The Looming Tower - Lawrence Wright [250]
The Dar-ul-Aman Palace, Kabul. The palace was caught between the lines during the civil war that followed the Soviet withdrawal. After twenty-five years of continuous warfare, much of Afghanistan was left in ruins.
Above: The ruins of the American Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, which was bombed on August 7, 1998—al-Qaeda’s first documented terrorist strike. The attack killed 213 people and injured thousands. More than 150 people were blinded by flying glass.
Right: The American Embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, was bombed nine minutes later, killing 11 and wounding 85.
Left: The Clinton administration responded by destroying several al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan and the al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum, pictured here. A night watchman was killed in the plant, which later proved to have nothing to do with producing chemical or biological weapons.
The USS Cole after a suicide attack by two al-Qaeda operatives in a fishing skiff in October 2000. The attack nearly sank one of the most invulnerable ships in the U.S. Navy. Seventeen sailors died. “The destroyer represented the capital of the West,” said bin Laden, “and the small boat represented Mohammed.”
Michael Scheuer, who created Alec Station, the CIA’s virtual Osama bin Laden station. He and the FBI’s John O’Neill were bitter rivals.
Richard Clarke, the counterterrorism czar in the White House, proposed that O’Neill succeed him in his job—an offer that may have led to his downfall.
Valerie James saw John O’Neill in a bar in Chicago in 1991 and bought him a drink because “he had the most compelling eyes.” O’Neill was married at the time, a fact he failed to reveal to the many women he courted.
While he was dating Valerie in Chicago, O’Neill asked for an “exclusive relationship” with Mary Lynn Stevens in Washington, D.C.
In Washington, O’Neill also became involved with Anna DiBattista. “That guy is never going to marry you,” her priest warned her.
John O’Neill said good-bye to Daniel Coleman and his FBI teammates at a farewell coffee on the occasion of his retirement from the bureau on August 22, 2001. The next day he started work at the World Trade Center.
Above: After gaining the names of the hijackers from al-Qaeda suspects in Yemen, Ali Soufan (left, with Special Agent George Crouch) traveled to Afghanistan. Here he stands in the ruins of what was bin Laden’s hideout in Kabul.
O’Neill’s funeral was the catastrophe of coincidence that he had always dreaded. Here his mother, Dorothy, and his wife, Christine, leave St. Nicholas of Tolentine Church in Atlantic City. They were among a thousand mourners.
The ruins of the World Trade Center burned for a hundred days. John O’Neill’s body was found ten days after the 9/11 attack.
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