The Looming Tower - Lawrence Wright [227]
112 inspired by the lines: Mohammed, Al-Ansar al-Arab fi Afghanistan, 241.
Soviet base: ibid., 233.
single car: ibid., 216.
114 “I began thinking”: “Walidee Ramama al-Aqsa Bilkhasara” [My Father Renovated al-Aqsa Mosque, with a Loss], Al-Umma al-Islamiyya, October 18, 1991.
skilled engineers: interview with anonymous bin Laden family spokesman.
seven man-made caverns: interview with Essam Deraz.
114 Sheikh Tameem: interviews with Bassim A. Alim and Mohammed Loay Baizid.
not over eighteen years old: Mohammed, Al-Ansar al-Arab fi Afghanistan, 211.
115 “Tell him that I will not return”: Azzam, The Lofty Mountain, 23. Sheikh Tameem never did find his martyrdom. He died the following year of a heart attack while on a speaking tour in Orlando, Florida.
“afraid that some of the brothers”: Mohammed, Al-Ansar al-Arab fi Afghanistan, 261.
force of 120: Abu Muhammed in Azzam, The Lofty Mountain, 97.
He chose to attack on a Friday: Mohammed, Al-Ansar al-Arab fi Afghanistan, 265.
116 closing down the Arab guesthouses: interview with Mohammed Loay Baizid.
“There were nine”: Azzam, The Lofty Mountain, 109.
nine or ten thousand troops: ibid., 100ff., which is the source for much of this account, along with Mohammed, Al-Ansar al-Arab fi Afghanistan, 310ff., and “Walidee Ramama al-Aqsa Bilkhasara” [My Father Renovated al-Aqsa Mosque, with a Loss], Al-Umma al-Islamiyya, October 18, 1991.
118 “shouted at me”: Mohammed, Al-Ansar al-Arab fi Afghanistan, 316.
“thought he was possessed”: Azzam, The Lofty Mountain, 30.
“very tired”: “Walidee Ramama al-Aqsa Bilkhasara” [My Father Renovated al-Aqsa Mosque, with a Loss], Al-Umma al-Islamiyya, October 18, 1991.
“guard the left side:” Mohammed, Al-Ansar al-Arab fi Afghanistan, 326.
119 “It passed by me”: Osama bin Laden in Azzam, The Lofty Mountain, 112, 113.
“There was a terrible battle”: “Walidee Ramama al-Aqsa Bilkhasara” [My Father Renovated al-Aqsa Mosque, with a Loss], Al-Umma al-Islamiyya, October 18, 1991.
“I was only thirty meters from the Russians”: Robert Fisk, “The Saudi Businessman Who Recruited Mujahideen Now Uses Them for Large-Scale Building Projects in Sudan,” Independent, December 6, 1993.
bag of salt: interview with Jamal Khashoggi, who also spoke about bin Laden’s episodes of malaria and pneumonia. There is a link between low blood pressure and diabetes, for which some have said bin Laden received insulin shots. Bergen, Holy War, 57; also, Hasin al-Binayyan, “Al-Qaeda Man Freed from Riyadh Jail Reveals It All,” Arab News, November 26, 2001. However, Jamal Khalifa says that bin Laden was not diabetic.
“only nine brothers”: Osama bin Laden in Azzam, The Lofty Mountain, 114. (The quote has been slightly corrected for grammatical reasons that may have been caused by the translation.)
gave bin Laden a trophy: interview with Mohammed Loay Baizid.
6. The Base
121 treasures of the Afghan national museum: interviews with Mohammed Sarwar and Rahimullah Yusufzai.
skimming off the subsidies: interview with Marc Sageman. Sageman disputes the common assertion that the commanders were enriching themselves from the heroin trade.
Their murderous rivalries: interview with Rahimullah Yusufzai.
122 “second home”: interview with Jamal Ismail.
Mohammed set up al-Jihad’s financial pipeline: unpublished CIA document, “Report on Mohammed al-Zawahiri” (no date, no author).
Bitter Harvest: Some members of al-Jihad believed that Zawahiri had plagiarized this book, which they say was actually written by Sayyid Imam al-Sharif (also known as Dr. Fadl).
“available free”: interview with Kemal Helbawi.
Dr. Fadl: interview with Yasser al-Sirri, also Hamdi Rizq, “Confessions of Those ‘Returning from Albania’ Mark the End of the Egyptian ‘Jihad Organization,’” Al-Wasat, April 19, 1999. Translated by FBIS.
123 Kuwaiti-backed Red Crescent hospital: interviews with Jamal Khashoggi and Osama Rushdi.
Dr. Ahmed el-Wed: interviews with Kamal Helbawy and Abdullah Anas.
Takfir wa Hijira: Kepel, Muslim Extremism in Egypt, 73–78.
124 mosque Zawahiri had frequented: interview