the attacks' success--coupled with America's retaliatory cruise-missile strike--rallied new supporters to al Qaeda. And as ties between al Qaeda and Islamic Jihad have deepened, operations have become more refined. Bin Laden and his lieutenants quit using satellite phones after learning that the United States was eavesdropping. Now, phone calls and E-mail messages are often encrypted. Calls are also hard to trace. One government official explains: "A guy buys 10 or 15 cellphones' services, and the minute he thinks we might be on to him, he throws it away." Forsaking legitimate banks, al Qaeda moves its money through a network of underground exchangers (box, Page 20).
Al Qaeda's successes raise a key question: whether this new, cohesive group gets help from rogue states, such as Iraq. Saddam Hussein could theoretically provide al Qaeda with financial help, forged documents, or secure diplomatic communications. Some top officials in the Bush administration suspect an Iraqi role, and there are reports that one hijacker met with an Iraqi intelligence agent. But so far U.S. intelligence sees no hard evidence of Iraq's hand, and many experts believe that al Qaeda is fully capable of wreaking havoc on its own.
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