Playing Offense
The inside story of how U.S. terrorist hunters are going after al Qaeda
ATTACKING AL QAEDA
Since 9/11, America and its allies have destroyed al Qaeda's training centers and rounded up some 3,000 of its
followers. The trail of evidence leads from one suspect to another.
2001
9/11/01
World Trade Center and Pentagon attacked.
10/7/01
Air war begins in Afghanistan.
10/01
Al Qaeda centers and training camps destroyed by U.S. airstrikes.
11/9/01
Cities of Mazar-e-Sharif and Kabul begin to fall. Thousands of al Qaeda and Taliban flee to mountains.
Leads to future arrests
11/15/01
CIA missile strike kills al Qaeda fighters in hotel outside Kabul. Among dead is military chief Mohammed Atef,
one of two top deputies to Osama bin Laden. Leads to intelligence windfall.
11/01--12/01
Hundreds of al Qaeda followers believed killed in Afghan fighting.
12/01
Battle of Tora Bora. Bin Laden narrowly escapes. Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, head of al Qaeda training camps, is
captured.
U.S. pulls intelligence from dozens of al Qaeda sites in Afghanistan. At Atef's Kabul hotel, the United States finds
videotapes of martyrdom figures and Singapore surveillance. Leads to arrests in Singapore.
2002
1/11/02
U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, opens with transfer of prisoners from Afghanistan.
2/6/02
CIA reports war on terrorism has led to arrests of nearly 1,000 al Qaeda operatives in over 60 countries.
3/02
Guantanamo Bay has 300 prisoners. Interrogations produce leads on cases in Morocco, New York, and elsewhere.
3/19/02
Bosnian authorities raid eight locations of Benevolence International Foundation. Find al Qaeda founding papers,
organizational chart, bin Laden letters, list of Saudi sponsors. Helps convict foundation head.
3/27/02-4/5/02
Series of half-dozen raids in Pakistan detains at least 75 al Qaeda suspects.
3/28/02
U.S.-Pakistani team nabs operations chief Abu Zubaydah. Also found are computers, disks, address books, notebooks,
and telephone numbers. Zubaydah interrogations help lead to arrest of Padilla and Farouq.
5/02
Morocco cell broken. Saudis in Morocco arrested for plotting attacks on U.S., U.K. ships in Strait of Gibraltar.
Arrests lead to seizure of Nashiri.
5/8/02
Alleged "dirty bomber" Jose Padilla nabbed in Chicago.
6/02
Omar al Farouq, Southeast Asia chief, arrested in Indonesia. Interrogations reveal scope of al Qaeda network
in the region.
8/02
Singapore arrests 21 people tied to al Qaeda-affiliated Jemaah Islamiya. Group is implicated in conspiracy to
conduct massive bombing plots in region.
9/11/02
Would-be hijacker and 9/11 money man Ramzi Binalshibh nabbed in Pakistan. Has three satellite phones, five laptop
computers, compact disk writer.
9/13/02
Five Yemeni-Americans arrested in Lackawanna, N.Y., as part of alleged al Qaeda cell.
10/02
Persian Gulf operations chief Abd al-Rahim al Nashiri secretly arrested by United Arab Emirates. Played key role
in the bombing of USS Cole. His arrest leads to Harethi.
11/3/02
Qaed al-Harethi, head of Yemen cell and five others are killed when CIA destroys their car with missile from
Predator drone.
12/11/02
CIA reports more than 3,000 al Qaeda operatives and associates detained in more than 100 countries since 9/11.
Says "almost half of our successes...has come in recent months."
2003
2/10/03
Enaam Arnaout, head of Benevolence International Foundation near Chicago, pleads guilty to fraud for funding
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