The Eleventh Day_ The History and Legacy of 9_11 - Anthony Summers [118]
The only link to bin Laden at the time was that the four men accused of the bombing—who were executed—said they had read his writings on jihad. Information developed later, however, indicated that he supplied money to purchase the explosives, that the munitions were stored in a bin Laden warehouse, then moved onward to Saudi Arabia aboard a bin Laden–owned ship.
The attack, bin Laden has said since, was a noble act that “paved the way for the raising of voices of opposition against the American occupation from within the ruling family.” He urged Saudis to “adopt every tactic to throw the Americans out of our territory.”
Seven months later, a huge bomb exploded outside an American housing complex near Dhahran, in eastern Saudi Arabia. Inside at the time was a large number of troops, many of them personnel serving with the 4404th Fighter Wing at the time patrolling the no-fly zone over Iraq. Nineteen Americans were killed, 372 wounded.
It was the largest terrorist bomb ever to be used against Americans, more powerful than the device used in the 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut, or a decade later in the destruction of the Alfred P. Murrah building in Oklahoma City. Who was behind the attack long remained the subject of controversy. A body of evidence indicated that Iran was responsible, but many believe bin Laden was at least complicit.
He had reportedly been in Qatar before the attack, arranging—again—for the purchase and delivery of explosives. In an interview the following year, he said al Qaeda had indeed been involved, that the bombers had been “heroes.”
Even before the bombings in Saudi Arabia, bin Laden’s life as an exile in Sudan had turned sour. The Saudi royals, and his own family, had tried to persuade him to change course. “They called me several times from the Kingdom,” he recalled, “wanting me to return home, to talk about things. I refused.… They told me that the King would like me to act as intermediary between the different factions in Afghanistan. King Fahd himself called to try to win me over.… They sent my brother to try to convince me, but it didn’t work.”
The royals persuaded members of bin Laden’s family—including his mother, his father’s only surviving brother, and the half-brother who now headed the bin Laden company—to visit him in Sudan. “They beseeched him to stop his diatribes against Saudi and the Americans,” a family source told the BBC. “Come back and we’ll give you a responsible job in the company, one of the top five positions.” When that suggestion was rebuffed, the Saudis’ patience ran out.
That, at any rate, was the regime’s official position. In the spring of 1994, the royal family declared bin Laden’s citizenship revoked for “behavior that contradicts the Kingdom’s interests.” His family followed suit with a statement of “condemnation of all acts that Osama bin Laden may have committed.” His share of the family fortune, which had earlier been placed in a trust, was sold off and placed in a frozen account.
Though this sounded draconian, the full picture may have been otherwise. The formal cutoff caused bin Laden only a temporary cash flow problem. Far into the future, he would have huge sums of money at his disposal.
Later, asked whether he had really been disowned, bin Laden would put his hand on his heart. “Blood,” he said, “is thicker than water.” The DGSE, France’s intelligence service, which carefully monitored bin Laden over many years, took the view as late as 2000 that “Osama bin Laden has kept up contact with certain members of the family … even though it has officially said the contrary. One of his brothers would appear to be playing a role of intermediary in his professional contacts and the progress of his business.”
It would be reported as late as 2006 that bin Laden’s half-brother Yeslam had