plotters and that, after the attack failed, the perpetrators hid in Sudan. The international community sanctioned Sudan after it refused to hand them over.
None of these incidents was capable of bringing an end to bin Laden’s tenure in Sudan: as long as he was spreading his wealth among the Sudanese leadership, the country was happy to have him. But when the Saudis decided to squeeze bin Laden financially—forcing the Saudi Binladin Group to stop sending him money—he faced real problems. Internally, he found it increasingly difficult to pay al-Qaeda members’ salaries; more importantly, his largesse in Sudan came to an end. The Sudanese decided that it was no longer worth bearing the burden of bin Laden and told him it was time to leave. On May 19, 1996, on a rented plane, he flew to Afghanistan accompanied by his trusted followers.
Two days later, on May 21, Abu Ubaidah al-Banshiri was aboard a ferry, the MV
Abu Ubaidah and Juma had purchased tickets in a second-class cabin. Their room was about 7 by 10 feet, and it had four sets of bunk beds. They shared the cabin—Juma on one of the top bunk beds and Abu Ubaidah beneath him—with five other people. At a point in the crossing, where the water was 110 feet deep, the ferry started swaying wildly from side to side—its stabilizer wasn’t working.
Juma had been napping but was awakened by the rocking. “Abu Ubaidah,” he shouted, “something is wrong.”
“Don’t worry,” Abu Ubaidah replied. “We’re fine, go back to sleep. Allah is with us.” About five seconds later the boat tilted to one side and capsized. Screams were heard as people were thrown out of their beds. The cabin door was now located above Abu Ubaidah and Juma’s heads. Juma used some of the furniture to climb up and pull himself out. The others followed suit as water began seeping in. As Abu Ubaidah was climbing out—using the cabin door to propel himself—the door came off its hinges and he fell back into the cabin. Juma screamed his name and tried grabbing him, but a wall of water came crashing through the corridor, dragging Juma away. He tried to keep his head above water and found himself repeatedly knocking into bodies—whether the people were alive or dead he could not tell. He managed to swim out of the ship and then tried to swim toward what he thought was land.
He quickly realized that he would never reach land, and swam back toward the ferry, hoping to find something to grab onto. Other passengers were on floats, and he grabbed one, praying that Abu Ubaidah had somehow miraculously made it out alive. Two hours later a rescue ship arrived, and the survivors were taken to the port of Mwanza. Juma searched in vain for Abu Ubaidah. Back home, he passed the message to Abu Ubaidah’s al- Qaeda colleagues that he had drowned. The news reached bin Laden two days later, on May 23. He was devastated; not only was Abu Ubaidah his trusted deputy and the most effective and popular military leader al- Qaeda had, but bin Laden was counting on his guidance as he prepared to rebuild al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.
Bin Laden at first hadn’t believed that Abu Ubaidah had drowned. He suspected that he had been murdered, and he ordered Wadih el-Hage and Harun Fazul (both then in Nairobi) to investigate. Harun got to Mwanza first and began searching for Abu Ubaidah’s body, taking boats out on the lake to look for clues. Two weeks later el-Hage joined him. They stayed for two more weeks, before returning to Nairobi. From there they sent a report to bin Laden, stating their belief that Abu Ubaidah in fact had drowned. The FBI later found news television footage from the port capturing Harun frantically looking for Abu Ubaidah.
Faced with replacing Abu Ubaidah as al-Qaeda’s military commander, bin Laden appointed Abu Hafs to the position. A second vacancy—head of the East African cells—was filled by Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah, better known in al-Qaeda circles as Abu Mohammed al-Masri. In East Africa he operated under the alias Saleh.
In December 1994, Ramzi Yousef, then living in Manila, drew up plans both to assassinate Pope John Paul II when the pontiff visited the Philippines and to place bombs inside toys on U.S. airlines flying out of Bangkok. The attacks were referred to as the Bojinka plot. Yousef’s partner in the latter plan was his uncle Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. A Kuwaiti born to Pakistani parents, KSM had been yearning to get more actively involved in jihad ever since his nephew had earned notoriety for the World Trade Center bombing almost two years earlier. KSM had an identical twin brother who had allegedly been killed in Afghanistan during the first jihad.
Yousef had successfully conducted a trial run of the Bojinka plot, leaving a bomb under a passenger seat on a flight from Manila to Tokyo on December 11, 1995, that ripped apart the body of a Japanese businessman. The bomb also tore apart the cabin floor, exposing the cargo hold below, but the pilot was able to make an emergency landing on Okinawa. Yousef had successfully shown he could get a bomb on a plane—all that was needed to bring down the plane were more explosives.
With the test a success, Yousef hunkered down in Manila with KSM and began preparing to build bombs that would do far more damage. During a preparatory session, however, a fire started in Yousef’s apartment, and the police raided it and found evidence of the plot. Yousef somehow evaded arrest and went to Pakistan to continue to carry out his plan. On February 7, 1995, Pakistani intelligence officers captured him in Islamabad. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed—who had sent his nephew $600 just prior to the World Trade Center bombing, a transaction he perhaps now feared could be traced, implicating him—was in Qatar at the time. When he learned that Yousef had been arrested, he went into hiding.
Yousef was flown from Pakistan to Stewart Air National Guard Base, in Newburgh, New York, which is under the jurisdiction of the Southern District despite its distance from downtown Manhattan. At the base, he was transferred to an FBI helicopter to be flown to Manhattan. As the helicopter passed over the World Trade Center, one of Yousef’s guards nudged Yousef and pointed to the towers. “You see, it’s still standing,” he said.
“It wouldn’t be if we’d had more money,” Yousef replied.
3. The Northern Group
Bin Laden had reason to resent having to leave Sudan: not only had his assets in the country been seized, but the Saudi monarchy had forced his family to cut him off, leaving him struggling financially. Still, he was returning to Afghanistan, a country that had played a significant role in his development, transforming him from a directionless Saudi millionaire into a respected mujahideen leader. A theme that bin Laden liked to promote to his followers was that their travels were like the Hijra—a reference to the year 622, when the Prophet was forced to leave Mecca and go to Medina. What at first had seemed to be a defeat for the Prophet had turned into a great advantage, as from the safety of Medina he gained followers and developed the religion, then spread it across the globe. Bin Laden often invoked comparisons between himself and the Prophet, whose work he wished to further. He was in the habit of quoting the Prophet, and he tried modeling his life on his—fasting, worshipping, even dressing accordingly—and making sure people noticed. In bin Laden’s mind, as I deduced from investigating al-Qaeda and its leadership, the appropriate prostration, when combined with rigorous, painstaking attention to public image, served to rally his spirits and those of his followers: his belief in himself grew, and the reverence with which his followers viewed him deepened. Through this combination of inner drive and public adulation he could continue the work that the Prophet had begun.
Al-Qaeda wasn’t starting from scratch in Afghanistan. In Sudan, bin Laden had built al-Qaeda into a global network, and this included setting up training camps and guesthouses across Afghanistan and Pakistan. His operatives had also formed relationships with Pakistani intelligence officials, and they had paved the way for bin Laden to be welcomed by the Taliban.
Bin Laden was curious to meet Mullah Omar, his new host and the leader of the Taliban. He didn’t know what Omar looked like; he was something of a recluse, and, as the Taliban had banned photography, no photographs had ever been taken of him, or at least none that were publicly available. He did know that Omar was blind in one eye—he had lost his sight while fighting with the mujahideen against the Soviets and their supporters.
Bin Laden was also eager to obtain a greater understanding of the Taliban itself. They had sprung seemingly out of nowhere in 1994 and had quickly imposed, on the parts of the country under their control, an interpretation of Islam based more on Pashtun tribal rituals than on religious tradition. All forms of entertainment were banned: television, sports—even, famously, kite flying. Girls’ schools were closed down, and women were not allowed out of
