The Looming Tower - Lawrence Wright [67]
Sheikh Tameem pleaded with bin Laden to place him on the front lines, but bin Laden told him he was too fat for active fighting. He consigned Tameem to the communications room deep in an underground chamber. The Arabs waited until the entire Soviet convoy was within range of their three mortars. When bin Laden cried, “Allahu akhbar!” the Arabs opened fire, and the surprised Russians fell back. “The brothers were in a state of elation and total ecstasy,” Azzam wrote. They watched ambulances arriving to collect the fallen soldiers, who included the military commander of the Jaji district.
Expecting another, larger Soviet counterattack, bin Laden divided his force in half, stationing thirty-five men to guard the Lion’s Den. He and nine others advanced to the top of a hill, where they observed two hundred Russian Special Forces creeping toward the camp. “Suddenly, mortar rounds began to pour on us like rain,” said bin Laden. Miraculously, the Arabs escaped harm. An hour later, the Russians confidently resumed their advance. “When they reached the peak, we began our attack,” bin Laden continued. “A few of them were killed, and the rest fled.”
For weeks, the Soviets shelled the mujahideen position around the Lion’s Den with 120 mm mortars and napalm bombs, which caused such devastation that Azzam wept and prayed for the safety of the fighters. The trees burned, even in the rain, illuminating the night. One morning, in this storm of shrapnel and fire, Sheikh Tameem emerged from the communications cave with his Quran in hand and began to wander around in the clearing, ignoring the pleas of his comrades as he recited the Quran and prayed aloud for martyrdom, his round wire-rimmed glasses tilted toward the sky. The ground shook and bullets and explosions tore the forest around him. It was near the end of Ramadan, and Tameem believed that his death on such an occasion would be especially blessed.
This mad excursion seemed to have a calming effect on the others. “We came under fire quickly,” bin Laden recalled. “When the fire stopped for about thirty seconds, I told the people I was with that I thought we were going to die. But within minutes, the fire started again and I was reading the Holy Quran until we were saved and were able to move to a different location. We hadn’t moved seventy meters when we were hit again, but we felt completely safe, as if we were in an air-conditioned room.”
Despite the bravado, bin Laden worried that his men would all be killed if they stayed any longer. He would have to abandon the Lion’s Den. It was the worst defeat he had ever suffered. His men were shocked at his decision. When one of them protested, bin Laden “shouted at me and told me some words which I heard for the first time from him.” Sheikh Tameem bellowed and pulled the hair from his beard. “I thought he was possessed,” recalled bin Laden. He scolded Tameem, saying that he was endangering all the fighters by his intransigence. “Sheikh Tameem, the men are in the car,” bin Laden warned him. “If a single one of them is killed the sin will fall on your neck and you will be responsible for his blood on Judgment Day.” Sobbing, Sheikh Tameem joined the other men in the van.
Those who were able to walk followed behind, after destroying much of the Lion’s Den so that there would be nothing for the Soviets to pillage. They rolled their cannons into the ravines and buried their automatic weapons. One of the men threw a grenade into the pantry. The camp that they had labored so mightily to construct was now a ruin. A small squad stayed behind to provide cover for the retreating guerrillas.
Once again, Bin Laden was ill. “I was very tired, and could barely walk twenty meters before I had to stop and drink water. I had been under great emotional and physical duress.” His ordeal had only just begun.
Sayyaf was fuming when the bedraggled Arabs reached his camp. By now he had come to see the value of the Lion’s Den, which