Anatomy of Terror: From the Death of bin Laden to the Rise of the Islamic State

315 Pages·2017·1.99 MB·English

by  Ali Soufan

ANATOMY
OF TERROR
From the Death of
bin Laden to the Rise of
the Islamic State
ALI SOUFAN
W. W. NORTON & COMPANY NEW YORK | LONDON
Independent Publishers Since 1923
To Heather
Now the hydra had a huge body, with nine heads, eight mortal, but the middle one
immortal. . . . By pelting it with fiery shafts he forced it to come out, and in the act of
doing so he seized and held it fast. But the hydra wound itself about one of his feet and
clung to him. Nor could he effect anything by smashing its heads with his club, for as fast
as one head was smashed there grew up two.
—PSEUDO-APOLLODORUS, THE LIBRARY, BOOK 2, CHAPTER 5
CONTENTS
A Note on Sources
INTRODUCTION Friends and Enemies
PROLOGUE The Old Man of the Mountain
CHAPTER 1 The Snake with Broken Teeth
CHAPTER 2 Allegience
CHAPTER 3 The Disaster
CHAPTER 4 The Emir of the Strangers
CHAPTER 5 Doctor, Wise Man, Teacher, Traitor
CHAPTER 6 The Syrian Wars
CHAPTER 7 Those Who Loose and Bind
CHAPTER 8 Steadfast Sons
CONCLUSION Slaying the Hydra
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index
A NOTE ON SOURCES
I have spent more than two decades investigating and analyzing al-Qaeda and its
offshoots. As a result, I have developed a considerable degree of familiarity with
the organization’s structure, methods, and narratives. With that knowledge as my
guide, I consulted thousands of documents, including previously classified
material and the writings, both public and private, of the terrorists themselves,
alongside the best secondary sources, including research carried out by my
organization, the Soufan Group. I also conducted interviews with knowledgeable
individuals, many of whom bore painful witness to the events described. From
this diverse array of sources, I have attempted to piece together the most
comprehensive, detailed, and accurate account possible. On the few occasions
where I have made assumptions in order to bridge evidential gaps, I have said as
much either in the main text or in the notes that follow the text.
INTRODUCTION
FRIENDS AND ENEMIES
O
n a crisp morning in December of 2001, I picked up a
pockmarked clay brick, one of thousands like it littering the site of what only
weeks before had been a hideout for the most wanted man on earth. Perhaps, I
thought, this very brick had formed part of the wall of Osama bin Laden’s
sleeping quarters, or the floor where he habitually sat to receive visitors. As I felt
the heft and contour of that brick in my hands, I contemplated the unlikely
sequence of events—some in my lifetime, others over long centuries—that had
brought me to that extraordinary time and place.
I was born in Lebanon, emigrated to America, and went to college and then
grad school in Pennsylvania. I took a double major in political science and
international relations, with a minor in cultural anthropology, and followed that
up with a master’s in foreign relations. With the Cold War freshly over and
America’s position as the world’s only superpower seemingly secure, it was
tempting to conceive of the world as a complex but orderly machine, in which
nation-states would set rational policies and those rational policies would dictate
logical strategies.
Yet there was something fundamentally unsatisfying about this clockwork
view of the world. From my graduate studies, one prominent counterexample
stuck in my mind—one from 2,500 years ago. The Peloponnesian War pitted
Athens’s Delian League against a coalition of states led by Sparta and eventually
aided by the mighty Persian Empire. After a quarter century of alarms and
reversals, Athens finally surrendered. By paving the way for Alexander’s
unification of Greece and his subsequent conquests, the war changed the course
of European and world history. But the outcome was by no means foreordained.
of European and world history. But the outcome was by no means foreordained.
I came to see that all the key decisions were based neither on policy nor on
strategy but on personalities. Speeches and emotional appeals consistently
carried the day. Half a millennium later, Cato the Younger would mark this same
phenomenon in Rome’s rocky transformation from republic to empire. “When
Cicero spoke,” he said, “people marveled. When Caesar spoke, people
marched.”
Theories are great tools to think with. They open your mind, broaden your
perspective. But it is people who make the world go round. Individual human
beings, with all their idiosyncrasies and contradictions and baggage, with their
ideas sculpted by culture and belief and education and economics and family, are
the agents of every grand historical force that future generations will see
smoldering in the tangled wreckage of the past.
While I was still a student, I began following through the Arabic press the
exploits of a dissident Saudi millionaire named Osama bin Laden and his nascent
extremist organization, al-Qaeda—the Base. I marveled at this man’s audacity in
declaring war on America, and his charismatic ability to attract followers to his
side. But my own calling could not have been more different. Fresh out of grad
school, I joined the Federal Bureau of Investigation, where one of my first
assignments was to write a paper on this man bin Laden and his group. My
report came to the attention of John O’Neill, the legendary head of the bureau’s
counterterrorism section, based in Manhattan. In time, John became my mentor
and a close friend. When suicide bombers murdered seventeen American sailors
aboard the USS Cole in October 2000, John assigned me to lead the
investigation. I traveled to Sanaa, Yemen’s ancient capital, and began running
down leads and interrogating suspects.
John O’Neill retired from the bureau in the summer of 2001. I took him out
to lunch to celebrate, and told him I was getting married. He gave me his
blessing. But this would prove to be our last meeting. On August 23, John
became security director for the World Trade Center. Two weeks later, he died
rushing back into the south tower, courageous to the very end, determined to do
what he had been doing his whole career: save lives.
Three months later, standing with my colleagues in the remains of bin
Laden’s bombed-out Kabul compound, I felt myself overcome by a strong sense
of revenge—for my country, for the thousands murdered, and especially for
John. Ever since the attacks, the al-Qaeda leader had been confidently predicting
America’s imminent downfall. Now, bin Laden and his extremist cohorts were
learning that the United States and its broad coalition of allies would not give in
to terrorism so easily. For now, the sheikh still evaded capture, but the tide had
turned. The piles of rubble, the lone wall that remained of a sizable residence,
turned. The piles of rubble, the lone wall that remained of a sizable residence,
the twisted metal of what had once been a staircase, the smattering of air-
dropped leaflets offering twenty-five million dollars for information leading to
bin Laden’s capture, all bore witness to the turn of fortune’s wheel. Back home
in the United States, some political leaders were already talking about
Afghanistan as a future democratic beacon for the region.
In the decade that followed, my life changed utterly. I spent another four
years with the FBI, investigating the 9/11 attacks and other terrorist crimes. I got
married, left the bureau, and eventually became the father of three very energetic
boys. And so it was that, on a Sunday evening in the spring of 2011, I found
myself at home, assembling a pair of swing seats for our newborn twins as the
television chattered away in the background. At around 9:45 pm, a special
announcement broke through the babble: the president would shortly be
addressing the nation. Clearly, something big had happened.
It was 11:35 p.m. by the time President Obama approached a podium in the
East Room of the White House and confirmed to the world that U.S. Navy
SEALs had killed Osama bin Laden. As the president spoke of the people bin
Laden had murdered, of the families bereaved, of the children left fatherless, my
thoughts turned again to John O’Neill and the other friends I had lost along the
way. Near the end of his remarks, Obama said, “Justice has been done.” That
was certainly true, but the ramifications of bin Laden’s demise had yet to play
out. Would the jihadist edifice simply crumble without its keystone? Or would
bin Laden prove more powerful as a martyr than he ever had been as a living
leader? No doubt these questions were on the president’s mind, too. ABC
News’s Martha Raddatz had reported “absolute jubilation throughout
government.” For my part, I could not help but feel more troubled than jubilant.
Emails began flooding my inbox, from friends and colleagues congratulating
me, and from reporters seeking my take on events. An editor from the New York
Times asked if I would put my views in an op-ed for the paper. I sat down to
analyze the situation. I thought of all the dozens of al-Qaeda acolytes I had
interrogated over the years, playing high-stakes games of mental chess with
extremists and murderers for the sake of extracting priceless evidence. They had
pledged bayat to bin Laden, swearing allegiance neither to the office nor the
organization but to the man himself. To whom would zealots such as these now
declare fealty?
Osama bin Laden had been uniquely well equipped to lead the network he
founded. He had walked away from the wealth and luxury of the Saudi upper
crust in order to devote himself to jihad, against the Soviets and then against
America. This personal history helped him in two ways. First, his freely chosen
asceticism helped inspire fanatical devotion among his followers. Secondly, at
the same time, his privileged background endowed him with contacts among
wealthy elites willing to bankroll terrorism. Bin Laden’s death would therefore
leave a gaping hole in al-Qaeda’s recruitment and fund-raising efforts.
It seemed likely that bin Laden’s longtime deputy, Ayman al-
Zawahiri, would be named the new emir. If so, I knew that he would struggle.
To be sure, Zawahiri is clever and strategic. He is, after all, a fully trained
surgeon who honed his militant skills battling the Sadat and Mubarak regimes in
his native Egypt. He is also a zealot of uncompromising brutality, responsible
more than anyone for justifying the tactic of suicide bombing and by extension
for the tragic toll it has taken on innocent Muslims. But for all his intelligence,
his cunning, and his zeal, Zawahiri possesses none of the charisma bin Laden
had. Indeed, his personality has alienated many people over the years. More
importantly still, Zawahiri is an Egyptian. Within al-Qaeda, his appointment
would inflame the already tense internecine rivalry between his countrymen and
the Gulf Arabs who make up the jihadi rank and file.
As an organization, then, al-Qaeda was in deep trouble. But what of bin
Ladenism as an idea? That, I felt, was a different story. I feared that some of the
regional groups that bin Laden had worked so hard to keep in line—like al-
Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), al-Qaeda in
the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), and al-Shabaab in the Horn of Africa—would
split off. They might even intensify their ideology. No doubt they would see the
nascent Arab Spring as an opportunity to impose their ideas on their fellow
Muslims. In the pages of the New York Times I wrote:
[W]e cannot rest on our laurels. Most of Al Qaeda’s leadership council
members are still at large, and they command their own followers. They
will try to carry out operations to prove Al Qaeda’s continuing
relevance. And with Al Qaeda on the decline, regional groups that had
aligned themselves with the network may return to operating
independently, making them harder to monitor and hence deadlier.
It brings me no pleasure to see those premonitions borne out. Al-Qaeda has
indeed fractured into regional units. Zawahiri, the cold bureaucrat, has struggled
to maintain control. Meanwhile, the cancer of bin Ladenism has metastasized
across the Middle East and North Africa and beyond, carried by even more
virulent vectors. Whereas on 9/11 al-Qaeda had around 400 members, today it
has thousands upon thousands, in franchises and affiliates spread from the shores
of the Pacific to Africa’s Atlantic seaboard—and that is without even counting