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Osama bin Laden

Osama bin Laden, one-time ally of the CIA in the war against the Soviet army in Afghanistan, is now the primary suspect in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the most deadly terrorist assaults in U.S. history. The Saudi-born millionaire has been sheltered by Afghanistan’s radical Taliban regime since 1996.
Most recently, he has been seen near Jalalabad, a city in eastern Afghanistan. He moves three or more times weekly, living in mud huts, tent cities, caves, etc. Bin Laden is accompanied by a security entourage, including heavily armed bodyguards and anti-aircraft guns mounted on trucks. Often, multiple sites are set up for his use and he will choose a site at the last minute. He is believed to have a network of some 400 operatives in Afghanistan, most having arrived with him from Sudan in 1996.
In recent months, U.S. intelligence has gotten a better grasp on how he operates and where. “We are getting better at finding him. There are days and days where we don’t know where he is,” said one U.S. official. On other days, the United States has “different degrees of specificity as to where he is. Does he move every night? Not every night ... but he moves a lot.” Vice President Dick Cheney said on Sept. 16 that the United States did not know where bin Laden currently was.
How does bin Laden disguise his movements?
Bin Laden regularly varies the details of his movements. He will vary not only the number of vehicles in his convoys, for example, but also the type of vehicle as well. On some travels, he will give his entourage hours’ notice of his departure. At other times, he will leave at a moment’s notice. He will also have several locations prepared, with only a few of his aides knowing which he will ultimately choose. While he does not change locations every night, he changes about twice a week.
How does he communicate?
His biggest problem remains communications, which the United States has successfully compromised. Another official said, “He’s stopped using satellite phones, although we’ve caught many of his couriers, it only takes 50 bucks to buy someone in Afghanistan.” Bin Laden previously used Inmarsat phones until he discovered that the United States was intercepting his communications off the Inmarsat-3 satellite over the Indian Ocean. For years, the National Security Agency would distribute verbatim transcripts of calls bin Laden made to subordinates. One of the biggest breaks in the embassy bombing investigation was interception of a congratulatory phone call in the days after the bombings.
Other officials note the clever combination of 19th and 20th century means of communications bin Laden has adapted. Bin Laden’s couriers often carry encrypted floppy disks and meet in third countries. Once in the hands of the target nation’s cell, the disk is de-encrypted. He has also used faxes from remote locations and in some cases, Internet-based e-mail. In addition to encryption, al-Qaida has used various code words and aliases to disguise identities. Bin Laden has been described in al-Qaida communications as “the Sheikh,” “Hajj,” “Abu Abdullah” and “the Director.” Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, mastermind of the embassy bombings, used at least three aliases. Ramzi Yousef, mastermind of the World Trade Center, used 15, as well as 11 passports. One law enforcement source said al-Qaida has been trying to recruit Americans as couriers, knowing an American passport is easier to use worldwide.
Can he travel outside Afghanistan?
Bin Laden is believed to have access to “several planes,” the ownership of which is “a bit cloudy ... but there are certainly enough aircraft to move a rather tall terrorist,” one senior U.S. intelligence official said. Bin Laden traveled around the Muslim world in charter jets for years prior to his exile in Afghanistan. He also owns a private jet, said an intelligence official.
How is bin Laden’s terror network, al-Qaida, structured?
Bin Laden is the undisputed leader, called “emir” or “prince” by his followers, who must take a sworn oath to him, violation of which is punishable by death. Beneath him is the “shura al-majlis” or “consultative council,” which includes his top lieutenants. His two aides are Egyptians: Ayman al-Zawahiri, a physician and leader of al-Jihad, the violent Egyptian group responsible for the Luxor tourist massacre in 1995. Muhammed Atef, his military commander, also served in al-Jihad.
A “fatwah” committee of the council makes the decisions to carry out terrorist attacks.
Where does al-Qaida operate?
Al-Qaida is believed to have operations in 60 countries, active cells in 20, including the United States. It is also believed to operate training centers in both Afghanistan and Sudan, the first beginning operations in 1994 with representatives from Egyptian, Algerian, Tunisian and Palestinian extremist groups. Among the countries or regions identified as having active cells of al-Qaida are Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kosovo, Chechnya, Philippines, Egypt, Tunisia.
How does al-Qaida network operate?
Its operations are meticulous, with some plans in the works for months if not years. They are also clever, and bin Laden himself is very much hands-on.
Some examples:
The 1993 World Trade Center bombers cased the twin towers multiple times, looking not just at security but the points under the trade center where an explosion could do the most damage.
The East Africa embassy bombers phoned in credible threats to the embassy and then observed the embassy response.
The 1995 assassination attempt of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, was based on surveillance of Mubarak’s security arrangements in Ethiopia two years earlier. Similarly, bin Laden operatives videotaped security arrangements at President Clinton’s 1994 visit to Manila, knowing he had already committed to visiting the Philippine capital for an Asian-Pacific summit two years later. The tapes were sent to bin Laden, then living in Sudan.
“He may have begun as a venture capitalist for terrorism,” said one high-ranking intelligence officer of his evolution as a terrorist. “But there is no doubt now that he is operating like a CEO.”
How long is an operation in the planning stages?
The minimum appears to be four to six months, with some plans evolving over years. The surveillance of the East Africa embassy bombings began in 1993, five years before the bombing was carried out.
How are operational responsibilities divided?
Each operation has a planning cell and an execution cell, with the execution cell arriving on the scene in some cases only weeks before the attack is carried out.
In most cases, like the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the embassy bombings, an outsider recruits local country nationals to operate as a cell. Cells rarely number more than 10 people. In rare cases are the bombers — either the planners or the operators — older than 30. At the time of the two bombings, the masterminds were both 25.
Plans are made in one location, then the bomb is made in another. In the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the planning took place in a Jersey City, N.J., apartment, the materials were stored in a self-storage facility and the bomb was put together in a garage. Similarly in Nairobi, the planning was done at a run-down hotel in downtown, while the bomb was put together in a suburban villa.
How much do these operations cost? Bin Laden has enormous resources. Is he using up most of his money?
“Terrorism is not an expensive sport,” said one senior Treasury Department official who tracks terrorists’ money. The total cost of the 1993 World Trade Center attack amounted to around $18,000, including purchase of equipment, rental of the van used in the bombing, purchase of a car, rental of two apartments, a garage and the self-storage space as well as plane tickets. Not included in the cost: $6,000 in unpaid phone bills.
Although at the time of the embassy bombings, the CIA and others pegged bin Laden’s wealth at $300 million, subsequent intelligence gathering has resulted in a significant reduction of the estimate, although the number is still in the tens of millions.
Does he focus on one target at a time or simultaneously plan various attacks?
Said one official of his recent planning, “He is planning several hits, and at some point he’s going to break through.” U.S. officials note that the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania were to be accompanied by other, near-simultaneous bombings in other world capitals. One in Tirana, Albania, was foiled days before it took place, so a series of coordinated attacks is well within his operational capabilities.
How important is operational security to al-Qaida?
Very, say officials. They have seen repeated instances where if operatives encounter something unexpected, they will “go back to square one” out of fear that operational security has been breached. There is little autonomy, little spontaneity in operational matters and changes in plans must be approved at higher levels. The cell leader on the scene can call off an operation without consulting anyone higher, said a senior intelligence official.
Said one counter-terror official: “They have one idea ... alter it for them, then they go back to the drawing board. They are not agile. They have to reload, and that takes months ... about four to six months.”
“They are very willing to trade time for operational security.”
Has the United States had any success against his operations?
Without providing details, CIA Director George Tenet has publicly testified that the CIA has disrupted “several” terrorist attacks against Americans. U.S. officials confirm those disruptions have involved planned attacks by bin Laden.
More than 100 of his operatives have been arrested worldwide since the embassy bombings in August 1998 on every continent but Australia and Antarctica. Five men accused of conspiring in the embassy bombings are in U.S. custody, awaiting trial in New York. Another is awaiting extradition in London. Among operations believed to have been thwarted: a planned attack on U.S. facilities in London early this year and an attack on FBI headquarters in Washington this past summer.
“We keep stopping him; he keeps coming back,” said one Pentagon official. “You cannot overestimate the danger this man poses to the United States,” said a senior White House official.
“He has regenerated some cells and started new ones,” said a Pentagon official involved in tracking bin Laden. “We will be dealing with him for a long time because his organizational capability continues to improve. Does it suck being UBL [the common shorthand in U.S. intelligence community for bin Laden]? Yes. He is on the road all the time. It is hard to conduct business. He can’t touch a phone. He is constantly on the run. But he is still out there.”
Are his operations limited to bombings or does he have aspirations in the nuclear, biological and chemical areas?
Officials from intelligence, military, emergency management and national security agencies say bin Laden is branching out: planning assassinations using “contact poisons,” obtaining “rudimentary” chemical and biological materials, trying to acquire radioactive material.
The newest information, which one official called “fascinating,” is that bin Laden may be returning to an old strategy: assassination. One Pentagon official involved in tracking bin Laden says the man officials call “the terrorist prince” has been obtaining “contact poisons ... KGB-like pellets” that would be used in assassinations and in some cases are difficult or impossible to detect in an autopsy. The official noted that in the early 1990s bin Laden and his al-Qaida network were involved in assassination attempts on Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and Jordanian Crown Prince — now King — Abdullah as well as planning to kill Pope John Paul and President Clinton.
He added that public U.S. intelligence reports on bin Laden’s training camps have noted the network has instructed terrorists in assassination and kidnapping.
The contact poisons are among “rudimentary chemical and biological stuff” bin Laden has obtained recently. However, one official said the network’s efforts to obtain such materials is “scattershot and unfocused ... all over the board” without a pattern to indicate what he might be planning.
“He is looking for all sorts of stuff,” adding that twice bin Laden operatives tried to obtain nuclear materials. Bin Laden’s German operation was the victim of a sting operation in 1993 when it tried to buy highly enriched uranium on the Soviet black market. A year later, another similar attempt failed. The bin Laden operatives in charge of those attempts, Mamdouh Salim and Ramzi Yousef, are in U.S. custody. Moreover, Russian intelligence has told the United States that it believes bin Laden has been working with Chechen rebels to obtain radioactive material for a “radiological dispersal device” or “dirty bomb” that would spray the potentially deadly material over a small area. An official involved in planning emergency response to a terrorist attack says the United States has taken the intelligence seriously.
However, officials cautioned that there is “no sense of a technical sophistication” in bin Laden’s camp and that “this stuff is much more difficult to use than people think.
“After all, Saddam Hussein spent $8 billion on nuclear weapons and came away with (nothing). He doesn’t know how to do this. He is spending every night in a different mud hut, so we’re not too worried that he is reprocessing plutonium.”
On the other hand, the official added, “if he is stumbling onto something, there is no doubt he will use it.”
Why haven’t we tried to grab him?
“We are serious about going after him,” said one senior administration official. “He is serious about going after us. If we can nail his ass, we will. But it is going to be action and reaction for a long time.”
Doing a “snatch-and-grab” operation from “time to time looks appealing,” said a Pentagon official. Has the United States planned such a mission? Yes, said the official. Has the United States put Delta Force personnel on planes in preparation for such a mission? “Not recently.” The big problem remains the need for real-time information on his whereabouts.
How is his health? A few months ago, there were reports he was terminally ill. What became of those reports?
A senior counter-terrorism official said the latest CIA analysis is that he is “a hypochondriac ... but then he has chosen a stressful lifestyle and that can manifest itself in strange ways ...”
Nevertheless, he is known to have an enlarged heart, chronically low blood pressure and is missing toes on one foot from a battle wound suffered in Afghanistan. He is regularly attended by a physician.
Is there any indication he works with governments in the Middle East?
Aside from Afghanistan, where bin Laden has long-standing ties — including some possible family ties — with the ruling Taliban, there are indications bin Laden has some contacts with both the governments of Iran and Pakistan.
The connections with Iran are described in recent Justice Department papers filed in the embassy bombing case. The United States alleges that on two different occasions in the early 1990s, a senior religious leader from Iran met with bin Laden’s representatives in Khartoum to discuss putting aside religious differences — bin Laden is a Wahabi Muslim, Iran is Shiite — and cooperating against Western interests. However, there is no information to suggest any joint operations were ever planned or carried out.
The link with Pakistan is more current. One issue that distresses U.S. officials is intelligence that bin Laden, Kashmiri Muslim rebels in India and Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence [ISI], its quasi-autonomous military intelligence agency, are involved in “monkey business” together. The United States used the ISI in the 1980s to fund, train and arm the Afghan mujahedin, including bin Laden, in its fight against the Soviet Red Army.
Calling it a “stew,” a “crazy soup” and a “cozy relationship,” two officials noted that the key to the relationship is Pakistan’s use of rebel insurgents in Kashmir, the troubled region that has been the subject of three wars between Pakistan and India. Muslim fighters, financed by the ISI but trained by bin Laden, have been operating in the Indian part of Kashmir.
“The Pakistanis have interest in working with people who can help them in Kashmir. Bin Laden has an interest in helping Muslim fighters. It is a cozy relationship.”
In fact, said the officials, the United States now believes that most of those killed in last August’s attack on bin Laden camps in Afghanistan were Kashmiri insurgents training to kill Indians. And that linkage, they note, is critical to understanding both bin Laden’s network and the future of religious terrorism. Bin Laden, they note, has had connections over the years with other terrorist groups in Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Egypt, Chechnya, Bosnia, Albania, Algeria, Uruguay and Ecuador.
Why did bin Laden declare a “fatwah,” or religious decree, against the United States?
U.S. intelligence officials believe bin Laden began to turn against the United States in the mid-1980s — a time when he still took aid and training from the CIA, which was then helping bin Laden and other Islamic groups fight the Soviet Army in Afghanistan. The CIA funneled its aid through the Pakistani secret service, the ISI, to various cells in Afghanistan, one of them known as the MAK. In 1984, bin Laden broke with the MAK and formed a separate, more radical splinter group that espoused a harsh, fundamentalist version of Islam that was dedicated to the liberation of Islamic nations from any foreign influences, from Israel to the United States to the Soviet Union. Particularly infuriating to him is America’s coziness with the Saudi Royal family since the Gulf War. But bin Laden’s first public “fatwah” came only after the Gulf War. Specifically, he railed against the presence of American and European troops on the soil of the Arabian peninsula, site of Islam’s holiest cities, Mecca and Medina. Since then, U.S. intelligence officials say, bin Laden has been behind an unprecedented campaign of attacks on U.S., European, Israeli, Russian and other interests around the planet. In 1998, he broadened his “fatwah” to specifically include civilian targets:
The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies — civilians and military — is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Asqa Mosque [in Jerusalem] and the holy mosque [in Mecca] from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim. This is in accordance with the words of Almighty God, “and with the pagans all together as they fight you all together” and “fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in God.”
It adds, “We with God’s help call on every Muslim who believes in God and wishes to be rewarded to comply with God’s order to kill the Americans and plunder their money wherever and whenever they find it. We also call on Muslim ulema, leaders, youths and soldiers to launch the raid on Satan’s U.S. troops and the devil’s supporters allying with them, and to displace those who are behind them so that they may learn a lesson.”
What are the vital facts about Osama bin Laden?
Born: July 30, 1957, the 17th of 20 sons of a now deceased Saudi construction magnate of Yemeni origin.
Background: Bin Laden gained prominence during the Afghan war against the Soviet Union. In 1989, when the war ended, he returned to Saudi Arabia to work in the family business, the Bin Laden Construction Group, but his radical Islamic contacts caused friction with Saudi authorities. As a result of his opposition to the ruling Al Saud family, Saudi Arabia revoked his citizenship in 1994 and his family disavowed him, though some of his brothers have reportedly maintained contact. In 1996, under strong U.S. and Egyptian pressure, Sudan expelled him and he returned to Afghanistan, where he has lived under the protection of the Taliban. On June 7, 1999, bin Laden was place on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List and a $5 million reward was offered for his capture.
Education: Bin Laden received a degree in public administration in 1981 from King Abdul-Aziz University in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. He has visited countries of the Arabian Peninsula, Syria, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Sudan.
Assets: Approximately $300 million in personal finances with which he funds a network of as many of 3,000 Islamic militants.
Leadership structure: Bin Laden is the undisputed leader, called “emir” or “prince” by his followers, who must take a sworn oath to him. Violating the oath is punishable by death. Beneath him is the “shura al-majlis,” or “consultative council,” which includes his top lieutenants. His two aides are Egyptians: Ayman al-Zawahiri, a physician and leader of al-Jihad, the violent Egyptian group responsible for the tourist massacre in Luxor, Egypt, in 1995, and Muhammed Atef, his military commander, who also served in al-Jihad.
International reach: Al-Qaida cells have been identified in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Yemen, Jordan, Egypt, Libya, Lebanon, Algeria, Tunisia, Mauritania, Sudan, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Chechnya, Somalia, Eritrea, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Uruguay, Ecuador, Bosnia, Kosovo, Albania, the United Kingdom, Canada and allegedly inside the United States.
Fatwa: Issued by bin Laden on Feb. 23, 1998, against all U.S. civilians and military.
“The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies — civilians and military — is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Asqua Mosque (in Jerusalem) and the holy mosque (in Mecca, Saudi Arabia,) from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim.”
Sources: Congressional Research Service, “Frontline”