The Looming Tower - Lawrence Wright [228]
Remnants of the group: Heikal, Autumn of Fury, 251.
blood of Muslims cannot be shed: Sahih Bukhari, vol. 9, bk. 83, no. 17.
125 entitled to kill practically anyone: interview with Usama Rushdi.
126 Fisher-Price: interview with Maha Elsamneh.
“unusually close family”: Chanaa Rostom, “Al-Zawahiri’s Latest Victims,” Akher Sa’a, December 12, 2001.
127 “As of now”: al-Zawahiri, “Knights Under the Prophet’s Banner,” part 2.
128 on his payroll: exhibit from “Tareek Osama” document presented in United States v. Enaam M. Arnaout.
Abu Ubaydah: interviews with Jamal Khashoggi and Essam Deraz.
Zawahiri had introduced: “Bin-Ladin Associate Interrogated,” Al-Sharq al-Awsat, June 24, 1999.
129 Abu Hafs: interview with Essam Deraz.
Mohammed Ibrahim Makkawi: Nabil Sharaf El Din, “Details on the Man Who Carved the Story of bin Laden (Part III),” Al-Watan, September 29, 2001. Translated by FBIS. According to Abduh Zinah, “Report Profiling Five Egyptian Terrorists on US Most Wanted List,” Al-Sharq al-Awsat, December 20, 2001, Makkawi went to Saudi Arabia in 1998, then to Afghanistan.
clean-shaven: interview with Montassir al-Zayyat, who was Makkawi’s lawyer.
dangerously unbalanced: interviews with Kamal Habib and Mohammed Salah.
crash an airliner: interview with anonymous Cairo political figure. “I believe he is the true father of September 11,” the source told me. He also described Makkawi as a “psychopath.”
Saif al-Adl: There is a controversy over whether the al-Qaeda figure who goes by this name is the same man as Mohammed Makkawi. He is identified this way on the U.S. indictment, but according to Ali Soufan, “We don’t really know Saif al-Adl’s real name, not even the Egyptian service knows who he is. But he fought against the Russians in Afghanistan.” Nu‘man bin Uthman, a Libyan Islamist who fought in Afghanistan and claims to know both Makkawi and Saif al-Adl, contends that they are different men. Mohammed el-Shafey, “Libyan Islamist bin-Uthman Discusses Identity of al-Qa‘ida Operative Sayf-al-Adl,” Al-Sharq al-Awsat, May 30, 2005. On the other hand, Jordanian author Fu‘ad Husayn recently interviewed Saif al-Adl and says that he is Makkawi. Fu‘ad Husayn, “Al-Zarqawi…The Second Generation of al-Qaida, Part 2,” Al-Quds al-Arabi, June 16, 2005. Translated by FBIS. Jamal Ismail, who was a reporter for an Islamist paper in Peshawar during the 1980s, says that Saif al-Adl is not Makkawi but another Egyptian currently living in Iran; Makkawi, says Ismail, is a refugee in Europe.
129 position papers: interview with Jamal Khalifa.
130 “Dr. Ayman was giving him a class”: interview with Mohammed Loay Baizid.
“I don’t know what some people”: interview with Abdullah Anas.
issued a fatwa: Gunaratna, Inside al-Qaeda, 22.
“pioneering vanguard”: Azzam, “The Solid Base.”
train brigades of Hamas fighters: Jamal Ismail, personal communication.
131 hated Yasser Arafat: Abdel Bari Atwan in Bergen, The Osama bin Laden I Know, 170.
moving the struggle to Kashmir: interview with Jamal Khashoggi. Notably, Bosnia was also not on bin Laden’s list of prospective targets for jihad.
One fateful day: interviews with Mohammed Loay Baizid (Abu Rida al-Suri) and Wa’el Julaidan through an intermediary. Baizid claims he was out of the country at the time of the meeting, and that Abu Hajer later told him about it. The court in Chicago contends that the handwritten notes of the meeting are actually Baizid’s. Wa’el Julaidan, who was present, told me through an intermediary that Abdullah Azzam was there as well.
sketchy handwritten notes: exhibit from “Tareek Osama” document presented in United States v. Enaam M. Arnaout. The translation I have provided differs in several respects from what was provided to the court.
133 Medani al-Tayeb: interview with Jamal Khalifa.
al-Qaeda al-Askariya: exhibit from “Tareek Osama” document presented in United States v. Enaam M. Arnaout.
134 “Brother Abu Ubaydah”: Ahmad Zaydan, “The Search for al-Qa‘ida,” Tahta al-Mijhar [Under the Microscope], al-Jazeera, trans. FBIS, September 10, 2004.