Al-Qaeda (59 page)

13
. Multiple interviews with Harkat cadres, Lahore, Rawalpindi, Islamabad, Muzaffarabad, 1998–2001.

14
. Notebooks found by author at Darunta, Farm Hadda, Khost, November 2001; multiple interviews with former mujahideen, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Algeria, 1998–2002.

15
. Multiple interviews with Harkat cadres, Lahore, Rawalpindi, Islamabad, Muzaffarabad, Skardu, 1998–2001.

16
. USA
v.
Usama bin Laden, New York Southern District Court, direct examination of Agent Perkins, 19 March 2001.

17
. Amanullah Khan, the then leader of the JKLF, has confirmed these details to both Alexander Evans and Owen Bennett Jones; author interviews with both. The fact that senior JKLF leadership cadres were living in the UK is worth noting. The British tradition of welcoming dissidents of all types occasionally (critics would say often) shades into providing a haven for known terrorists. Such havens are essential to any radical group.

18
. Eyewitness accounts from former mujahideen, author interviews, Rawalpindi, Peshawar, June 2002.

19
. In 1992, Pakistan was put on the US State Department ‘watch list’ of countries sponsoring terrorism when the ISI obstructed plans to buy back the unused Stinger missiles from commanders loyal to Hekmatyar. Following the removal of ISI officers named by the US, Pakistan was removed from the list in July 1993.

20
. Alexander Evans, ‘Talibanising Kashmir?’,
World Today
, December 2001.

21
. Alexander Evans,
Monterey Institute Project
, draft chapter kindly made available to the author; interview with General Mirza Aslam Beg, Islamabad, July 2002. Interviews with former HUM and Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) cadres, Jammu, October 2003. The men were in prison in India. Several had fought in Afghanistan and were transferred to Kashmir by the ISI. Others were recruited in Pakistan and trained in Kunar province, Afghanistan, by LeT.

22
. Trevor Matthews, ‘Daniel Pearl’s Kidnapper Nearly Got Me Too’,
The Guardian
, 13 February 2002.

7: Terror

1
. Statements to 1998 Congressional Hearings on Intelligence and Security, Senate Judiciary Committee, 24 February 1998.

2
. Interviews with journalists and mujahideen eyewitnesses, Haji Zahir Qadir, Peshawar and Jalalabad, 2001–2, London, 2003. L’Hossaine Khertchou, the Moroccan-born former chef who was a government witness in the trials for the 1998 bombings, fought Dr Najibullah’s Communists. Many of his fellow fighters belonged to the extremist groups associated with the extreme strand of contemporary Islamic militancy dubbed ‘Takfiri wal Hijra’ (Excommunication and Exile) by investigators in Egypt. A group of Takfiris were later to contest bin Laden’s claim to pre-eminence among Islamic militants in Afghanistan on the basis that he was too moderate.

3
. Interview with former employee, Peshawar, October 2002.

4
. CIA memo, compiled 1996, released 1998, author collection; interview with former MAK official, Jalalabad, September 2002; US Embassy trial testimony of L’Hossaine Khertchou, 21 February 2001.

5
. US Embassy trial testimony of L’Hossaine Khertchou, 21 February 2001; details from Ali Mohammed plea agreement and transcript of appearance by Ali Mohammed before Judge Sand on 20 October 2000, Southern District Court, New York; see also Chapter Ten, note 13.

6
. Multiple interviews with former mujahideen, Hizb-e-Islami and Sayyaf activists, Pakistan and Afghanistan, 1998–2002; US Embassy trial testimony of L’Hossaine Khertchou, 21 February 2001.

7
. Interviews with former mujahideen commanders from both Hizb-e-Islami factions and Sayyaf’s group, Jalalabad, September 2002, Peshawar, June and September 2002.

8
. Testimony of FBI Agent John Anticev, US Embassy trial, New York, 22 February 2001.

9
. Interview with Rahamullah Bariali, Abdul Haq’s brother, Jalalabad, October 2002. Abdul Haq wrote in 1991.

10
. ‘Osama bin Laden: Islamic Extremist Financier’, CIA memo,
ca.
1996, p. 2.

11
. Reeve,
The New Jackals
, pp. 112–13.

12
. Ibid., pp. 118–20, 135; Ian Katz, ‘Bomb Mastermind Studied in Britain’,
The Guardian
, 11 February 1995.

13
. Multiple interviews with former students at the university, Peshawar, September 2002, London, 2002, 2003.

14
. Jamal al-Fadl has claimed that he saw Ramzi in ‘Sadda’ camp, also run by Sayyaf. USA
v.
Usama bin Laden, cross-examination of Jamal al-Fadl, 20 February 2001. Al-Fadl has told contradictory stories about seeing Ramzi. Interview with Libyan activist, London, February 2003.

15
. Interviews with former mujahideen, Peshawar, June 2002; Insight, ‘God’s Warrior’,
Sunday Times
, 13 February 2002.

16
. Government statement during Appeal of USA
v.
Mohammed Salameh and others, US 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, 18 and 19 December 1997.

17
. Statements to US Congressional Hearings on Intelligence and Security, 24 February 1998.

18
. Reeve,
The New Jackals
, pp. 48–9.

19
. Ibid., pp. 52–3.

20
. Khalid Ahmed, ‘Fundamental Flaws’, in Ali
et al
.,
On the Abyss: Pakistan After the Coup
, p. 94; Bennett Jones,
Pakistan
, p. 22.

21
. Amir Mir, ‘Faith that Kills’,
Newsline
, October 1998; ‘The Jihad Within’,
Newsline
, May 2002.

22
. Reeve,
The New Jackals
, pp. 64–5.

23
. Ibid., pp. 77–105; Doug Struck, Howard Schneider, Karl Vick and Peter Baker, ‘Borderless Network of Terror’,
Washington Post
, 23 September 2001.

24
. Bin Laden interview with CNN, 1997.

25
. Judith Miller, ‘Bin Laden Relative Linked to 1993 Trade Center Bombers, Affidavit Says’,
New York Times
, 2 May 2002.

26
. Mark Huband, ‘Bankrolling bin Laden’,
Financial Times
, 28 November 2001.

27
. Jane Mayer, ‘The House of bin Laden’,
New Yorker
, 12 November 2001. Mayer was told by a senior Saudi diplomat that ‘a brother in law… in Saudi Arabia [is] not even considered part of the family’.

28
. The FBI (
www.fbi.gov/mostwanted/
) give both dates.

29
. Terry McDermott, Josh Meyer and Patrick J. McDonnell, ‘The Plot and Designs of al-Qaeda’s Engineer’,
Los Angeles Times
, 22 December 2002.

30
. Interview with Benazir Bhutto, Naudero, Pakistan, April 1999.

31
. Reeve,
The New Jackals
, p. 49.

32
. Terry McDermott, Josh Meyer and Patrick J. McDonnell, ‘The Plot and Designs of al-Qaeda’s Engineer’,
Los Angeles Times
, 22 December 2002.

33
. Terry McDermott, ‘How Terrorists Hatched a Simple Plan to use Planes as Bombs’,
Los Angeles Times
, 1 September 2002.

34
. Christopher John Farley, ‘The Man Who Wasn’t There’,
Time
, 20 February 1995; Reeve,
The New Jackals
, p. 106.

35
. James Bruce, ‘Arab Veterans of the Afghan War’,
Jane’s Intelligence Review
, April 1995; testimony of FBI Agent Anticev, US Embassy trial, New York, 22 February 2001.

36
. Rahimullah Yusufzai,
News
, 8 December 1995.

8: Seekers

1
. Interview with Mullah Mohammed Hassan Akhund, governor of Kandahar, Kandahar, August 1998; multiple interviews with Taliban diplomats in Islamabad and Peshawar, 1998–2000; multiple interviews with Taliban ministers in Kabul, August 1998, September 1998, December 1999. Multiple interviews with villagers in Sangesar, November 2003. An unclassified memo from the US embassy in Pakistan, November 1994, says, ‘the strong support the Taliban receive from the Afghan people reflects popular frustration with the party leaders and a strong desire for peace and stability.’ Significantly even enemies of the Taliban support this explanation. Mohammed Din Mohammed, the Hizb-e-Islami deputy leader who was ousted by the Taliban from Jalalabad, told me in Peshawar in October 2001: ‘An anarchy emerged and people came together. Not just Pashtuns. I saw hundreds of Badakshis even going to the Taliban in hope they would solve their problems. As fighting prolonged and the Taliban could not defeat the Northern Alliance so people who joined them for peace were disappointed so they left. The Taliban’s popularity was because of fighting between Rabbani and Hekmatyar and other commanders who committed robbery.’

2
. Anthony Davies, in William Maley (ed.),
Fundamentalism Reborn?
; Peter Marsden, private communication to the author.

3
. Kepel,
Jihad
; Ruthven,
Islamin the World
; Roy,
The Failure of Political Islam
.

4
. Olivier Roy, in Maley,
Fundamentalism Reborn?
, p. 20.

5
. One result of the destruction of centuries-old irrigation systems was the shift from fruit and arable production to opium, a crop that needs a sixth of the water that wheat requires.

6
. Rashid,
Taliban
, p. 41.

7
. Interviews with senior Taliban officials and ulema who were at this meeting, Peshawar, Jalalabad and Kandahar, 1998–9. The Taliban were not entirely an innovation. Units composed of talibs, as students at Afghanistan’s and Pakistan’s network of medressas, had always existed. During the war against the Soviets they had fought, usually under the command of alim. They had maintained a discrete identity during operations and had shown a willingness to die not usually shared by other mujahideen.