The Looming Tower - Lawrence Wright [108]
The young, poor, and largely urban guerrillas drawn to the Algerian revolt coalesced under the banner of the Groupe Islamique Armé (GIA). For the next five years they drenched the country in blood. The progression followed a predictable takfiri path. The Islamists began by killing non-Muslims, concentrating on priests and nuns, diplomats, intellectuals, feminists, doctors, and businessmen. According to the logic of GIA, democracy and Islam were incompatible; therefore, anyone who had a voting card was against Islam and deserved to be killed. The warrant was extended to include anyone who worked in establishments allied with the government, such as public schools. In two months of 1994 alone, thirty teachers and principals were killed and 538 schools were torched. The GIA terrorists were not only killing teachers and democrats, however. The inhabitants of entire villages were slain in midnight massacres. These atrocities were celebrated in GIA’s weekly newspaper, Al-Ansar, published in London, which featured headlines such as “Thank God, We Have Cut 200 Throats Today!” and “Our Brother Beheaded His Father for the Sake of Allah.” The religious madness culminated in a declaration that condemned the entire population of Algeria. A GIA communiqué stated the equation starkly: “There is no neutrality in the war we are waging. With the exception of those who are with us, all others are apostates and deserve to die.” This formulation was appealingly available to those who saw the conflict in apocalyptic terms.
Even bin Laden recoiled—if not from the violence itself, then from the international revulsion directed at the Islamist project. He sought to create a “better image of the jihad.” When some of the leaders of GIA came to Khartoum to beg for more funds, they had the temerity to criticize him for being “too flexible” with democrats, which made him appear “weak.” Bin Laden was furious and withdrew his support entirely. But his forty thousand dollars had already helped to create a catastrophe. More than a hundred thousand people would die in the Algerian civil war.
AT THE END OF 1993, a rumor raced through Khartoum that a Sudanese general had gotten his hands on some black market uranium. Bin Laden was already interested in acquiring more powerful weapons to match his enlarged vision of al-Qaeda as an international terrorist organization. He was working with the Sudanese government to develop chemical agents that could be used against the Christian rebels in the south and smuggling weapons from Afghanistan on Sudan Airways cargo planes. He bought an American military jet, a T-39, specifically to transport more Stingers. So, naturally, when word of the uranium reached him, he was excited. He sent Jamal al-Fadl to negotiate the price.
By his own account Fadl was the third person to pledge allegiance to al-Qaeda, giving him a special claim on bin Laden’s affections. He was a wiry and nimble athlete who played center on bin Laden’s soccer team. Fadl was always smiling, and he had an infectious horse laugh that caught people by surprise. Like many of al-Qaeda’s inner circle, he had come to jihad from America, having worked in the Services Bureau office on Brooklyn’s Atlantic Avenue. Because Fadl was Sudanese and knew the local real estate market, bin Laden had entrusted him with the money to buy the property for al-Qaeda’s farms and houses before the organization relocated to Khartoum.
The general wanted $1.5 million for the uranium plus a commission. He produced a cylinder, two and a half feet long and about six inches in diameter, and