The bad guy

How the Saudi millionaire Osama bin Laden became the most dangerous and wanted terrorist in the world

Steven Engelberg, New York Times

Originally published on 19.9.2001/XNUMX/XNUMX

Photo: AP
Osama bin Laden. His followers were amazed
from his willingness to give up money motives
and sleep next to them on the floor
In 1987, a few years after he started coaching
Arab volunteers to help expel the troops
The Soviets from Afghanistan, Osama had a son
Laden Chazon. The time has come, he told his friends,
start a global jihad. Bin Laden,
The Saudi millionaire, used the camps he established
in Afghanistan to unite holy warriors from other countries
Different, fighters who until then focused on targets
local, and turn them into an international network
to fight with the goal of subjugating all Muslims
to a militant version of Muslim law.

Some of his comrades in arms warned him that the target
This is impossible. "I spoke with Osama
one day and I asked him what he was doing,"
Abdullah Anas, an Algerian who fought, is remembered
at the time in Afghanistan and provided a personal description
Rare about the formation of Bin Laden's organization.

"Imagine, after five years a guy from Malaysia
returns to his country. How can he remember you?
His leader? He will marry, have children
Never, will he find a job. How can it be established?
One camp for jihad in the whole world?"

But he and other skeptics saw how bin Laden, who is today the most wanted terrorist
most in the United States, approached exactly this craft. The story of Anas, and of
Other witnesses, in addition to intelligence reports from the United States, from the Middle East
and Europe, drawing a vivid, detailed and updated portrait of the birth of a movement
Modern Jihad.

What began as a war against the Soviet Union took on a new dimension, Anas says, when Ben
Laden retired and formed a new brother-in-law of militant Muslims, whose ambitions went far beyond
beyond the borders of Afghanistan.

His strategy is well described by one of his many code names: "The Contractor".
The group he founded 31 years ago, al-Qaeda, "the base" in Arabic, became the leader
The torch in the eyes of Malaysian Muslims, Algerians, Filipinos, Egyptians, Palestinians
And even Americans, who see the United States as an enemy, an imperialist power
which nurtures corrupt regimes that have no God in their hearts. Bin Laden tried to bridge over
The disparities in the movement, which has suffered for a long time from ideological, ethnic differences of opinion
and geographic.

According to an analysis by the American intelligence agency, the CIA, al-Qaeda operates
about a dozen camps in Afghanistan where about 5,000 terrorists trained, who in turn created
Terrorist cells in 50 countries. Intelligence officials say the group is experimenting with weapons
chemical, including nerve gas, in one of its camps.

Bin Laden and his supporters use sophisticated modern methods such as e-mail transmitters

Encrypted, stored bomb building recipes
On CD-ROM, cell phones
and satellite communication. The group is planning
Attacks months and years in advance, they say
researchers. A former sergeant in the United States Army,
Ali Muhammad, who worked for Bin Laden and is used
Now witness Medina, told the prosecutors that al-Qaeda
"Mole" trainers, sleeper agents
Sometimes called "submarines", to live life
are used to waiting for the activation order.

US officials blamed bin Laden
in planning the attacks on two embassies of
The United States in Africa, which caused the death of
200 people, and suspect his involvement in the attack
On the destroyer "Kol" in October in Yemen, she returned
17 sailors were killed. Four people were nominated
This month (January) for trial in Manhattan in connection

for terrorist attacks in Africa.

Officials in the United States and the Middle East say bin Laden has promised to continue
The existence of his organization in the event that he is captured or dies, and appoints himself a successor: his assistant
The veteran, Abdel-Aziz Abu Sita, an Egyptian known by the names Muhammad Ataf or
Abu-Hufs al-Masri.

Last week, they say on the Arab satellite channel Al-Jazeera, Ben's son got married
Laden with al-Masri's daughter in Kandahar, Afghanistan.

The goal
The war in Afghanistan is attracting young Arab fighters

Al-Qaeda grew out of the jihad that was declared under the influence of Islamic scholars to fight
During the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, one of the first to respond to the call
There was a young Algerian, Boujama Bou-Noir, whose underground name was Abdullah Anas.
In interviews conducted with him not long ago in London, where he lives today, Anas told how
Bin Laden went to Afghanistan to fight the Soviets and was drawn into the Egyptian group they wanted
start a global holy war.

Anas, who today heads an Algerian Islamic party, is not an indifferent observer. he
Says that he opposed bin Laden, whose terror program, according to him, tarnished the
The reputation of thousands of Arabs who fought honorably for Afghanistan. But his report,
From personal experience, provides another rare account of bin Laden's development as a leader
militant

Both men were greatly influenced by the same forces. Anas says his path is from a teacher
To the Koran for a holy warrior began in 1984 when he was 25 years old and living with his family in the West
Algeria. While visiting the local library, he read in the newspaper about a religious ruling that states
It is the duty of every Muslim to go to war against the Soviets. "After a few days, everyone
They heard about this fatwa and started talking," he recalled. "Where is Afghanistan?
What kind of people are they? How can you get there? How much is a ticket?"

That same year, Anas went on Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca. In Mecca, he says, the people
Those who led the prayers spoke excitedly about the jihad in Afghanistan. He stood
In the huge marble plaza of the Grand Mosque in a crowd of 50 thousand, when a friend voted
About a radical Palestinian scholar who organized the Arab support in Afghanistan. His name
There was Abdullah Azzam, and his writings, who were to spur the renewal of the movement
Jihad in the twentieth century, but it began to be publicized.

Anas introduced himself and asked if it was true that the religious leaders stated that the war
In Afghanistan it is the duty of every Muslim. "Yes, he said, that's right. Well,
I said, I want to go to Afghanistan. What to do now?"

Azam gave him a business card with a phone number in Islamabad, Pakistan, where he was
University professor. A week later, Anas boarded a flight to Saudi Arabia
to Pakistan He had no idea where he was going and what he would do. He dialed the number
The only phone he knew in Pakistan, and reached Azzam, who offered him to spend the night at his house -
The living room was crowded with students and lecturers. There he saw Azam's young daughter for the first time,
whom he married five years later. There Azzam introduced him to a Saudi guest:
Osama bin Laden.

The two men exchanged polite words. Bin Laden's name was well known. he
He was, they said, the youngest son out of 42 sons in a family that ran one of the companies
The largest construction in the Arab world. Bin Laden does not look different from the rest
The Arab volunteers who started gathering in Pakistan, Anas recalled. The conversation turned to
How they could help the Afghans win their holy war, and teach them
More about Islam.

The Soviet forces had a considerable advantage in the war in Afghanistan. their helicopter gunships
They ruled the air, and their forces held the main roads. But the rebels had
Powerful friends. The United States and Saudi Arabia financed the flow of arms in the millions
dollars to Afghans through Pakistan's secret service.

Anas began teaching the Afghan fighters lessons in the Koran. They didn't know Arabic.
and learned the lines by heart. He also led prayers in the "guest house" that was established
in Pakistan for the Arab volunteers. At that time there were only a few dozen Arabs
in Afghanistan who worked with the rebels. None of them knew a word of any of the languages
We are talking about Afghanistan.

After a few months, Anas says, he walked into Afghanistan to join
for a combat unit. He was one of three Arabs who marched in a convoy of 600 fighters
Afghans He learned Persian and began to mediate between the various rebel camps that existed
conflicted among themselves. Anas became a senior aide to Ahmed Shah Massoud,
whose forces ruled northern Afghanistan and are now fighting against Taliban rule,
the bin Laden supporter. Like other Muslims who joined the rebels, Anas expected to die
in the holy war and to win the special status intended in the Koran for those who were killed in this way
- Forgiveness of all sins and living in a paradise of beautiful virgins. "It's not
The main idea is to be a martyr," he says, "but it's part of my plan."

In the mid-XNUMXs, American and Middle Eastern intelligence sources say,
Bin Laden moved to Peshawar, a Pakistani city located near the Afghan border. in the city
There were preparations for war against the Soviets: American, French and Pakistani intelligence agents
Conspire and compete among themselves who will be able to make a profit from the conflict in Afghanistan
to his government.

Bin Laden's fortune, estimated at hundreds of millions of dollars, bought him popularity
immediately "He was one of the guys who came to the holy war in Afghanistan," he says
Anas, "But unlike the others, he had a lot of money. He is not very sophisticated in terms of things
political or organizational. But he is an activist with a lot of imagination. He ate little
is very. He sleeps very little. Very generous. He can give you his clothes, you
his money".

Anas, who returned every year from the battlefields of Afghanistan to Pakistan, says that Bin Laden is sleeping
Initially in the guest house in Peshawar on a mattress placed on the floor. He remembered Shazam
He liked to say: "You see, this man has everything in his country and he lives with all the poor
The gods in this room."

Around this time, 1984, Azzam founded the organization that was to play a central role
in the global jihad in the following decade. It is called "Letter of al-Hadmat", a ministry
services, and its purpose was to recruit and train Muslim volunteers for the Afghan front.
Azzam raised money for the organization in various countries, including the United States, and gave speeches
Passionate about the Afghan cause. Bin Laden embraced the idea from the first moment
and became Azzam's partner, providing him with financial support and taking care of affairs
the military

Bin Laden was good at working with small groups, says Anas. "When you sit with
Osama, you don't want to leave the meeting," he says. "You feel like going on
Talk to him, because he is very calm, very fluent."

A central goal of the Ministry of Services, says Anas, was to prevent the growing number of
Volunteers from outside to take sides in the factional struggles among the rebels. "we
are in Afghanistan to help Jihad and all the Afghan people," Azzam told him.
But among the young Muslims the frustration grew and grew in the face of Azzam's insistence
that the ministry of services would only support the Afghan struggle, while many of them were awake
to the plight of their own countries.

Some of them turned to bin Laden.

"They told him, you must not stay with Abdullah Azzam. He does nothing about it
The regimes - Saudi, Egyptian, Algerian. He only talks about Afghanistan," he says
Anas. "These people always told Osama, you have to establish something, so be it
You have a clear idea what to do with these people after Afghanistan, in the wars
others".

Among those who devotedly courted bin Laden was a group of Egyptian radicals, called
"The Egyptian Islamic Jihad", and assisted in the assassination of President Sadat in 1981
The Egyptian group sided with the overthrow of governments through terrorism and violence, and one
One of the key figures among them, Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, found refuge in Afghanistan.
Anas says - and Western intelligence agencies agree with him - that Zawahiri had
Great influence on Bin Laden. According to Modi'in people, he currently belongs to the leadership
Al-Qaeda.

According to Anas and Western and Middle Eastern intelligence sources, in 1986 bin Laden began
chart a separate path for himself. He established his own training camp for Arabs from the Gulf
The Persians, about fifty men who lived in tents separately from the other Afghan fighters. Inside
A year later, the group split, and bin Laden and the Egyptian group founded al-Qaeda,
"The base", to use it to launch a global jihad.

A turning point began to occur in the war in Afghanistan. Stinger missiles provided by the Americans in the operation
Secretly forced the Soviet planes to fly high above the battlefield. Afghanistan
became Moscow's Vietnam. In February 1989 the Soviets withdrew. official
The CIA said the intelligence agency, aware of the changing nature of jihad,
It took several steps that he would not elaborate on to combat the threat. But Milt
In Jordan, who was the head of the CIA office in Islamabad and coordinated the moves
The anti-Soviet agency in Afghanistan, disagrees with him. "Soviet Union,
Armed to the hilt, it began to disintegrate," he says. "A war then broke out in the Gulf
Persian Afghanistan has dropped from the center of attention. When the war was over, we left there
quickly".

The Afghan insurgent war continued, first against the government supported by the
The Soviets, and then among themselves. On November 24, 1989, Azzam was killed
and two of his sons in an explosion in Peshawar when they went to the Friday prayer. The murder never happened
Not decoded.

Anas says he tried to take over the leadership of the Ministry of Services. According to
The CIA, the group split up. The extreme faction took over
and sided with Bin Laden. "They liked Osama's ideas and personality
of Abdullah Azzam," says Anas bitterly. "They don't like me."

The base
From many countries, under one flag

Encouraged by their victory over the Soviets, the Arabs who fought in Afghanistan returned home,
Eager to implement the principles of Jihad in their countries. The Koran sets limits
Rigidity regarding where and how a holy war should be conducted, but "they were."
Drunk from the Muslim victory in Afghanistan," says Gilles Capell, a French expert
to modern Islam. "They believed that it could be replicated anywhere, the whole world
Ripe for Jihad, and it is against the Islamic tradition." They called themselves the Arabs
The Afghans. Saudi King Fahd's decision to allow American troops to leave
for the Gulf War from bases in Saudi Arabia, the country where the two sites are located
The holiest to Islam, boiled Bin Laden. He began to focus his anger
in the United States and the Saudi government. After the war in the Gulf ended he was barren
to Afghanistan

His stay there was short. Within a few months he ran away, telling friends that the government
The Saudis hired the Pakistani secret service to assassinate him. no permission
for the existence of such a plot. Despite this, in 1991 bin Laden moved to Sudan, where
An extremist Muslim government came to power.

Over the next five years, bin Laden built a group that combined legal business with support
in a global holy war. He also began to fulfill his ultimate goal, to unite the
The extremist Islamic groups under one banner. According to officials in the east
Middle school, bin Laden and his emissaries met with radicals from Pakistan and Egypt to propose
For them to establish an international Islamic front, led by veterans of Afghanistan, which will fight
in Americans and Jews.

Al-Qaeda began training its own people. Ali Muhammad, the American state's witness, said
who organized Bin Laden's passage to Sudan and told his investigators that he guided my friends
The group in camps in Afghanistan and Sudan use weapons, explosives, kidnappings,
Combat in built-up terrain, counter-intelligence and other tactics. He said he showed some people
The trainees how to set up cells "that can be used in promotions".

Sending American forces to Somalia at the end of 1991 and in 1993 as part of the UN mission,
There was another blow to bin Laden. American sources say that a defector from a group
Al-Qaeda told them that the group saw the expeditionary force as a dangerous expansion of
American influence in the region and a step towards challenging the Islamic government of Sudan.

Al-Qaeda issued internal fatwas ordering its members to attack American soldiers
in Saudi Arabia, Yemen and the Horn of Africa. This is what the American prosecutors claim. according to them,
Bin Laden also sent his military commander, an Egyptian who was among the founders of al-Qaeda,
to find the weak points of the UN forces in Africa. Muhammad testified that bin Laden
sent him to Nairobi in late 1993 to inspect American, French,
British and Israeli locations are possible for the attack, including the American embassy. he
He took pictures, drew charts and wrote a report, which he submitted to his boss in Khartoum. "Son
Laden looked at the photograph of the American embassy and pointed to where he was going
A truck can approach in a suicide attack," said Muhammad.

US prosecutors say al-Qaeda had more grandiose plans:
A senior member of the group, an Iraqi who, according to Anas, got close to Bin Laden back in Afghanistan,
Tried to buy enriched uranium in Europe. This Iraqi, Mehdo Mahmoud Salim, created
Links between Bin Laden's group and other groups supported by Iran.
Salim met with a senior Iranian cleric in Khartoum, and shortly after, allegedly
The American prosecution, al-Qaeda members received training from Hezbollah in the preparation
Explosive cars. According to US officials, it was a landmark, because
that at first there was cooperation between the members of the Shia minority in Islam and
Extremists from the mainstream, the Sunni.

Bin Laden's business initiatives in Sudan - including a leather dyer, a trucking company
and a construction corporation - provided money and served as cover for the travels of Salim and others,
This is what American officials claim. His companies took over the Sudanese export of
rubber and sunflower and sesame products, and he invested 50 million dollars of his family's money
In establishing a new Islamic bank in Khartoum.

Network
In the whole world, like in Afghanistan

American researchers have encountered the first signs of the existence of a new global movement
In 1993, when they began to investigate the explosion at the World Trade Center in the "Twin Towers"
In New York. They found out that the four people who carried out the attack, in which six were killed
people and injured more than a thousand, there were connections with Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman,
who was accused of leading a global jihad movement that began planning the killing of
Americans as early as 1989. In the years that followed, American intelligence personnel began
To believe that the terrorists who carried out the attack on the World Trade Center were related
to al-Qaeda, although the evidence for this is not conclusive.

The jihad movement also took root in Europe. In August 1994, three French Muslims
Young men of North African origin, wearing hoods and armed with guns
automatic weapons, opened fire on tourists in the lobby of a hotel in Marrakesh, Morocco, killing them
Two Spaniards and wounded one. The French police investigating the attack found that
Its planners were two Moroccan veterans of the Afghanistan war. European explorers
who traced the Afghan network in France, Belgium and Germany found records of conversations
A phone call between local extremists and the Ministry of Services in Pakistan.

In March 1995, Belgian investigators came across another clue: a CD-ROM in the car of
Algerian who trained in Afghanistan in 1992. The CD included various versions of
A guide to terrorism that began circulating among Islamic extremists in the early nineties.
The comprehensive guide included various topics, from "psychological warfare in Islam" through
"The organizational structure of the Israeli intelligence" and "Recruitment according to the method
The manual also provided detailed diagrams for making bombs, incl
Instructions on when to shake the chemical substances and how to use a wristwatch as a mechanism
delay. In addition there were instructions on how to kill using poisons, gases and drugs.
In the introduction appeared a dedication to the new hero of the holy war: Osama Bin Laden.
Versions of the manual were widely circulated and were seized by the police all over
Europe.

Reuel Grecht, a former CIA operative, says he was told the agency obtained a copy
The guide's own only at the end of 1999. "For years they missed the terror guide
The most comprehensive ever written," he says. In his opinion, this reflects her reluctance
of the intelligence agency to examine in depth the results of its support for the anti-Soviet jihad
in Afghanistan. A CIA official said the agency had "access to versions" of
The guide is already in the late eighties. "It's not such a big discovery as Gracht
presents it," he says, adding that the parts of the guide related to terrorism are additions
quite late.

In the mid-XNUMXs, American officials began to focus on bin Laden and his entourage
in Sudan. They saw him as the embodiment of the new and dangerous development: a missing terrorist
Medina, who uses his personal wealth - some estimate it at 270 million dollars -
to finance extreme purposes.

American representatives pressured the Sudanese to remove bin Laden, and in 1996 they succeeded,
and forced him to go into exile. It was a diplomatic victory, but officials
Many Americans would come to regret it. Bin Laden found his way back
to Afghanistan, which was taken over by a new group of Muslim militants
Young people, the Taliban.

the order
A holy Muslim goal to kill all enemies

Two years after coming to Afghanistan, in February 1989, bin Laden publicly announced
his intentions. In the camp in Khust, in eastern Afghanistan, he and several leaders of groups
Extremists have announced that they have formed the International Islamic Front for War
A holocaust against Jews and Crusaders, an umbrella organization that included, among others, al-Qaeda
and groups from Egypt, Pakistan and Bangladesh. The front issued a fatwa with the following language:
"Killing Americans and their allies, civilians and soldiers alike, is his duty
The personality of every Muslim who is able to do this, in every country where this is possible."

On August 7, 1998, bin Laden carried out the threat. Bombs exploded at intervals
of a few hours in the embassies of the United States in Kenya and Tanzania. The context, as described
by federal prosecutors, was truly international. According to them, they carried out the operation
Terrorists from Tanzania, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, most of whom trained in Afghanistan.
The conspirators in Kenya spoke directly with bin Laden on a cell phone while planning.

The attacks cost al-Qaeda dearly. Less than two weeks after the explosions,
The United States bombed Bin Laden's camps in Afghanistan from the air.
In the following two years, the police and intelligence agencies around the world, many of them
Encouraged by the United States, more than a hundred militants were arrested in twenty countries.

Almost every month the authorities arrest or investigate people with ties to
Al-Qaeda. At the end of last year, in what researchers describe as one of the cases
Most alarmingly, the Kuwaiti police arrested a local man, a war veteran
Afghanistan, who said he was associated with bin Laden's organization and planned to carry out attacks
against American and Kuwaiti targets. US officials say he led the way
the police to a hiding place where more than 150 kg of explosives and more were found
From 1,400 explosives.

Bin Laden and his organization proved to be immune and resourceful opponents. most of his fortune
The personal is already wasted, or frozen in various bank accounts. And yet he succeeds
Raise money through networks of charities and businesses. His group is building
Renews networks in many countries as fast as they are revealed.

Failure, it turns out, can breed success. At the end of 1999, officials say
Americans, a group of Yemenis tried to sink an American destroyer, when it passed
in Yemen Their boat, loaded with explosives, sank a few meters from the shore. This year, active
Bin Laden's Saudi, who helped prepare the failed operation, worked with the same people on
Attacking the destroyer "Col" in Yemen.

Officials in the United States and the Middle East say al-Qaeda has now expanded its
Its activity also extends to Israel, which until recently treated Bin Laden as an American problem.
The same officials say that al-Qaeda funded and trained an anti-Israeli group,
Asbat al-Ansar, which operates from a refugee camp in Lebanon.

Olivier Roy, a French researcher who tracks Islamic activity, says the asset
Al-Qaeda's largest is the thousands of holy warriors in the entire world, who are not
We see their struggle in local and even national terms. It stores them
from usual political and military pressures. Bin Laden's actions, he says,
are not "a continuation of politics by other means. Bin Laden does not want to bear
and give".

holy warriors
Killing for the glory of God, in a distant land

If the international terrorism that has been haunting the Americans for the past decade has a home, this is it
is in Afghanistan. Almost all participants in terrorist acts against the United States
and its allies in the last decade learned the art of warfare and explosives in the camps
Afghans.

The CIA estimates that 50 to 70 extremists from 55 countries have trained here.
In recent years. According to the agency, the Taliban allow a wide spectrum of groups
Terrorism to operate in Afghan territory, from Pakistani extremists to Ben's organization
Laden, al-Qaeda. Officials in the Middle East say at least 5,000 people have crossed
in a dozen of Bin Laden's camps.

Intelligence officials from the United States and the Middle East believe that towards the attacks
In the American embassies in Africa, the activists practiced on models built to size
of one to one in Bin Laden's camp. According to those officials, in one of the camps
Train a new generation of fighters using chemical weapons and poisons of all kinds. per year
The last time, the trainees at the Abu-Hbab camp experimented with nerve gas on dogs,
Rabbits and other animals. They also made bombs out of chemical substances and poisons
commercially available, which have also been tested on animals.

Officials in the Middle East estimate that in the last six months, more than a hundred people
who were recruited by bin Laden and groups close to him were trained in the camp, named after him
The Egyptian extremist who commands it, Madhat Morsi, whom he nicknamed Abu Khabab. The camp is
Part of a larger complex of such training sites known as Daronta, on
There is an old stone dam about 13 km from Jalalabad, the capital of a province in eastern Afghanistan, at the end
A dirt road that stretches along the dam. According to the officials, a stockpile of war materials
A chemical is buried in hiding caves in the nearby mountains and underground tunnels.

A rare reference to training in the use of explosives in the Abu Khabab camp appears in the section
The secret of the indictment against Nabil Akhal, a Palestinian from the Gaza Strip who was arrested last year
passed by Israel. Israel accused Okel of collaborating with Hamas
and in a conspiracy to damage civilian and military targets inside Israel. in the indictment,
a copy of which was provided by Steven Emerson, an American expert on Islamic terrorism,
It is written that in March 1998 Ocal received advanced training in the use of chemical explosive charges
in the Abu Khabab camp.

According to the indictment, the commander of the camp warned Akhel "not to talk about the nature of
The trainings." Israeli officials say that Ocal's arrest was the first time
in which Israel exposed an al-Qaeda cell within its borders.

At the push of the United States and Russia, the UN recently imposed economic sanctions on
Afghanistan, to force the Taliban to expel bin Laden and his senior men
and to close all training camps for foreign forces in the country. The Taliban, "my students."
Islam," which rules almost all of Afghanistan, denies that they provide shelter
to terrorists or equip them. and Khil Ahmed Mutawaki, the foreign minister of
The Taliban says the pressure to deport bin Laden was "both insulting and senseless".
In November Mutawaki denied in an interview that bin Laden financed the Taliban, saying
that he became a "very poor man".

According to the Foreign Minister, it is not possible that bin Laden is planning terrorist operations because his actions
"Afghan forces are closely monitored."

Mutawaki recently invited a reporter from the "New York Times" to visit each site
in Afghanistan that Western officials identify as part of bin Laden's network. But representatives
of the Taliban finally prevented the reporter from visiting these sites. in Daronta
Her path was blocked a few kilometers from the complex of camps. After five days in Kabul,
In and around Jalalabad, the reporter and the Afghan-American interpreter who joined her
Politely driven to the border and asked to leave Afghanistan.

Ahmed Shah Massoud, the commander of an insurgent group in northern Afghanistan, said in an interview at the headquarters
His that he fought against a group of soldiers trained by Bin Laden - the 55th Brigade
where about 700 Arabs and other Muslim extremists. Masoud said that he captured several
One of the men of the brigade, whom he defined as highly professional fighters. According to him, his soldiers
Holding 1,200 Taliban prisoners, 122 of whom are non-Afghan Muslims:
Pakistanis, Yemenis, British, Chinese and others.

Many of the captives wish to return home and continue the jihad there. one of them
Did not meet Bin Laden, according to them, but he was their hero.

Stephen Engelberg's comprehensive investigative piece on Osama bin Laden was written with assistance
Craig Pace and Judith Miller (Afghanistan). It was first published in "New York
Times" in three parts at the beginning of the year. The summary appearing here was published in the supplement
Haaretz on January 26, 2001. It is published here again following the terrorist attack on
אמריקה

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