Al-Qaeda

V

Al-Qaeda’s Growth

In 1989 bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia. He opposed the presence of U.S. and Western military forces in Saudi Arabia during the 1991 Persian Gulf War and publicly criticized the Saudi monarchy for allowing the U.S. presence to continue after the war ended. In April 1991 bin Laden moved to Pakistan. In 1992 he relocated to Sudan where he was welcomed by the ruling National Islamic Front and its leader, Hassan al-Turabi, who had established strict Islamic rule.

From 1991 to 1996, bin Laden quietly built al-Qaeda into a formidable international terrorist network, with cells and operations in at least 45 countries. This process was facilitated not only by bin Laden’s personal wealth, which is estimated in the tens of millions of dollars, but also from the income derived from various sources. These sources include businesses that appear legitimate but actually funnel revenues to al-Qaeda, donations knowingly made to the group specifically for jihad, and money drawn illegally from donations made to legitimate Muslim charities.

Training camps were established in Sudan as early as 1989, and most of al-Qaeda’s operations were relocated there by 1992. Soon after, the first al-Qaeda attacks began. The group claims to have been responsible for a 1992 attack on American military personnel in Yemen and involved a year later in a battle fought in Mogadishu, Somalia, that killed 18 U.S. troops and became known as the Black Hawk Down incident. However, the first terrorist act conclusively linked to al-Qaeda was the bombing in 1995 of a joint Saudi-American military training center in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, which caused the deaths of 5 Americans.

Bowing to pressure from Saudi Arabia and the United States, in May 1996 Sudan expelled bin Laden and his fighters. Along with an entourage of 150 men, women, and children, he moved to Afghanistan and quickly forged a close, mutually beneficial relationship with that country’s Islamic fundamentalist rulers known as the Taliban. Bin Laden was especially close with the Taliban’s leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar. In exchange for sanctuary and the use of training camps and operations bases, bin Laden repaid his new hosts with money and fighters. In doing so the traditional state patron-terrorist client relationship was reversed. The war-weary Afghan state, with its economy in shatters, became dependent upon al-Qaeda due to bin Laden’s wealth. Hence, by the end of the 1990s, al-Qaeda had trained tens of thousands of Muslim warriors in both Sudan and Afghanistan.

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In August 1998 al-Qaeda carried out near simultaneous suicide bombings against the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania. More than 300 persons were killed and nearly 5,000 injured. The United States responded with a massive cruise missile attack on al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan and, more controversially, against a pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum, Sudan, that allegedly was producing nerve gas for bin Laden.

Thereafter bin Laden and his movement came under heightened scrutiny by U.S. intelligence agencies. A succession of anti-American terrorist acts by al-Qaeda operatives, in the United States and overseas, were thwarted. This included the arrest in December 1999 of a terrorist as he entered the United States from Canada on a mission to bomb Los Angeles International Airport. Shortly afterwards, related plots to bomb an outdoor holiday market in Strasbourg, France, and to kill American and Israeli tourists in Jordan on the eve of the millennium celebration were disrupted. But less than a year later, al-Qaeda succeeded with a suicide attack on a U.S. Navy vessel, the USS Cole, in Aden, Yemen, killing 17 sailors and wounding 39 others.

VI

The September 11 Attacks

Although it is not known exactly when planning for the September 11 attacks commenced, evidence now suggests that the plan to crash aircraft into buildings in New York City and Washington, D.C., had crystallized by the end of 1999. During that time Mohammed Atta, the operation’s ringleader, and the terrorists who would pilot two of the other hijacked aircraft, traveled to Afghanistan to be selected for and briefed about the September 11 operation.

According to the congressional testimony of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director George Tenet, the plot was noteworthy for its professional conception and execution. The terrorists’ tightly compartmented organization made the operation resistant to penetration and unmasking. The conspirators were also able to recover from a variety of setbacks and still implement their murderous plan.

Bin Laden and his confederates doubtless hoped that the September 11 attacks would deliver a “knockout” blow to the United States—crushing its economy and demoralizing its citizens and government. Bin Laden has often described the United States as a “paper tiger” on the verge of financial ruin and total collapse—with the force of Islam poised to push the nation over the edge. In this way, he might alter U.S. foreign policy and thus prompt changes in line with al-Qaeda’s aims, including ending U.S. support for countries such as Saudi Arabia and Israel, withdrawing U.S. military forces from the Arabian Peninsula, and removing U.S. influence, business, and cultural activities from the Muslim world.

VII

Al-Qaeda Since September 11

The United States reacted to the September 11 attacks by declaring a global war against terrorism. Offensive military operations started on October 7, 2001, when massive strikes were launched against al-Qaeda’s training and logistics bases in Afghanistan and against the Taliban rulers. By November the Taliban was defeated, and al-Qaeda was largely routed from its Afghan sanctuary. However, bin Laden and his top deputy, the Egyptian Ayman Muhammad Rabi’ al-Zawahiri, eluded capture.

Meanwhile, the United States and its allies mounted a worldwide campaign to block al-Qaeda’s funding and hamper its ability to obtain and transfer money. Front organizations and charities from which contributions were diverted to fund terrorism were closed down. A global counterterrorist law enforcement effort was also put into effect, resulting in the arrests of nearly 1,000 al-Qaeda operatives in more than 60 countries. By the end of 2002, more than 3,000 members of the international terrorist network were reported to have been apprehended, and a third of its top leadership had either been killed or captured. In March 2003 Pakistani and U.S. operatives captured Khalid Shaikh Muhammad, a high-level al-Qaeda military leader and the alleged mastermind of the September 11 attacks, in Pakistan.

Although al-Qaeda was clearly weakened, continued terrorist attacks during 2002 in Tunisia, Bali, Kuwait, and Kenya and in 2004 in Spain demonstrated that it had not been destroyed. The multiyear planning cycle of prior al-Qaeda attacks suggests the possibility that some new monumental operation might already have been set in motion prior to the September 11, 2001, attacks.

VIII

Al-Qaeda’s Future

An audiotape believed to be the voice of bin Laden was broadcast in November 2002, praising the spasm of anti-Western attacks that occurred in the fall of 2002 and threatening further attacks. Bin Laden specifically threatened Australia, Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, and Spain—all countries that had arrested or cracked down on alleged al-Qaeda militants—for their cooperation in the U.S.-led war on terrorism.

In April 2004 another audiotape by bin Laden indicated a new strategy by al-Qaeda to sow divisions between the United States and its European allies. It offered a truce to European countries that “do not attack Muslim countries” or “interfere in their affairs,” saying the truce would begin “when the last soldier leaves our countries.” Several European countries had sent troops to the mainly Muslim countries of Afghanistan and Iraq, where the United States led coalitions that toppled the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in 2001 and the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein in April 2003. See also U.S.-Iraq War.

The delivery of the tape followed commuter train bombings in Madrid, Spain, on March 11, 2004, that killed more than 190 people and injured more than 1,400 others. Spanish authorities arrested several suspects linked to al-Qaeda, and a Spanish judge concluded that al-Qaeda was behind the bombings. Spain had joined the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq, sending 1,300 troops. In the aftermath of the bombings, a new government began withdrawing Spain’s troops, following through on a campaign pledge that preceded the terrorist attack. Some observers believed that al-Qaeda hoped to force other European countries to withdraw from the U.S.-led coalitions in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, European governments unanimously rejected the offer of a truce, and many issued statements saying that they would not negotiate with terrorists. See also Spain.

A

Al-Qaeda, Iraq, and the 2004 U.S. Presidential Election

More findings about al-Qaeda’s role in the September 11 attacks and its alleged links to the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein were released in July 2004. Two bipartisan reports, one by the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee and another by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, found no evidence of a collaborative relationship between al-Qaeda and Iraq. The reports dismissed claims of a meeting between one of the hijackers and an Iraqi intelligence agent in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic, in April 2001, saying such a meeting never took place. The bipartisan National Commission also found that while the administration of President George W. Bush had been warned about al-Qaeda’s determination to launch an attack within the United States, there was probably no way to have prevented the attacks.

Al-Qaeda attempted to insert itself in the 2004 U.S. presidential election with the release of a videotape featuring bin Laden just days before the election. In the videotape, bin Laden addressed the American people, saying “Your security is not in the hands of [Democratic presidential candidate John] Kerry, Bush, or al-Qaeda. Your security is in your own hands.…Any state that does not mess with our security has naturally guaranteed its own security.” Intelligence analysts pointed out that the taped message was lacking in bin Laden’s usual radical religious jargon and seemed aimed at a broader base—secular Arabs opposed to U.S. policy in the Middle East.

Bin Laden’s videotaped message was followed weeks later by another videotape, this one from al-Zawahiri and apparently made before the election but broadcast afterwards. “The results of the election do not matter to us,” al-Zawahiri said in that message. “Vote whoever you want, Bush, Kerry, or the devil himself. This does not concern us. What concerns us is to purge our land from the aggressors.”

Counterterrorism experts continued to be concerned about al-Qaeda’s attempts to acquire unconventional weapons, especially nuclear weapons. In November 2004 the CIA issued a report citing concerns that a Pakistani nuclear engineer may have aided al-Qaeda’s efforts to obtain a nuclear weapon.

In January 2007 Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte testified before the U.S. Congress that al-Qaeda was no longer an organization “on the run.” In July 2007 the CIA’s National Intelligence Estimate, a summary of possible threats to U.S. national security, characterized al-Qaeda as a global threat that was seeking to strike the United States again.

As the sixth anniversary of the September 11 attacks approached, bin Laden issued another videotape message, his first since 2004. Intelligence experts verified the voice on the tape as that of bin Laden, and the taped message contained references to recent events. In it bin Laden railed against capitalism and global corporations as the chief cause of war and military conflict while maintaining that democracy was a failed system.

Although bin Laden continued to be the main symbol of al-Qaeda, some intelligence experts believed that his deputy al-Zawahiri had emerged as its principal leader and strategist. They cited intelligence reports indicating that bin Laden had not chaired a meeting of the majlis al-shura (al-Qaeda’s consultative council, or top decision-making body) for at least two years. According to some accounts bin Laden’s increased visibility in the fall of 2007 was an attempt on his part to reassert his leadership.

Bin Laden followed his sixth-anniversary videotape with an audiotaped message calling for the ouster of Pakistan’s leader Pervez Musharraf. The message condemned Musharraf for a crackdown on Islamic militants associated with the Red Mosque in Islāmābād.

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