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by low blood pressure, weight loss, muscle fatigue, stomach irritability, sharp back pains, dehydration, and an abnormal craving for salt. This is purely speculation, but bin Laden manifested all of these symptoms. Although the disease can be controlled with steroids, an addisonian crisis, as bin Laden may have been experiencing, can be fatal if the patient is not treated with saline and glucose immediately.

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* Most of al-Qaeda’s relationship with Iran came through Zawahiri. Ali Mohammed told the FBI that al-Jihad had planned a coup in Egypt in 1990. Zawahiri had studied the 1979 overthrow of the Shah of Iran, and he sought training from the Iranians. He offered information about an Egyptian government plan to storm several islands in the Persian Gulf that both Iran and the United Arab Emirates lay claim to. According to Mohammed, in return for this information, the Iranian government paid Zawahiri $2 million and helped train members of al-Jihad in a coup attempt that never actually took place.

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* On April 6, 1994, the first Palestinian suicide bomber blew up a bus in Afula, Israel.

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* Bin Laden told Abdel Bari Atwan that he was able to recover about 10 percent of his investment after the Sudan government offered to repay him in grain and cattle that he could resell to other countries (Atwan, Secret History, 52). Mohammed Loay Baizid told me that bin Laden invested only $20 million in Sudan, and that he probably left the country with about fifty thousand dollars. Hassabulla Omer, who held the al-Qaeda file for Sudanese intelligence, places bin Laden’s total investment at $30 million and says he left the country with “nothing.”

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* These suppositions are based on remarks made by the former interim Iraqi prime minister Iyad Allawi, who claims to have discovered the information in the archives of the Iraqi secret service.

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ALSO BY LAWRENCE WRIGHT

God’s Favorite

Twins

Remembering Satan

Saints and Sinners

In the New World

City Children, Country Summer

THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK

PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

Copyright 2006 by Lawrence Wright

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada, Limited, Toronto.

www.aaknopf.com

Grateful acknowledgment is made to Constable & Robinson Ltd. and Michal Snunit for permission to reprint an excerpt from The Soul Bird by Michal Snunit. Reprinted by permission.

Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Wright, Lawrence, [date]

The looming tower: Al-Qaeda and the road to 9/11 / by Lawrence Wright.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. September 11 Terrorist Attacks, 2001. 2. Qaida (Organization)

3. TerrorismGovernment policyUnited States.

4. Intelligence serviceUnited States. I. Title.

HV6432.7.W75 2005

973.931dc22 2006041032

eISBN: 978-0-307-26608-8

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