The CEO of Terror Inc.
Osama bin Laden's corporation is unique. Its only product is mayhem
On a windswept hilltop in the city of Kandahar, Afghanistan, a nervous Saudi son wed the daughter of a former Egyptian cop. Like a medieval prince, Mohammed bin Laden very likely took his bride not for love but out of expedience. The bride's father, Mohammed Atef, is a member of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, a band of extremists best known for its 1981 assassination of Anwar Sadat. The groom's father is now the world's most wanted man: Osama bin Laden, leader of the al Qaeda terror network.
The simple wedding this year was more than the union of two families. It heralded the fusion of two of the world's top terror organizations. The merger has transformed al Qaeda, fostering new discipline among a loose association of terrorist organizations from more than 60 countries. This potent new "holding company"--as Secretary of State Colin Powell put it--even goes by a new name. But the group is so shadowy that American intelligence sources cannot agree on what to call it: Some say al Qaeda Jihad (or Base of the Holy War) while others believe it is now al Qaeda Jadid (which means the New Base).
Whatever the name, the violent network bin Laden nourished is a slippery target for U.S. intelligence, which has been trying to understand how the group matured from a dangerous but erratic gang into a terror juggernaut. With its attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, al Qaeda proved it can orchestrate spectacularly destructive attacks, plan and finance several campaigns at once, and carry out missions with near-military precision.
But there is another side to the organization: Captured al Qaeda operatives describe a cash-strapped organization riven by internal strife, whose operations were often bungled by blunders or incompetence. Still, the world of Islamic terror has come far since the days of al Qaeda associate Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, the Pakistani engineer who bombed the World Trade Center in 1993. One of his men, after all, was arrested because he tried to claim his deposit on the rented van used in the attack.
"Infidels." Yousef's near miss signaled a new age of terror. The bombers did not belong to a formal group but shared a fundamentalist ideology that called for the creation of strict religious states. They demanded that the West leave Islamic homelands. And they were willing to strike anywhere on the globe. That first attack in New York killed six and injured over 1,000. Other plots were foiled: Yousef tried to assassinate Pope John Paul II and Bill Clinton and to blast 11 U.S. airliners out of the sky on a single day in 1995.
Yousef's campaign shook U.S. officials, who soon discovered a network of Islamic militants around the globe. "It was much worse than we ever imagined," recalls Bob Blitzer, who headed the FBI's first unit on Islamic terrorism in 1994. "And the more we investigated, the more bin Laden's name popped up."
Bin Laden harnessed the rage that Yousef tapped--and made it more lethal. The 17th son of a Saudi construction magnate, he ventured into Afghanistan in the early 1980s to fight the Soviets. He helped fund and train a kind of Islamic foreign legion, and he learned the ways of guerrilla war. Later, when Iraq invaded Kuwait, bin Laden offered his militias to the Saudi defense; the king invited U.S. forces instead. Enraged at the presence of "infidels" in Islam's holiest land, bin Laden turned his wrath on America. With his military experience, a personal fortune, and a roster of battle-hardened militant Islamists, bin Laden forged an extraordinary network of terrorists, allying himself with groups from Algeria to the Philippines. That network became al Qaeda.
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.
Indeed, al Qaeda's leaders have demonstrated utter mastery of the multipronged attack. Even as their millennium bombing plots in America and Jordan were foiled, operatives were scheming to bomb the USS Sullivan in Yemen in January of last year. That plot failed, too, when their boat--overloaded with explosives--sank. But they returned to the same harbor nine months later and bombed the USS Cole. All the while, an ocean away, al Qaeda's men were inside America, studying how to pilot a plane and planning the group's most ambitious act of terror yet.
Cells from hell
Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terror network, based in Afghanistan, is believed to operate clandestinely in more than 60 nations.
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[Map labels:]
Sept. 11, 2001, New York, Arlington, Va.: Attack on the World trade Center and the Pentagon (thousands killed and injured)
June 2001, India: Plot to blow up U.S. Embassy's visa section
Early 2000, Yemen: Attempt to bomb the USS Sullivan
Oct. 12, 2000, Yemen: Attack on USS Cole (17 killed; 39 injured)
December 1999, Los Angeles: Attempt to bomb Los Angeles International Airport
December 1999, Jordan: Attempt to bomb tourist and biblical sites.
Aug. 7, 1998, Kenya and Tanzania: U.S. embassies bombed (301 killed; 5,000 injured)
Early 1995, Philippines: Attempt to assassinate President Clinton
1995, Philippines: Plot to blow up 11 U.S. commercial planes over the Pacific Ocean.
Late 1994, Philippines: Plot to assassinate Pope John Paul II: plot to bomb U.S. and Israeli embassies
Oct. 3, 1993, Somalia: Attack on U.S. servicemen (18 killed)
Dec. 1992, Yemen: Three bombings targeting U.S. troops
Countries with al Qaeda cells:
Canada, United States
South America: Ecuador, Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina, Uruguay
Europe: Albania, Belgium, Bosnia, Croatia, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Kosovo, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Russia (Chechnya), Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom
Former USSR: Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan
Middle East: Bahrain, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Palestinian Authority Areas, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Yemen
Africa: Comoros, Congo, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Tunisia, Uganda
Asia: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Burma, China, India (Kashmir), Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan
Terrorist groups affiliated with al Qaeda:
Afghanistan, Algeria, Egypt, Pakistan, Philippines; Saudi Arabia
Attacks linked to al Qaeda:
Sept. 11, 2001, New York, Arlington, Va.
Early 2000, Yemen, USS Cole
Aug. 7, 1998, Kenya and Tanzania, U.S. embassies
Oct. 3, 1993, Somalia attack on U.S. servicemen
Dec. 1992, Yemen, bombings
Attempted attacks linked to al Qaeda:
June 2001, India
Early 2000, Yemen
Dec. 1999, Los Angeles
Dec. 1999, Jordan
Late 1994, Philippines
Sources: Jane's Intelligence Review; Congressional Research Service; U.S. State Department
Rod Little--USN&WR
With Edward T. Pound, Nora Keating and Lisa Griffin
This story appears in the October 1, 2001 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.