The Eleventh Day

12 imposing/speaker: Wright, 95;

13 Sadat: Gerald Posner, Why America Slept, NY: Ballantine, 2003, 30;

14 Mohammed/Sayid Qutb: “Jihad & the Rifle”; Jason Burke, Al Qaeda, London: Penguin, 2004, 47, Kepel, 314, ed. Lawrence, xii, Ian Hamel, L’Enigme Oussama Ben Laden, Paris: Payot, 2009, 64;

15 Qutb re Jews: Sayyid Qutb, In the Shade of the Qu’ran, Falls Church, VA: WAMY International, 1995, WP, 8/10/10;

16 read Qutb: Bergen, OBL I Know, 19;

17 OBL at lectures: Hamel, 64, Wright, 79–;

18 Azzam travel: Lacey, Inside the Kingdom, 115, Rohan Gunaratna, Inside Al Qaeda, NY: Columbia Univ. Press, 2002, 101, Terry McDermott, Perfect Soldiers, NY: HarperCollins, 2005, 96–;

19 Azzam useful: corr. Barnett Rubin, 2010, 9/10. New Yorker, 3/27/95; McDermott, 96–, eds. Der Spiegel, 169, Samuel Katz, Relentless Pursuit, NY: Forge, 2002, 38–. Pulitzer Prize–winning author Steve Coll wrote in 2004 that Prince Turki al-Faisal and the GID “became important supporters” of Azzam. In a letter to Coll the following year, however, Turki would claim that “Azzam was never supported by me or the GID.” Support for the mujahideen, Turki wrote, was “measured by the ISI [Pakistani intelligence] and then evaluated by both the CIA and G.I.D.” (“became”: Coll, Ghost Wars, 156; “Azzam was”: Coll, Bin Ladens, 295, 612n21).

20 GID/CIA liaison: int. Prince Turki al-Faisal in Arab News, 9/18/02, Anthony Cordesman, “Saudi Security & the War on Terror,” paper for Center for Strategic & International Studies, 4/22/02, Posner, Secrets, 80–, int. Joseph Trento, Joseph Trento, Prelude to Terror, NY: Carroll & Graf, 2005, xiii, 100–, Coll, Ghost Wars, 79–, press briefing, U.S. Dept. of State, 11/2/07;

21 Azzam & OBL: Arab News, 11/7/01; Encyclopedia: Time, 10/21/01, Burke, 3;

22 “To our much”: Burke, 294n5.

23 “a man worth”: The authors have here used the translation provided by the Arab satellite TV channel Al Jazeera, but “worthy of a nation” might be more apt. The Arabic word bin Laden used was “umma“—which Professor Bruce Lawrence interprets as meaning “the global Islamic community, or Islamic supernation” (Transcript, “Usamah Bin-Ladin, the Destruction of the Base,” Al Jazeera, 6/10/99 & see ed. Lawrence, 4fn4, 77).

24 found al Qaeda: Wright, 129–;

25 economics: bin Ladens & Sasson, 29.

26 “God Almighty”: transcript, “Usamah bin-Ladin, The Destruction of the Base,” Al Jazeera, 6/10/99.

27 1377 hegira: Year 1 hegira relates to the year the Prophet Mohammed moved from Mecca to the city of Medina in—Western style—A.D. 622. The February 15 birth date is taken from the 2009 book by bin Laden’s first wife, Najwa, and her son Omar. Bin Laden himself said he thought he was born in the Islamic month that corresponds to January 1958. Other birth dates offered have included March 10, June 30, and July 30, 1957. The author who studied the family in greatest depth, Steve Coll, notes that most Saudis did not note birth dates. The Saudi government was not keeping records at the time bin Laden was born (hegira: ed. Lawrence, x; Feb. 15: bin Ladens & Sasson, 301; himself: Coll, Bin Ladens, 74; other birth dates: AP, 3/11/07, Jean-Charles Brisard & Guillaume Dasquie, Forbidden Truth, NY: Thunder’s Mouth, 2002, 226, German Nachrichtendienst note seen by authors).

28 full name/al-Qatani: bin Ladens & Sasson, 301;

29 “Lion”: e.g. entry, Muslim Internet Dictionary.

30 “I was named”: transcript, int. of OBL, ABC News, 1/2/99, & see “Usama’s Expedition,” www.al-islam.org. According to Bin Laden’s son Omar, “Ossama Binladen” is the more correct rendering. U.S. officialese, meanwhile, frequently renders the first name as “Usama.” The authors use “Osama bin Laden” because that is the version most commonly used in Western publications. Variations arise as a result of transliteration from the Arabic (bin Ladens & Sasson, 291 & re “Usama” e.g., “Most Wanted List,” www.fbi.gov).

31 “My father”: transcript, “Usmah bin-Laden, Destruction of the Base.” The exact year of Mohamed bin Laden’s birth remains unknown, but he was apparently born in the first decade of the twentieth century. Family biographer Steve Coll writes that he was fourteen or fifteen when he arrived in Saudi Arabia, while author Lawrence Wright reckoned he was twenty-three (Coll, Bin Ladens, 26, 583n11, Wright, 62, & see bin Ladens & Sasson, 292).

32 Mohamed legend/rise, etc.: For the historical background of the bin Ladens’ early lives, the authors have, except where indicated, drawn on Steve Coll’s definitive study, The Bin Ladens, and on Lawrence Wright’s authoritative The Looming Tower.

33 memory: Wright, 65;

34 Mohamed/Saudi royals/loan: Wright, Simon Reeve, The New Jackals, London: Andre Deutsch, 1999, 158–, Atwan, 40–;

35 “Religion”: Coll, Bin Ladens, 201;

36 Religion/?royalty/?banning/?Wahhabism: Stephen Schwartz, The Two Faces of Islam, NY: Doubleday, 2002, 69–, 261, Posner, Secrets, 18–, Lacey, Inside the Kingdom, 10–, Yaroslav Trofimov, The Siege of Mecca, NY: Doubleday, 2007, 13–, 16, Wright, 63;

37 “fascism”: Schwartz, 105;

38 beheading/crucifixion: Amnesty International, “Reported Death Sentences and Executions 2009,” 3/10, John R. Bradley, Saudi Arabia Exposed, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, 144, Reuters, 2/22/09, Mark Hollingsworth with Sandy Mitchell, Saudi Babylon, Edinburgh: Mainstream, 2006, 62, 228, UPI, 11/4/09, Amnesty International, “Man Beheaded & Crucified,” 6/1/09, AP, 8/19/10;

39 Human rights: Economist, 7/25/09, AFP, 7/23/09;

40 Women: Lacey, Inside the Kingdom, 277, Qanta A. Ahmed, In the Land of Invisible Women, Naperville, IL: Source Books, 2008, refs.;

41 Mohamed devout/“Your highness”: transcript, int. OBL by Hamid Mir, 3/19/97, translated by FBIS, bin Ladens & Sasson, 17, Craig Unger, House of Bush, House of Saud, London: Gibson Square, 2007, 91.

42 Osama product: Osama told an interviewer he was one of twenty-five sons fathered by Mohamed bin Laden. Author Coll refers to twenty-five sons and twenty-nine daughters. Osama’s son Omar believes Osama was the eighteenth of twenty-two sons. The total number of Mohamed’s offspring must remain approximate (int. of OBL by Hamid Mir, 3/18/97, translation by FBIS, Coll, Bin Ladens, 126–, bin Ladens & Sasson, 292).

43 short marriage/Allia: bin Ladens & Sasson, 291–, Atwan, 41–, Wright, 72;

44 “a shocking”: bin Ladens & Sasson, 169;

45 remarried/loved “more”: Wright, 73, Atwan, 41, bin Ladens & Sasson, 166;

46 “In my whole”/“when he met”: bin Ladens & Sasson, 190, 168–, 40, Bergen, OBL I Know, 17;

47 “Most of us”: Evening Standard (U.K.), 5/26/06;

48 “very anti-Israel”: Bergen, OBL I Know, 7–, Unger, House of Bush, House of Saud, 91, Der Spiegel, 6/6/05;

49 bellicose noises/tanks: John Ciorciari, “Saudi-US Alignment After the Six-Day War,” Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 9, No. 2, 6/05, David Holden & Richard Johns, The House of Saud, NY: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1981, 251–. This