Iran Proxy War Against America

8/14/2019 Iran Proxy War Against America

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i rans Proxy w ar a gainst a merica

Thomas Joscelyn

national security studies

the claremont institute


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what is plain or all to see.Because o our reluctance to con ront this terrorist state openly,

we are losing ground on a vital ront in our war against radicalIslam. Trough care ul analysis o open sources, Joscelyn explainsboth the intelligence establishments misreading o history and thenumerous but un ounded assumptions by todays elite concerningIran and its link to terrorist operations.

One o the most damaging and unwarranted assumptionsmade is that sectarian di erences within Islam should prevent

cooperation in operations against the West. A brie look at theevidence shows that Iran and others have had no trouble in put-ting aside di erences in theology to harm their enemies, especially

America. Speci c links include the Iranian connection to al-Qae-da in the Sudan, a partnership brokered by Hassan al- urabi, one-time leader o Sudans ruling party, the National Islamic Front.Next, there is Imad Mugniyah, Hezbollahs master terrorist, who

helped Osama bin Laden upgrade al-Qaedas capabilities in theearly 1990s. Te 1996 Khobar owers bombing, long suspectedto be the handiwork o Hezbollah under direction rom Iran, may also have had a junior partner in al-Qaeda. Te 9/11 Commissionestablished that the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and

anzania were the work o Hezbollah-trained al-Qaeda operatives.Tere are disturbing signs that may implicate Iran in, at the very

least, acilitating travel or some o the 9/11 hijackers. Finally,there is extensive evidence that Iran aided al-Qaedas retreat rom A ghanistan in late 2001 and has allowed al-Qaeda agents to op-erate rom Iranian soil ever since.

Recognizing this pattern is a prerequisite to restoring a soundpolicy towards Iran. We must be honest about Irans past actionsover the last three decades. We must also publicly investigate Iranand Hezbollahs possible involvement in 9/11 and other al-Qaedaattacks. Evidence not harm ul to current national security assetsor strategy should be declassi ed. We should demand that Iranturn over any al-Qaeda ghters seeking re uge on Iranian soil.Finally, we should set about the business o devising a broad and


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coherent strategy or con ronting Iran. How we go about meet-ing the Iranian threat is open or debate, but we cannot hope toresolve this vital issue by continuing to pretend that Iran does notplay a large role in the terrorists ongoing war against America.

Te American regime has aced down larger and more ormi-dable oes than Iran, Hezbollah, and al-Qaeda. But in an age o increasing technological sophistication, it is irresponsible to sitidly by while threats gather and oreign actors are allowed to carry out acts o war. Te way orward requires prudence, clear strategic

thinking, and statesmanship. Tomas Joscelyns compelling casethat we must rst open our eyes is a vital contribution to what wehope will be a new direction or American oreign policy.

Brian . Kennedy President, Te Claremont Institute

September 11, 2007


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1. BLIND SPO

On the morning o September 11, 2001, America awoke to an

enemy she hardly knew. Osama bin Laden had declared war on America years be ore. His network o terrorists had carried out,or attempted, scores o attacks on American interests around theglobeincluding some inside the continental United States. Formost Americans, however, al-Qaedas terror was something thathappened over therein the Middle East, A rica, Southeast Asiaor some other ar away land. Tat all changed when our com-mercial airliners were turned into weapons o mass murder in New

York, Washington, and Pennsylvania.In the years since, America has scrambled to learn about an en-

emy capable o striking her political and economic nerve centers.In the process, many misconceptions have been shed. Initially, orexample, it was thought that bin Laden unded his terror empireout o a large $300 million inheritanceOsamas cut o his athersSaudi construction conglomerate. As it turned out, bin Ladens per-sonal wealth was greatly exaggerated. While bin Laden is certainly a wealthy man, his amilial stipend was only $1 million per year, or

ar less than the amount required to und al-Qaedas operations. Inreality, al-Qaeda is unded by a complicated web o Islamic chari-


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7irans proxy war against america

ties and illicit activities.1 Another early myth concerned bin Ladens lair in A ghanistan.

Less than three months a ter 9/11, the press reported that bin Lad-en was sequestered inside a high-tech bunker in the impenetrablemountains o A ghanistan. Bin Ladens hideaway was supposedly equipped with hydroelectric power, a ventilation system, and otheramenities. But as Edward Jay Epstein has pointed out, the JamesBond-like complex was a ctoid.2 Outside the minds o a ew

journalists and one dubious source, it never existed.

While these myths have been dispelled, others remain. No allacy today is more misguided or more dangerous than the widespreadbelie that Iran, the worlds premier state sponsor o terrorism, andal-Qaeda are not allies in the terrorists war against the West. A corollary myth holds that HezbollahIrans terrorist proxy andthe A-team o international terrorist organizationshas also notallied itsel with al-Qaeda.3 Both memes are rooted in the belie

that religious and ideological di erences preclude sustained coop-eration between the Shiites o Iran and Hezbollah, and the Sunniso al-Qaeda.

A July 2006 cover story in ime magazine titled Why the Mid-dle East Crisis Isnt Really About errorism illustrates just how entrenched these belie s have become.4 A war was then raging be-tween the major Palestinian terrorist groups (backed by Iran) and

Israel. But ime sought to distance the con ict rom Americas waron terror. In the wake o 9/11, ime explained, President George W. Bush declared that the war on terrorism would not be limitedto al-Qaeda, but would extend to every terrorist group o globalreach. ime conceded that Irans Hezbollah can certainly be saidto t in that category. Given Americas limited resources, however,it may make sense to limit our hit list to the groups that actually threaten us. And Hezbollah does not now do that. Te articlealso admitted that there may have been some cooperation betweenHezbollah and al-Qaeda at some point in the past, but the twogroups certainly arent allies. Te magazine denounced the Bush

Administrations connect the dots approach to terrorism, which


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8national security studies

only con used our enemys identity. And while America may havediverse interests in the region, such as protecting her ally Israel inthe war against Hezbollah, many o them have nothing to do withglobal terrorism. ime concluded, Five years into [the war onterror] a lot o Americans are understandably perplexed about just

what it is.On that last score, the magazine got it very right. Articles like

ime s cover story have certainly sown a lot o con usion. On nearly everything else, however, it could not have been more wrong.

But ime is not alone. Six years a ter 9/11, the consensus among Americas most in uential counterterrorism analysts is that Iranand its terrorist appendages have had little to do with al-Qaeda.Long ago the U.S. intelligence community came to believe thatal-Qaeda posed a new threat, comprised o loosely afliatedextremists bound solely by ideology and lacking any signi cantstate backing. Whereas it was previously believed that terrorism

was the provenance o state actors, in the 1990s a hand ul o counterterrorism ofcials serving on President Bill Clintons Na-tional Security Council and in the U.S. intelligence community came to believe that al-Qaedas terrorism was substantively di -

erent.For example, Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, who both

served on Clintons National Security Council, assert in their

widely acclaimed book Te Age o Sacred error : Tere is still little evidence that state sponsors [o terrorism] like Iraq or Iranprovided al-Qaeda with meaning ul assistance.5 For the or-mer Clinton NSC sta ers, such support would not be consistent

with the caution ehran has displayed in selecting terrorists tosponsor.6

Paul Pillar, ormerly one o the CIAs chie counterterrorismanalysts, holds the same opinion. While he concedes that Iran hasplayed a prominent role in omenting Palestinian terrorism, Pillarbelieves Iran has reduced its involvement in other orms o terror-ist activity.7 For Pillar, Iran has not played a major rolei any atallin al-Qaedas rise.


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Kenneth Pollack, who is also a ormer CIA analyst and NationalSecurity Council sta er, and whose work on Iran has earned wide-spread currency, likewise dismisses the idea that Iran and al-Qaedahave colluded in any signi cant way. Pollack believes the evidencetying Iran to al-Qaeda adds up to mere irtation. In his book,Te Persian Puzzle , Pollack surmises that the Iranians have enoughstored hatred or al-Qaeda that it seems unlikely they would orgea strategic alliance with themunless the United States launched a

ull-scale assault on Iran.8

Tus, the conventional wisdom has settled: Iran and al-Qaedaremain antagonistic orces that can only be united by Americanprovocation. Answering al-Qaedas challenge is a discrete issue,separate rom Irans misdeeds. It would be a mistake, there ore, or

Americas leaders to con ate the two. Tese ardent oes o Americahave little, or nothing, to do with each other.

Some experts go even urther and deny not only any relationship

between Iran and al-Qaeda but even deny Iranian actions againstthe U.S. According to ormer Clinton Administration ofcials,Iran stopped sponsoring anti-American terrorism in June 1996,a ter the Iranian-sponsored attack on the Khobar owers apart-ment complex in Saudi Arabia. Richard Clarke and Steven Simon,

or example, claim that the U.S. intelligence community was ableto scare Iran out o the anti-American terrorism business through

covert action.9

Kenneth Pollack agrees. InTe Persian Puzzle , he writes: o our knowledge, Iran has not attacked us again, directly or indirectly, since.10 Tus, the dominant school o thinking inside

Americas oreign policy establishment and intelligence community is that Iran has not been an active participant in the terrorists waragainst America since the mid-1990s.

Te acts, however, tell a di erent story. Indeed, six years intothe war on terror, America has no bigger blind spot. Te purposeo this essay is to expose this ongoing intelligence ailure.

Te Khomeini cult that rules Iran today has been openly at war with America since 1979. Incredibly, America has never respond-ed. Ruled by a clerical regime conceived with the goal o bringing


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Death to America, ehran has orchestrated spectacular terror-ist attacks against the U.S. or decades. (A timeline o Irans anti-

American terrorist activities is included as an Appendix.)Many o the operations have been carried out by the regimes

terrorist proxies. Hezbollah, a terrorist group based in Lebanon with a worldwide reach, was the pioneer o terrorism against theU.S.11 Te Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, a group o anaticsloyal to Irans hardliners, has also played a substantial role in carry-ing out the regimes deadly designs around the globe. And through

these intermediaries, Iran has allied with terrorists o all stripes,including al-Qaeda.

In act, contrary to widespread opinion, Iran has been a vital ally or bin Ladens international terrorist organization. Te evidence is

overwhelming. Te bulk o this essay presents that evidence underthe ollowing broad categories:

Outside the Box

It is requently argued that ideological di erences preclude sus-tained cooperation between the Shiites o Iran and the Sunnis o al-Qaeda. Te undamental split between their competing ver-sions o Islam, caused by a medieval disagreement over the properline o succession rom the Prophet Mohammed, is thought to be

insurmountable. Tis belie stems not rom an in-depth knowl-edge o Islams history, but rom a deep ignorance o our terroristenemies. In act, Iran has consistently allied itsel with ideologi-cally diverse players throughout the Middle East and the world,including prominent Sunni Muslim terrorist organizations. Whenit comes to con ronting the West, the leading Sunni terrorists havealso proven to be remarkably tolerant o their Shiite brethren.

Melting Pot o error

O Irans Sunni allies, one is noteworthy above all others: Has-san al- urabi. During the 1990s, al- urabi was the de acto leader


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o Sudans ruling party, the National Islamic Front. In the wake o the rst Gul War, he sought to unite the Muslim world againsta common oe: the United States o America. In the process, al-

urabis Sudanthen the worlds only Sunni Islamist stateorged a strategic alliance with Iran. Al- urabi also played host to

the worlds leading terrorist organizations, including Osama binLadens al-Qaeda and Irans Hezbollah. In 1991, bin Laden andal-Qaeda relocated to Sudan rom their sa e havens in A ghanistanand Pakistan. It was during bin Ladens time in Sudan that al-Qae-

da evolved rom an A ghani-based insurgency group into an inter-national terrorist empire. As part o al- urabis grand vision, Iran,Sudan and al-Qaeda began jointly exporting terrorism around theglobe. Tey were united by the common goal o driving Americaout o the Middle East.

A Match Made in Hell

It was during bin Ladens time in Sudan that he rst met ImadMugniyah, Irans and Hezbollahs master terrorist. Since the early 1980s, Mugniyah has been implicated in most, i not all, o Iransmajor anti-American terrorist operations. His accomplishmentsinclude the in amous 1983 U.S. embassy bombing in Beirut and aseries o devastating ollow-on attacks, which drove the U.S. out o

Lebanon. During the early 1990s, bin Laden sought and receivedMugniyahs assistance in trans orming al-Qaedas capabilities. WithMugniyahs help, al-Qaeda acquired Hezbollahs most lethal tactics,including the use o suicide bombers.

Khobar owers: A Joint Operation?

In June 1996, Hezbollah terrorists, acting under direct ordersrom senior Iranian government ofcials, bombed the Khobarowers apartment complex in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. Te build-

ing housed American service men and women responsible ormaintaining the no- y zones over Saddam Husseins Iraq. Tere


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has never been any serious dispute over Irans role. What is rarely acknowledged, however, is that there are also good reasons to sus-pect that bin Ladens terrorists were also involved in the attack.

Mugniyahs Fingerprints: al-Qaedas August 1998 Embassy Bombings

While there remains some uncertainty concerning the attack onKhobar owers, Irans and Hezbollahs involvement in al-Qaedasmost success ul attack prior to 9/11 is clear. According to al-Qaedas

own terrorists, Hezbollah trained the al-Qaeda operatives respon-sible or the August 7, 1998, U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and

anzania. Tere is even evidence that Iran provided al-Qaeda witha large amount o explosives used in the attack. oday, Iran contin-ues to harbor some o the terrorists responsible.

See No Evil: Iran and 9/11

Te most disturbing evidence tying Iran to al-Qaeda are reportsthat suggest possible cooperation on the September 11 attacks.Longtime CIA eld operative Bob Baer, who had tracked Mugni-yah or more than a decade, immediately suspected that Iransmaster terrorist had played a role. wo years a ter Baer rst pub-lished his suspicions, the 9/11 Commission uncovered evidence o

Mugniyahs and Irans complicity. Shortly be ore the Commissionsnal report was to be published, the Commissions sta uneartheda cache o documents demonstrating that Hezbollah and Iran had

acilitated the hijackers travels. Te Commission le t the matteropen or urther investigation, but more than three years later nosuch inquiry has been launched.

Al-Qaedas Great Escape

As American orces invaded A ghanistan in late 2001, Iran as-sisted the ight o hundreds o high-level aliban members andal-Qaeda terrorists through western A ghanistan into Iran. Many


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o them still reside in Iran today. Among the al-Qaeda terroristsstill in Iran are Sai al-Adel, the man thought to be al-Qaedas thirdhighest ranking leader, and Saad bin Laden, Osamas son. FromIranian soil, they have continued to order terrorist attacks. Otherevidence points to Irans assistance or al-Qaeda operatives whoeventually ed to Iraq as well.

Te war on terror is ar rom over. While America dealt al-Qaedaa heavy blow in the months immediately ollowing the 9/11 at-tacks, the terrorist organization has regroupedwith Iranian help.

It would be a crucial mistake or Americas leaders to continue pre-tending that Iran plays no role in al-Qaedas operations. Tis paperculminates in a set o ve key recommendations. First and ore-most, American policymakers need to recognize and deal with therealities o Irans persistent assault. We cannot hope to win this war

without rst acknowledging Irans attacks on Americans aroundthe globe.


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2. OU SIDE HE BOX

I ask my Muslim brothers in general and the callers and Muja-hideen and their media organizations in particular to highlight the concept o Islamic brotherhood and disown all partisanship,loyalties and animosities based on nationalism, and I ask themnot to allow the wrongdoing o a action or entity motivate themto speak evil o that partys entire people or race.

Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in a videotaped mes-sage released February 20071

Many terrorism analysts maintain that Irans Shiites and al-Qae-das Sunnis could not possibly overcome the historical enmity be-tween their competing brands o Islam.2 Tus, even though bothparties have long shared the same list o enemiese.g., America,Israel, and Hosni Mubaraks Egyptian regimesustained coop-eration is thought to be impossible. Tis line o thinking is ram-

pant inside the U.S. intelligence community and among Americascounterterrorism experts.

Te terrorists America con ronts today, however, do not behavelike textbook automatons. Te crude caricatures o Shiites and Sun-


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nis many pre er are not accurate renderings o reality. A better way to think about our enemies has been put orth by Michael Ledeen,a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a long-time ex-pert on Middle Eastern terrorism. Ledeen has likened our oes toma a amilies.3 Sometimes they eud over localized tur disputes,but when con ronted by an outside enemy they are certainly ca-pable o lethal collusion. Another use ul analogy has been proposedby the ormer CIA director James Woolsey. Woolsey, unlike many o his ormer colleagues in the U.S. intelligence community, has

long argued that terrorists sometimes engage in joint ventures.4In his view, terrorists and their allies can and do pool their resourc-es, similar to the way corporate competitors sometimes do, in orderto accomplish common goals. Competition or supremacy in onearea does not preclude cooperation in others.

Either way o characterizing Americas terrorist enemies is help-ul when considering Irans history o sponsoring Sunni terrorist

groups. Iran has not in exibly allowed ideological or religious di -erences to rule out any alliance with or aid to a terrorist group.Shiites are a religious minority in the Islamic world, accounting oronly 1 out o every 10 Muslims. Given this demographic disadvan-tage, the Khomeini cult long ago recognized the limits o its power.I Iran were to enter alliances strictly on ideological grounds, thenit would quickly nd itsel severely outnumbered.

ehran has there ore joined orces with diverse parties through-out the Middle East.5 Irans decades-long alliance with the Assadamilys secular, Baathist regime in Syria is sufcient to disprove the

thesis that ideological or intra-Muslim religious concerns trumpall else. In act, the mullahs have sponsored terrorists o all stripes,

rom secular Marxists to Sunni Islamists, in Algeria, Egypt, unisia,urkey, Somalia, Southeast Asia, Sudan, the Palestinian-controlled

territories, and Iraq. Common interests, such as the overthrow o secular Arab regimes, have requently been sufcient to unite Iran

with even the most ervent Sunni Islamist terrorist groups.Te Muslim Brotherhood, the ideological mother or most

Sunni terrorist groups, including al-Qaeda, has also consistently


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crossed ideological boundaries in order to urther its broader goals.Established in Egypt in 1928 by an Arabic language teacher namedHassan al-Banna, the Muslim Brotherhoods goal is to reclaimIslams mani est destiny and to re-establish the Islamic empire,

ounded in the seventh century, which stretched rom Spain toIndonesia.6 Importantly, al-Bannas radical vision included a place

or Islams Shiite minority.For al-Banna, the di erences between Sunnis and Shiites paled

in comparison to the di erences between Muslims and the West. In

the 1940s, he joined a group o preeminent Islamic scholars in call-ing or Sunnis and Shiites to set aside their di erences.7 Accordingto al-Banna, Islams enemies sought to exploit its internal rivalries.I Muslims were to reclaim their right ul mantle, then they wouldhave to overcome their doctrinal di erences. Al-Bannas heirs evenallied the Muslim Brotherhood with a prominent Iranian Shiitescholar named Nawab Sa awi. A ter the pro-Western Shah came to

power in 1953, al-Bannas students invited Sa awi to a con erencein Egypt. Te Shiite cleric was hoisted upon their Sunni shouldersand hailed as one their leaders.8

As the Khomeini cult rose to power in Iran in 1979, radical Sun-ni Islam gained strength in Egypt. wo major Sunni Islamist ter-rorist groups grew out o al-Bannas Muslim Brotherhood: ShaykhOmar Abd al-Rahmans Gamaat al-Islamiyya (the Islamic Group,

or IG) and Ayman al-Zawahiris Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ). Botho these groups drew inspiration rom the Iranian revolution. AsIslamist ervor gripped Egypt, pictures o Khomeini were promi-nently eatured throughout the nation.9 Te IG and the EIJ voicedtheir support or the Iranian revolution and objected to the Egyp-tian governments endorsement o the deposed Shah. For the SunniIslamists o Egypt, the success o the Khomeini revolution gavethem hope that they too could depose a secular government andinstall a radical Islamic regime. In 1981, the EIJ and IG conspiredto assassinate Anwar Sadat, the secular president o Egypt.

Ayman al-Zawahiri, who led the uprising against Anwar Sadatsregime and would later go on to become al-Qaedas number two,


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used the Iranian revolution as model or his own endeavors. InTe Looming ower , investigative journalist Lawrence Wright explainsthat al-Zawahiri planned a coup in Egypt in 1990. Zawahiri hadstudied the 1979 overthrow o the Shah o Iran, Wright explains,and he sought training rom the Iranians. In exchange, al-Zawa-hiri o ered the Iranians sensitive in ormation about an Egyptiangovernment plan to storm several islands in the Persian Gul thatboth Iran and the United Arab Emirates lay claim to.10 Te Ira-nians paid al-Zawahiri $2 million or the in ormation and trained

his operatives or the coup attempt, which was ultimately aborted. Another o al-Bannas ideological heirs, Yasser Ara at, was an on-

again, o -again ally o Iran. Ara at joined the Egyptian MuslimBrotherhood at a young age. Even though he is widely thoughto as a secular leader, Ara at never abandoned his Islamist roots.He requently peppered his rhetoric with Islamist phrases and slo-gans and maintained close ties to Palestinian radical Islamists. Even

be ore Khomeinis cult rose to power, Ara ats Palestinian Libera-tion Organization (PLO) allied with the Ayatollah. During theearliest stages o the Iranian revolution, Ara ats operatives trainedKhomeinis terrorist orces.11 Teir relationship lasted or decades.One o Ara ats most trusted bodyguards, Imad Mugniyah, even

went on to become Irans chie terrorist.Iran has consistently backed the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a Sun-

ni Islamist terrorist group.12

And the history o still another Pales-tinian terrorist group, Hamas, demonstrates just how easily ideo-logical di erences and even contests or regional hegemony can beoverlooked in avor o shared interests. Like Ara at, Hamas has adeep and longstanding connection to al-Bannas Egyptian MuslimBrotherhood. Hamass 1988 covenant explicitly de nes the groupas one o the wings o Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine. At vari-ous times since its ounding, Hamas has received nancial supportand other aid rom Saudi Arabia, Saddam Husseins Iraq, and Iran.

All three o those states have opposed or warred with each otherthroughout their recent history, yet they ound common cause

with Hamas in opposition to Israel.13


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Iran has long unded and trained Hamass terrorists. And inmore recent years, Hamas has drawn even closer to ehran. A terHamas won control o the Palestinian Authority (PA) in January 2006, Western countries (led by the U.S.) threatened to cut o thePAs United Nations unding. Iran stepped in to save Hamas by pledging its nancial assistance. Irans supreme leader, the Ayatol-lah Khameini, publicly called on all Muslim nations to express theirsolidarity with Hamas against the occupier regime o Israel.14

In sum, history is replete with examples o Iran allying with

Sunni terrorist groups. Sunni terrorists, including al-Qaedas own Ayman al-Zawahiri, have also proven willing to seek Irans support

or their endeavors. Te assumption that Shiites and Sunnis are in-capable o cooperation is alseas are the corollaries that al-Qaeda

will not work with Iran, or that Iran never supports Sunni terror.But o all Irans Sunni allies, one individual played an especially prominent role in bringing together Iran and al-Qaeda: Sudans

Hassan al- urabi.


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3. MEL ING PO OF ERROR

America incarnates the devil or Muslims. When I say Muslims,I mean all the Muslims in the world.

Hassan al- urabi, a close ally o Saddam Husseins Iraq,the mullahs Iran, and Osama bin Ladens riend and one-time bene actor, as quoted in an interview with the AssociatedPress (1997)

Tere is no better example o how easily Americas terrorist en-emies have overcome ideological di erences than the alliance be-tween Sudan and Iran in the 1990s. It would not be an overstate-ment to say that the strategic partnership between the two terror-ist sponsoring states, one Sunni and the other Shiite, altered thecourse o history. It was in Sudan in the early 1990s that al-Qaedasterrorist network took shape. And to understand how Iran playedan integral part in the rise o bin Ladens terrorist empire, we must

rst consider the vision o an apocalyptic Islamist revolutionary named Hassan al- urabi.1

Like other prominent Islamists, al- urabi received a secular edu-cation that seemed to prepare him or a prosperous career. Born


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in 1932, he studied law at the University o Khartoum, then atthe University o London and, nally, at the Sorbonne in Paris.But a ter leaving Paris and returning to Sudan in the mid-1960s,he joined a subsidiary organization o the Muslim Brotherhoodand quickly became one o its most prominent leaders. By thattime, al-Bannas society o Muslim Brothers had spread not only throughout Egypt and across its southern border into Sudan, butalso around the globe.2

A ter tensions arose between the Sudanese government and the

Muslim Brotherhood in the late 1960s, al- urabi was arrested andspent much o the next decade in prison, and then in exile. Hereconciled with the Sudanese government in 1979 and returned tobecome the countrys attorney general. In the early 1980s he wasinstrumental in establishing a strict version o shariain parts o thecountry, complete with exceedingly harsh punishments or evenmenial crimes.

Civil war plagued Sudan throughout the 1980s and powerchanged hands several times. In 1989, al- urabi, along with the cur-rent Sudanese president General Omar al-Bashir, staged a coup thatbrought their National Islamic Front to power. Al- urabi was ree tocreate the type o radical Islamist state he had always envisioned.

Multilingual, charismatic, and Western-educated, al- urabi wasadept at eigning approval or a tolerant version o Islam in the

company o Western journalists and oreign dignitaries. He re-quently claimed to believe that women deserved a greater degreeo equality throughout the Muslim world and that democracy wasnot inconsistent with the undamental teachings o the Koran. Des-perate or an in uential partner in the Muslim world, Westerners

were initially ooled by al- urabis rhetoric. In the early 1990s, theVatican reached out to al- urabi as a potential partner in mediat-ing disputes between the Christian and Muslim worlds. In October1993, al- urabi visited Pope John Paul II in Rome.3 Washington,too, was ooled. Al- urabi was invited to speak at an in uential

Washington-based think tank and even be ore Congress.4But al- urabis sel -avowed moderation was a ruse, a veil cover-


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ing his deeper, more radical belie s. In reality, he believed in theinevitability o a Manichean clash between Islam and the orces o evil, represented by Western civilization. As he made clear, what-ever the West will do, Islam will still ultimately overcome.5 Andearly in his tenure as the new leader o Sudan, al- urabi was a -

orded a unique opportunity to bring his designs to ruition. Al- urabis rise to power coincided with an event that sent

shockwaves throughout the Islamic world: the rst Gul War. Forthe West, the war was ought to reverse an unjust conquest that

threatened oil supplies and destabilized the Middle East. But thatis not how the war was perceived by many undamentalist Muslimsand on the so-called Arab street. For many in the Muslim world,the war represented a Western invasion and occupation o Islamsholy soil and its holiest shrines in Mecca and Medina. Tat U.S.

Air Force bases were stationed ar away rom Islams spiritual cen-ters and no armed Americans ever stepped oot inside Muslim holy

sites did not matter. Te presence o Western armies in Arabia wassimply an abomination to many Muslims.Te Saudi royal amilys decision to allow American orces on the

Arabian Peninsula would undamentally change the region. Islamicclerics immediately debated the decision. Saudi-backed clerics, atthe behest o their patrons, issued atwas (holy edicts) justi ying thepresence o American orces. Other clerics throughout the region

denounced the move and oreswore the Saudi petrodollars that hadbeen their li eblood; the thought o Christian crusaders in Arabia was simply too much or them to bear.

Te legitimacy o the Saudi royal amily, which had success ully ended o a Shiite claim to their thrown by squashing a Shiite in-

surrection in 1979, was once again drawn into question. But thistime Saudi legitimacy was being questioned even by some o themost zealous Sunni Wahhabis, including Osama bin Laden andhis Arab A ghans, who had traveled rom their home countriesthroughout the Middle East to A ghanistan to ght against the So-viets during the 1980s. Al- urabi used the wave o anti-Saudi andanti-Western sentiments to orge a new terrorist alliance, with bin


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Ladens al-Qaeda as its spearhead. Indeed, the story o al-Qaedastrans ormation rom an A ghani-based insurgency group into aninternational terrorist empire begins in al- urabis Sudan.

In April 1991, only weeks a ter the conclusion o the Gul War,Hassan al- urabi began hosting the Popular Arab and Islamic Con-

erence. Te con erence was a direct challenge to Saudi Arabiastraditional role as the Islamists patron and Sudan continued tohost the con erence semi-regularly throughout the 1990s. (Bagh-dad and ehran held similar con erences as well.) Te purpose o

the con erence was to unite all MuslimsShiite and Sunni, secu-lar and Islamistunder a single anti-Western banner. Only in thismanner could the Islamic community orce the oreign crusaders

rom Muslim soil. Writing about the rst such con erence inForeign A airs , Judith

Miller explained that its purpose was to aid al- urabis long-stand-ing goal o overcoming the historic ri t between Sunni Muslim

states, like Sudan, and a Shiite state, like Iran.6

Like his ideologi-cal ancestor Hassan al-Banna, al- urabi believed that the histori-cal di erences between Sunnis and Shiites were not part o Islam.7

According to Miller, he also used the con erence to use ormerly secular Arab nationalist movements [like the Baathist movement inIraq and Syria], which have dominated Arab politics . . . with theincreasingly more seductive and in uential groups espousing the

new Islamic rhetoric.8

Te con erence ushered in al- urabis open door policy or all Arabs and Muslims and his Sudan quickly became a terrorist incu-bator. Representatives rom almost every Middle Eastern-based ter-rorist group set up shop, including Hezbollah, Hamas, PalestinianIslamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and the Abu Nidal Organization (long-sponsored by Saddams Iraq). Several o the various constituencies

which would become part o what we now know as al-Qaeda,including bin Laden himsel , also established a presence. Hundredso the Arab A ghans relocated rom A ghanistan to their new homein Sudan.

Al- urabis hospitality to all o these parties earned him the title


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Te Pope o errorism in the European press and, in short order,his terrorist coalition began to wreak havoc. Governments all overthe A rican continent were invaded. Algeria, Egypt, Uganda, Eri-trea, and Ethiopia as well as several other A rican nations routinely complained o al- urabis in uence over Islamist radicals withintheir borders.9 Numerous bombings and assassination attempts allled back to Khartoums conspicuous guests. For example, terror-ists receiving Sudanese assistance attempted to assassinate EgyptsHosni Mubarak in Ethiopia in June 1995.10

Al- urabis new terrorist network even managed to strike at theheart o America. On February 26, 1993, terrorists detonated amassive truck bomb under the World rade Center. Te attack killed six people and wounded hundreds more. A ollow-up attack against major landmarks in New York City was planned as well,but was oiled by the FBI. Te terrorists involved in both had nu-merous ties to al- urabis Sudan.11

Te cornerstone o al- urabis new terrorist coalition was hisnations relationship with Iran. Te two countries worked handin glove to export terrorism. AsTe New York imes explained in

January 1992, al- urabis Sudan and the mullahs Iran were or-chestratingthe spread o undamentalism to the moderate Arabcountries and the rest o A rica. Sudan was an ideal springboard

or Islamic undamentalism in Arab countries and A rica. Al-

though Sudans economic disarray would normally disquali y itas the springboard or anything, al- urabi solved this problem by bringing in the Iranians, who are helping out on many ronts, romoil to military training.12

An anonymous senior Clinton Administration ofcial explainedIrans reasoning behind the relationship toTe New York imes in

August 1993: ake out a map and look at it. From the Iranianpoint o view, Sudan is strategically located: south to A rica, northand west to Egypt and North A rica. It gives the Iranians a strategictoehold, which can help promote its revolutionary cause in Algeria,Egypt, unisia, Sudan itsel and south.13 Another New York imes piece in June 1993 placed terrorism at the heart o the strategic


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alliance.14 Iran was training Sudanese and Arab undamentaliststo orm vanguard Muslim militias. Experts warned that severalhundred Iranian Revolutionary Guards [IRGC] have located them-selves in a score o training camps throughout the Sudan. TeIRGC was using Sudan as a bridge in an e ort to export Islamicrevolution to countries o the Middle East, particularly those ruledby secular, pro-Western governments like that o Egypts PresidentHosni Mubarak.15

Majid Kamal, the Iranian ambassador to Khartoum, oversaw

Irans terrorist orces in Sudan. According to the State Department,he was involved in the takeover o the U.S. Embassy in ehranin 1979 and played a leading role in developing Hezbollah in the1980s.16 By 1995, the IRGCs ranks in Sudan had swelled romseveral hundred to several thousand terrorists. Roughly a third o them were the ambassadors colleagues rom Hezbollah.17

In short order, these Hezbollah and IRGC terrorists began

working with al-Qaeda and its Sunni allies. Tey made topplingthe Egyptian regime o Hosni Mubarak a top priority. In the early 1980s, radicals associated with the two leading Egyptian terroristgroups, the Islamic Group and Egyptian Islamic Jihad, attemptedto overthrow Egypts ruling secular government. But a ter the as-sassination o President Sadat in 1981, hundreds o radicals were

jailed and a decade o relative quiet ensued. In the early 1990s,

with help rom Iran, Sudan, and bin Laden, the two terrorist orga-nizations suddenly made a comeback.18 Dozens o terrorist attacksonce again rocked Egyptian society.

In April 1993, President Mubarak warned then-CIA director James Woolsey about Irans hand in the surge in Egyptian terror-ism. Mubarak reportedly told Woolsey that Iran was directly in-volved in omenting the violence.19 Iran, Mubarak said, was usingSudanese soil to train the terrorists. Egypt also accused Iran o ille-gally shipping weapons across Egypts southern border with Sudan.Tat same year, Egypt cut o all diplomatic relations with Iran inprotest. Troughout the 1990s, Egypt repeatedly accused Iran, Su-dan, and bin Laden o jointly sponsoring the IG and the EIJ.20


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Several important points should be noted here. First, both theIG and the EIJ are among bin Ladens strongest allies and al-Qae-das most vital afliates. Both were signatories to bin Ladens Feb-ruary 1998 mani esto calling or jihad against the West. And noone today would seriously question Ayman al-Zawahiris (the EIJsleader) role as al-Qaedas second highest ranking terrorist. TatIran was working directly with both groups in the early 1990satime when bin Ladens new terrorist venture was rst being or-mulatedshould give anyone wishing to dismiss the possibility o

collusion between Iran and al-Qaeda pause. A ter all, i Iran was willing to work with these al-Qaeda allies against one common en-emy, Egypt, then why would ehran re rain rom working togetheragainst the country Iran considers its greatest enemy?

Second, the Iran-Sudan-al-Qaeda axis armed not only Egyptianterrorists, but also Sunni terrorists throughout the Middle Eastand A rica. O particular note is their support or Algerian Isla-

mists who were involved in an especially bloody civil war duringthe 1990s. Te Algerian government, similar to Mubaraks Egypt,repeatedly accused Iran and Sudan o arming Islamic radicals benton acquiring power.21 And, similar to their Egyptian counterparts,

Algerian radicals went to Sudan to receive training in Irans terror-ist camps. Bin Laden also took an interest in Algerias Islamists by establishing an al-Qaeda cadre there.

Tird, and most important, Sudan provided ertile ground orterrorist cross-breeding. Te thousands o Hezbollah terrorists whorelocated to A ricas largest nation (by area) worked closely not only

with al-Qaedas afliates but with bin Ladens inner-circle as well.By the early 1990s, thanks to al- urabi, al-Qaeda, Iran, and Hez-bollah had entered into a terrorist joint venture. As the Clinton

Administration charged in the rst ederal indictment o bin Ladenand al-Qaeda:

Al Qaeda orged alliances with the National IslamicFront in the Sudan and with the government o Iran andits associated terrorist group Hezbollah or the purpose


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o working together against their perceived common en-emies in the West, particularly the United States.22

At the heart o this alliance lies the relationship between binLaden and the man who can rightly be regarded as the pioneer o Islamist terrorism: Imad Mugniyah.


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4. A MA CH MADE IN HELL

Hezbollah may be the A- eam o errorists and maybe al-Qae-da is actually the B team.

Former Deputy Secretary o State Richard Armitage

O all the terrorists who visited bin Laden in Hassan al- urabisSudan, one stands out above all others: Imad Mugniyah. Years be-

ore Osama bin Laden became a household name, Mugniyah wasthe worlds most lethal terrorist.

As a young man in the mid 1970s, Mugniyah joined Yasser Ara-ats Force 17, a terrorist organization then dedicated to protecting

the PLOs chairman and to assassinating senior Israeli politicians.Mugniyahs ruthless skill quickly gained him notoriety, and in shortorder he was coordinating terrorist operations with Ara ats new ally: the mullahs o Iran. Shortly a ter Iran established Hezbollah

as its Lebanese-based terrorist proxy in the early 1980s, Mugniyahbecame the chie o its international terrorist operations. Prior to9/11 he would kill more Americans than perhaps any other terror-ist.


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America was introduced to Mugniyahs terror on April 18, 1983, when a van packed with explosives bombed the United States Em-bassy in Beirut, Lebanon. It was the rst Islamist suicide attack against an American target. Months later, on October 23, 1983,Mugniyahs operatives simultaneously detonated truck bombsagainst a residence or French paratroopers and the U.S. Marinebarracks in Lebanon. It was the rst coordinated, simultaneous Is-lamist terrorist attack against multiple targets. Combined, the twoattacks killed more than 300 Americans.

Several months later, Mugniyah would add to his resume thekidnapping, torture, and murder o William Buckley, the CIAs sta-tion chie in Beirut. In June 1985, Mugniyahs operatives hijacked

WA Flight 847. When the hijackers demand or the release o more than a dozen Iranian-backed terrorists was not met, Mugni-yahs goons beat and shot U.S. Navy Serviceman Robert Stethem,a passenger on the ight. o recount the details o Mugniyahs ca-

reer ully would take volumes. No nation has been able to stophis string o hijackings, kidnappings, bombings, and assassinationsagainst Western and Israeli citizens. His operations continue to thisday.

America has never known quite what to do about Mugniyah.On at least a ew occasions authorities have reportedly tried to cap-ture him, but those e orts were hal -hearted at best. It was only a -

ter the September 11 terrorist attacks that Mugniyah was added tothe FBIs list o most wanted terrorists. But the $5 million rewardor his capture is certainly not commensurate with the turmoil and

death he has caused. Americas European allies have shown even lessresolve in dealing with Mugniyah. In 2005, or example, Germany released rom jail one o his accomplices in the WA hijacking.

Mugniyahs hand in al-Qaedas rise is rarely mentioned. Bin Lad-ens al-Qaeda was built to wage a guerilla campaign against Soviet

orces in A ghanistan. Initially, the organization lacked the typeo terrorist know-how that would make its attacks against West-ern societies lethal. Mugniyah changed that. Te best evidence o Mugniyahs role in al-Qaedas evolution comes rom two al-Qaeda


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operatives who testi ed during the trial o the terrorists responsibleor the August 7, 1998, embassy bombings: Ali Mohamed and Ja-

mal al-Fadl. Ali Mohamed was one o Ayman al-Zawahiris most trusted

agents. In the late 1980s, al-Zawahiri tasked Mohamed with in l-trating American society. Mohamed succeeded. He became a sup-ply sergeant in the U.S. Armys elite Green Berets, while at the sametime he hosted television shows that explained his version o Islamto ellow servicemen. Amazingly, Mohamed bounced back and

orth between his duties in the Army and running sensitive mis-sions or al-Qaeda, including the training o bin Ladens personalsecurity detail and scoping targets or uture terrorist attacks.1

During the embassy bombings trial, Mohamed admitted to con-spiring with al-Qaeda in the attacks, and in other terrorist activi-ties. He also provided startling details on the collaboration betweenHezbollah and al-Qaeda:

I was aware o certain contacts between al Qaeda and[Egyptian Islamic] al Jihad organization, on one side,and Iran and Hezbollah on the other side. I arrangedsecurity or a meeting in the Sudan between Mugniyah,Hezbollahs chie , and bin Laden.

Hezbollah provided explosives training or al-Qaeda

and al Jihad. Iran supplied Egyptian Jihad with weap-ons. Iran also used Hezbollah to supply explosives that were disguised to look like rocks.

According to Mohamed, al-Qaeda sel -consciously modeled it-sel a ter Hezbollah: Mugniyahs group success ully drove the U.S.out o Lebanon in 1984 with a series o attacks, and al-Qaedasought to orce the same type o retreat rom the Middle East.

Mohamed elaborated:

I was involved in the [Egyptian] Islamic Jihad organiza-tion, and the Islamic Jihad organization has a very close


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link to al-Qaeda, the organization, or bin Laden. Andthe objective o all this, just to attack any Western targetin the Middle East, to orce the government o the West-ern countries just to pull out rom the Middle East. . . .

Based on the Marine explosion in Beirut in 1984 [sic :1983] and the American pull-out rom Beirut, they willbe the same method, to orce the United States to pullout rom Saudi Arabia.

Jamal al-Fadl had been a trusted con dant o bin Laden be orestealing money rom al-Qaedas co ers. In his testimony, Al-Fadldescribed a meeting between a Sudanese scholar named Ahmed

Abdel Rahman Hamadabi, an Iranian Sheikh named Nomani (who was an emissary o the mullahs), and senior leaders o al-Qaeda:

Q: What happened when Sheikh Nomani came to theguesthouse in Riyadh City?

A: In ront there they sit down and some o the high-er membership, they got meeting and talking with theSheikh Nomani and Hamadabi.

Q: Was Bin Laden there?

A: Yes.

Q: Can you tell us what was discussed at that meeting?

A: Tey [Nomani and Hamadabi] talk about we have tocome together and we have to orget the problem betweeneach other and each one he should respect the other because our enemy is one and because there is no reason to fght eachother.

Q: Who did they describe the enemy as being? A: Tey say westerns . [sic ] (Emphasis added)

errorism expert Rohan Gunaratna explains that the meeting


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mentioned by al-Fadl was chaired by Osama and was the rst ina series between Al Qaeda and Iran on the one hand and Al Qaedaand Hezbollah on the other. Te meetings were not low-level a -

airs. Sheikh Nomani had an ofce in Khartoum as a representa-tive o the Iranian government. Nomani had access to the highestechelons o power in ehran.2

According to Gunaratna, al-Qaeda had practical objectives orthe meetings. Bin Laden wanted his organization to learn how tomake large explosive devices capable o bringing down large build-

ings. According to the 9/11 Commission, the discussions in Sudanled to an in ormal agreement to cooperate in providing supporteven i only training or actions carried out primarily against Israeland the United States.3 As a result, senior al Qaeda operatives andtrainers traveled to Iran to receive training in explosives.4 Anoth-er delegation traveled to the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon or urthertraining in explosives as well as intelligence and security in the all

o 1993.5

Several o the al-Qaeda terrorists who received this train-ing would go on to become bin Ladens most trusted leaders.Mugniyah did more or al-Qaeda than just train them to make

bombs. Gunaratna explains the wide-ranging impact o Mugniyahon bin Ladens al-Qaeda network in his seminal book,Inside Al Qaeda:

It was Mughniyeh who inspired Osama to developcoordinated, simultaneous attacks as a regular modusoperandi, and this has been the hallmark o most subse-quent Al Qaeda operations, including 9/11 and the East

A rica bombings.Mughniyeh, who was especially close to the Iranians,

helped Al Qaeda to develop its agent-handling systems,having specialized in conducting long-range operationsincluding the suicide bombing o the Jewish community center and the Israeli consulate in Buenos Aires in 1992and 1994 respectively. Both Hezbollah trainers and ex-perts rom Irans Ministry o In ormation and Security


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trained Al Qaeda ghters in Sudan (in existing Al Qaedaacilities), Lebanon (in Hezbollah camps) and Iran (in

ofcially run bases). Terea ter Al Qaedas modus ope-randi came to resemble closely that o Hezbollah.

It would not take long or al-Qaeda to put this expertise to use.On November 13, 1995, two explosions, roughly ve minutesapart, rocked a Saudi National Guard training acility in Riyadh.Te acility was one o several at which Americans trained their

Saudi counterparts to de end their country against potential Iraqiattacks. Te explosions killed ve Americansincluding one U.S.soldier and our civiliansand wounded dozens o others. Te at-tack was among al-Qaedas earliest inside the Saudi Kingdom andit shocked the Saudi royal amily. Just a ew months earlier, binLaden had openly threatened King Fahd with terrorist attacks in-side his Kingdom. Now the Saudis knew he was not only serious,

but that he had the capability.Less than one week later, on November 19, 1995, an al-Qaedabomb struck the Egyptian embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan. Al-Qaeda had now demonstrated the ability to hit hard targets sepa-rated by thousands o miles within days o each other.

Tere is evidence that Mugniyah played a direct role in the at-tack on the Egyptian Embassy. According to the CIAs Bob Baer,

shortly a ter the attack American intelligence learned that Mugni-yahs deputy had provided a stolen Lebanese passport to one o the planners o the bombing. Al-Qaeda and Mugniyah stayed incontact a terwards as well. Six months later, Baer explains, we

ound out that one o bin Ladens most dangerous associates wascalling one o Mugniyahs ofces in Beirut.6

Nor was that the end o the contact between al-Qaeda and Mugni-yah. From June 21-23, 1996, Iran hosted a terrorist summit very similar to those hosted by urabi in Khartoum. Among the attendees

were representatives o the major Palestinian terrorist groups as wellas a leading Kurdish terrorist group. But the three most conspicu-ous terrorists in attendance were Mugniyah, a representative o bin


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Laden named Muhammad Ali Ahmad, and Ahmad Salah o Aymanal-Zawahiris Egyptian Islamic Jihad.7 Te three terrorists agreed to

work together under Irans direction to attack American interests.In Why America Slept , investigative journalist Gerald Posner o -

ers details about the con erence and the pact to con ront America.During the con erence, it was announced that there would be in-creased attacks against U.S. interests, especially in the Persian Gul region. And to oversee those attacks, the con erence establisheda Committee o Tree, under the chairmanship o Iranian exter-

nal intelligence chie Mahdi Chamran. Posner interviewed a CIA counterintelligence ofcer who told him that Langley did not in l-trate the con erence but did obtain summary reports a ter payingsomeone who had been there. However, the reports did not arriveat the CIAs eld station in Asia until weeks a ter the con erence.8

By then it was too late.


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5. KHOBAR OWERS: A JOIN OPERA ION?

My Muslim Brothers o Te World: Your brothers in Palestine and in the land o the two Holy Places are calling upon your helpand asking you to take part in fghting against the enemyyour enemy and their enemythe Americans and the Israelis. Tey are asking you to do whatever you can, with ones own means and ability, to expel the enemy, humiliated and de eated, out o the sanctities o Islam.

Osama bin Laden, in his in amous atwa, Declaration o War against the Americans Occupying the Land o the woHoly Places, August 19961

On June 25, 1996two days a ter Irans terrorist summit end-eda team o Mugniyahs Hezbollah terrorists detonated a truck bomb inside the Khobar owers housing complex in Saudi Arabia.Te Americans living at Khobar were responsible or maintaining


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the no- y zones over Iraq. Nineteen U.S. servicemen were killed inthe attack and hundreds o others were wounded.

Amazingly, the CIA had known months be orehand that Iran was casing U.S. acilities around the globe. A January 1, 1996CIA report noted that numerous incidents o probable Iranian-sponsored surveillance o U.S. persons and acilities overseas werereported during 1995.2 Te CIA nonetheless downplayed the evi-dence o Irans mal easance. Although the in ormation collectedcould acilitate uture planning o terrorist operations, the CIA

concluded, the surveillance by Irans agents probably was a mattero intimidation rather than planning or terrorist attacks. Te CIA explained:

Te obvious nature o the surveillanceespecially theuse o Iranian diplomatic vehiclessuggests that theUnited States is intended to see it. ehran may be try-

ing to signal its displeasure with Washingtons policy onIran and to demonstrate Irans reach. Te blatant tech-niques...are not characteristic o the care ul methods Iranhas generally used when planning actual operations.

It is not clear i the CIA knew that the Iranians were casing tar-gets in Saudi Arabia. Nonetheless, a ter the Khobar owers attack,

it was certainly clear that they were planning actual operationsand not just trying to signal their displeasure with the U.S. Butnot only did Americas intelligence agencies ail to stop the bomb-ing, President Clintons administration also ailed to hold Iran ac-countable a ter the act.

Te initial investigation into the bombing was stymied by theSaudis who eared that an American reprisal against Iran might

urther destabilize their kingdom. Te Clinton Administration, orits part, was more interested in eckless diplomacy with Iran thanin bringing justice to the murdered Americans.3 Somewhat naively,President Clinton even sent a letter to Iranian president Moham-mad Khatami asking or help in the probe three years a ter the


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attack.4Not until June 2001 were the perpetrators o the attack nally

indicted and Irans hand ofcially acknowledged by the U.S. Gov-ernment. Te Khobar owers indictment cites numerous con-nections between the attackers, the Saudi branch o MugniyahsHezbollah, and the Iranian government. wo o the attackers, orexample, received military training rom the Iranian governmentin southern Iran and others were trained in Iranian Revolution-ary Guard camps in the early 1990s. Prior to the strike, another

terrorist received a phone call rom an Iranian government of-cial asking how the surveillance was progressing.5 wo ofcers inIrans Ministry o Intelligence (MOIS) were named as unindictedco-conspirators.6 In 1994, the IRGCs Qods Force directed the cellto begin surveillance o American targets and in 1995 they beganto reconnoiter the Khobar owers.7

But there is more to the story. Although no one seriously dis-

putes that the attack was orchestrated by the Iranians, there is alsoevidence that al-Qaeda may have played a role.Certainly, the attack t both groups goals and modi operandi.

As noted above, according to Bob Baer, Hezbollah had assisted al-Qaedas plot to destroy the Egyptian Embassy in Islamabad monthsearlier. Te attack on Khobar was another type o operation thatIran, Hezbollah, and al-Qaeda had a common interest in execut-

ing. Tey all hoped to drive America out o the Middle East, just asHezbollah and Iran had driven America out o Lebanon in 1984.Indeed, Mugniyah, bin Laden, and a representative o Ayman al-Zawahiri reportedly renewed their commitment to work togetheron this objective just days be ore the attack on Khobar.

Moreover, during the summer o 1996 bin Laden became in-creasingly vocal in his opposition to the Saudi royal amily and itsrelationship with America. Tat year, a ter the bombing, he issuedhis rst declaration o war on America. What happened in Riyadhand [at Khobar] when 24 Americans were killed in two bombingsis clear evidence o the huge anger o Saudi people against America.Te Saudis now know their real enemy is America.8


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Te State Department took notice o bin Ladens increasingly hostile rhetoric. A July 18, 1996, report by Foggy Bottoms analystscharacterized recent press interviews with bin Laden as revealingan increasingly con dent militant leader. Bin Ladens willing-ness to speak more openly to the press about his militant oppo-sition to the Saudi regime and the West, States analysts wrote,suggest more a man emboldened by recent events, whether or nothe was involved in them. Furthermore, Bin Ladens rhetoric raisedthe possibility that he may have played a role in the June Khobar

owers bombing.9Te State Department was not alone in surmising that bin Lad-

en and his network might have played a role in the Khobar owersattack. Within weeks o the bombing, the CIA produced a reporttitled, Khobar Bombing: Saudi Shia, Iran, and Usama Bin Ladin

All Suspects.10 However, uncertainty lingered or years. By 1999,the Clinton Administration had accumulated rock solid evidence

o Irans hand in the attack, but re used to hold Iran accountable.11

Bin Ladens role was le t an open question. An investigation into bin Ladens ties to the Khobar owers attack

was le t to the 9/11 Commission, which reported some new evi-dence while re raining rom drawing any rm conclusions. Whilethe evidence o Iranian involvement is strong, the 9/11 Commis-sions report reads, there are also signs that al-Qaeda played some

role, as yet unknown.12

Te Commissions Sta Statement No. 15provided more details. In addition to the strong evidence o Iransrole:

Intelligence obtained shortly a ter the bombing, how-ever, also supported suspicions o Bin Ladens involve-ment. Tere were reports in the months preceding theattack that Bin Laden was seeking to acilitate a ship-ment o explosives, to Saudi Arabia. On the day o theattack, Bin Laden was congratulated by other memberso [al-Qaeda].


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Among the al-Qaeda operatives o ering bin Laden congratula-tions was the man who would become his number two, Aymanal-Zawahiri.13

A little more than one week a ter the September 11 attacks, an-other connection between al-Qaeda and the Khobar owers bomb-ing was reported in Te New York imes . Anonymous Americanofcials told the imes that one o the terrorists responsible or

nancing the 9/11 hijackers, Mamoun Darkanzanli, took part ina 1996 attack on government troops in Saudi Arabia.14 Te only

such attack in 1996 was the one on Khobar.15 Whether or not al-Qaeda played any speci c role in the Khobarowers bombing, Iran continued to work with al-Qaeda through-

out the 1990s. Even a ter bin Laden relocated to A ghanistan, orexample, al-Qaeda remained in requent contact with Iranian of-cials. As the 9/11 Commission reported: Intelligence indicates thepersistence o contacts between Iranian security ofcials and senior

al Qaeda gures a ter Bin Ladens return to A ghanistan.16

Indeed,rom the middle o 1996 until 1998, 10% o bin Ladens satellitephone calls went to Iran.17 In addition to these electronic commu-nications, bin Laden also continued using his personal emissariesto explore collaboration with Iran on uture attacks. A little morethan one month a ter the Khobar owers attack, one o bin Ladensclose con dants was already setting up uture meetings with the

Iranians.18

And more than two years a ter the Khobar owers attack, Iranplayed an unambiguous role in al-Qaedas most success ul attack prior to 9/11: the August 7, 1998, embassy bombings.


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6. MUGNIYAHS FINGERPRIN S:HE 1998 EMBASSY BOMBINGS

When you start orti ying your embassies it becomes very attrac-tivethe Americans have made themselves very attractive targets.Probably [bin Laden] would try to mobilize riendsex-A ghan

fghters rom Arab countriesand try to hit back against the Americans, anywhere.

Hassan al- urabi, ollowing the August 7, 1998 embassy bombings1

On the morning o August 7, 1998, twin truck bombs simulta-neously exploded in Kenya and anzania, hundreds o miles apart.More than 250 people were killed and thousands more were injured.

It was al-Qaedas most success ul operation prior to September 11.Images o the carnage in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam sent shock-

waves around the world. Bin Ladens minions had executed or at-tempted scores o attacks be ore, but nothing nearly on the scale


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o the embassy bombings. For the rst time, al-Qaeda displayed analarmingly advanced capability. Indeed, as the 9/11 Commission

would explain years later:

Te period a ter the August 1998 embassy bombings was critical in shaping U.S. policy toward Bin Ladin. Although more Americans had been killed in the 1996Khobar owers attack, and many more in Beirut in1983, the overall loss o li e rivaled the worst attacks

in memory. More ominous, perhaps, was the demon-stration o an operational capability to coordinate twonearly simultaneous attacks on U.S. embassies in di er-ent countries.2

Al-Qaeda acquired this operational capability, in large part, with assistance rom Iran and Hezbollah.

It does not require an active imagination to see the parallels be-tween the August 1998 embassy bombings and Hezbollahs attackson the U.S. Embassy and other targets in the early 1980s. Te

weapon o choice (suicide truck bombs), method o execution (si-multaneous attacks), and choice o targets (American diplomatic

acilities) all exactly match Hezbollahs and Mugniyahs modus ope-randi. As discussed above, bin Laden had asked Hezbollah or its

assistance in developing these same capabilities or al-Qaeda, andHezbollah obligeda act cited in the Clinton Administrationsindictment o the al-Qaeda terrorists responsible or the embassy bombings.3

Al-Qaeda is nothing i not patient. Some o its most spectacularattacks were preceded by years o meticulous preparation. Indeed,the legwork or the embassy bombings began as early as December1993.4 Al-Qaedas prep team was led by Ali Mohamed, the sameman who had handled security or the meeting between Mugniyahand bin Laden in the early 1990s. In January 1994, Bin Ladenreceived his rst surveillance reports, complete with diagrams pre-pared by the teams computer specialist.5 Te 9/11 Commission


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urther explained:

Al Qaeda had begun developing the tactical expertiseor such attacks months earlier, when some o its op-

erativestop military committee members and sev-eral operatives who were involved with the Kenya cellamong themwere sent to Hezbollah training campsin Lebanon.6

Tat is, Mugniyahs Hezbollah trained the al-Qaeda cell in Ke-nya responsible or destroying the American embassy there. TeCommission drew this conclusion largely rom the testimony o the U.S. governments two star witnesses at the embassy bombingstrial.

In particular, Jamal al-Fadl told prosecutor Patrick Fitzgeraldthat he personally knew o several al-Qaeda associates who were

trained by Mugniyahs Hezbollah. One exchange in his testimony is especially noteworthy:

Q: Did you ever speak to anyone who received any train-ing rom anyone who was a Shia Muslim?

A: Yes.Q: Who did you speak to?

A: Abu alha al Sudani and Sai al Islam el Masry. . . .Q: What did Sai al Islam El Masry tell you?

A: He say they go to south Lebanon to got training withthe Shiites over there.Q: Did he indicate what Shia group in south Lebanonprovided the training?

A: I remember he told me its called Hezbollah.Q: What did Abu alha tell you?

A: Abu alha, he tell me the training is very good, andhe bring some tapes with him.Q: Did Abu alha tell you what was on the tapes he


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brought back? A: I saw one o the tapes, and he tell me they train about how to explosives [sic] big buildings.(Emphasis added.)

Big buildings like the embassies in Kenya and anzania.Te terrorists named by al-Fadl were not low-level unkies. Near-

ly all o them went on to prominent positions within al-Qaeda. Sai al-Islam el Masry, or example, was a member o al-Qaedas majlisal-shura, or consultation council. Abu alha al-Sudani is accused o

acting as the nancier or the embassy bombings. And later on in histestimony, al-Fadl named another al-Qaeda terrorist who receivedHezbollahs training and who would become especially notorious:Muhamad Ibrahim Makkawi, otherwise known as Sai al-Adel.

Al-Adel has been tied to a litany o al-Qaedas attacks, includingthe embassy bombings and 9/11.7 Al-Adels diary was captured ina raid in Saudi Arabia a ter 9/11 and it reveals that he had an inti-

mate knowledge o the 9/11 plot.8

Shortly a ter 9/11, al-Adel roseto the rank o al-Qaedas military chie a position thought to bethird in al-Qaedas hierarchy, behind only Ayman al-Zawahiri andbin Laden himsel .9 When American-led orces invaded A ghani-stan in 2001, al-Adel ed to Iran. He is protected by the Iranianregime to this day. (Al-Adels sa e haven in Iran is discussed urtherbelow.)

errorism expert Rohan Gunaratna has provided additionaldetail connecting Iran to al-Qaedas embassy bombing teams. Inaddition to developing this capability [to attack multiple targetssimultaneously] with Iranian assistance, Gunaratna explains, AlQaeda also received a large amount o explosives rom Iran that

were used in the bombing o the East A rican targets.10 A U.S.intelligence ofcial has con rmed Gunaratnas claim. According tothis ofcial, the U.S. Intelligence Community obtained reportingthat demonstrated Iran did, in act, supply al-Qaeda with explo-sives used in the attack.

Tus, we know the ollowing: Hezbollah trained the al-Qaedaterrorists responsible or the embassy bombings and to this day


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Iran harbors at least one o the key terrorists involved in the op-eration. In addition, there is evidence that Iran supplied a largeamount o explosives used in the attack. Yet, remarkably, mostanalysts still maintain that Iran and al-Qaeda have had nothing todo with one another.

Tis conventional wisdom was always based more on Westernassumptions than on the actual evidence. For example, a ter theembassy bombings, the Clinton Administration investigated theties between al-Qaeda and possible state sponsors. InTe Age o Sa-

cred error , Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon explain that Tequestion nagged: how could any group execute such a pair o at-tacks without the help o a state sponsor?11 Richard Clarke, theNational Security Councils chie terrorism ofcial, assigned oneo his directors to review every piece o intelligence that hintedat any connection whatsoever between al-Qaeda and its afliatesand either Iran or Iraq, the two leading state sponsors o terrorism.

When the printer nished spitting out intelligence reports, thestack o paper was three eet high. In its pages there was plenty o smoke but no smoking gun.

Te collected reports demonstrated, or example, that al-Qaedasoperatives were openly living in Iran. But this was explained away.Among counterterrorism experts there was a presumption that theauthorities in ehran were surveilling the Sunni radicals, Benja-

min and Simon argue, so that the mullahs could know what theirguests up to and not because Iran was actively assisting them. Insumming up, Benjamin and Simon retreat to an old meme: thesplit between Sunni and Shiite runs so deep that Muslims whobelieve as bin Laden does regard Shiites as either heretics or notMuslims at all.

Te evidence strongly indicated that Iran and Hezbollah wereplaying a leading role in al-Qaedas terror. Tose who were respon-sible or de ending America against her terrorist enemies simply

chose not to see it.


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7. SEE NO EVIL: IRAN AND 9/11

Did Osama bin Laden act alone, through his own Al Qaedanetwork, in launching the [September 11] attacks? About that I am ar more certain and emphatic: no.

Bob Baer, a ormer CIA eld operative, describing Hezbol-lahs assistance o al-Qaeda in his 2002 book See No Evil 1

Later in our inquiry, we received a report that Iran may have acilitated the passage o some o the 9/11 hijackers, or instance by not stamping their passports; we did not fnd that Iran had

oreknowledge o or participated in the 9/11 conspiracy.

9/11 Commissioners Tomas Kean and Lee Hamilton,

writing in their 2006 book Without Precedent: Te Inside Story o the 9/11 Commission2


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By all accounts, Bob Baer has led a remarkable li e. For decades,he was one o Americas ew success ul intelligence operatives in theMiddle East. As a case ofcer in the CIAs Directorate o Opera-tions in the Middle East, his work took to him to such terroristhavens as Hassan al- urabis Sudan, Iranian strongholds in Leba-non, and also northern Iraq. Baer retired rom the CIA in 1997and in 1998 he received Langleys Career Intelligence Medal witha citation noting: He repeatedly put himsel in personal danger,

working the hardest targets, in service to his country.3

In 2002, Baer published a scathing attack, aptly titledSee NoEvil , on the intelligence bureaucracy he had once served. Motivatedby the September 11 attacks, Baer o ered his unique insight intohow an agency built to prevent surprise attacks like Pearl Harborhad ailed so miserably. Te attitude o senior ofcials didnt help.Baer recounts how he learned secondhand that one o the agencyshighest ranking ofcers believed that when the dust nally clears,

Americans will see that September 11 was a triumph or the intel-ligence community, not a ailure. o which Baer responded: I thats going to be the ofcial line o thinking at the agency charged

with manning the ront lines in the war against the Osama binLadens o this world, then I am more than angry: Im scared todeath o what lies ahead.4

Baers most startling argument inSee No Evil is that Osama bin

Ladens al-Qaeda did not act alone on September 11, 2001. He ar-gues that Imad Mugniyahs Hezbollah and its Iranian sponsor alsoplayed a role.5 Baer does not o er any speci c evidence o Iranianinvolvement in the September 11 attacks, but the investigation was

just beginning when See No Evil was published. Nevertheless, theauthors deduction was an in ormed one.

Baer tracked Mugniyah on and o since the 1980s. He had goodcontacts in Hezbollahs Lebanese base, so much so that he even setup shop in Beirut a ter retiring rom the CIA. For years, he patient-ly collected evidence on the bombings o the U.S. Embassy and theMarine barracks in 1983. Te CIA would have likely ailed to piecetogether the precise details o those plots without Baers dogged e -


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orts. Responsibility or the 1983 bombings was initially claimedby an enigmatic group calling itsel the Islamic Jihad Organization.It took years or Baer to determine that the group was really a ront

or Irans Hezbollah. Baer eventually amassed overwhelming evi-dence that the bombings were Mugniyahs handiwork. Tanks toBaers work, as well as other evidence collected, Mugniyahs role inthose bombings is not seriously disputed in the counterterrorismcommunity today.

Tis same determination later led Baer to pursue the possibil-

ity that Mugniyah and Iran had a role in bin Ladens terror. Asdiscussed above, Baer learned that one o Mugniyahs deputies hadprovided a stolen Lebanese passport to an al-Qaeda agent respon-sible or the November 1995 bombing o the Egyptian Embassy inIslamabad. Months later, Baer also ound that one o bin Ladensmost dangerous associates was calling one o Mugniyahs ofces inBeirut.6

Even be ore I le t the CIA in late 1997, Baer writes, we hadlearned that bin Laden had suggested to the Iranians that they droptheir e orts to undermine central Asian governments and instead

join him in a campaign against the United States.7 He learned, too,that in July 1996 bin Ladens allies, the Egyptian Gamaat [the Is-lamic Group], had been in touch with Mugniyah. Elsewhere, Baerhas reported that there is incontrovertible evidence o a meeting

between bin Laden and a representative o the Iranian Ministry o Intelligence and Security (MOIS) in 1996.8Based on these threads o evidence, and his decades-long experi-

ence tracking Irans master terrorist, Baer concluded that Mugni-yah and Iran must have played a role in the September 11 attacks.

Although he does not say so inSee No Evil , Baer may have beenstruck by the manner in which the strikes were carried out. Allthe hallmarks o Mugniyahs terror were present. Decades earlier,Mugniyah had per ected the use o suicide bombers in the rstsuch attacks against Americans. Irans master terrorist also habitu-ally hijacked Western aircra t or two decades.

Indeed, Baers instincts were uncanny. More than two years a ter


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See No Evil was published, the 9/11 Commission uncovered evi-dence implicating Mugniyah and Iran. Yet, incredibly, Irans masterterrorist is not even named in the Commissions nal report.

Just one week be ore the 9/11 Commission wrapped up its work,the Commissions sta uncovered evidence which had previously escaped its attention.9 Troughout much o the Commissions in-vestigation, CIA analysts maintained that there was no substan-tive relationship between the Shiite regime in Iran and bin LadensSunni al-Qaeda. Te evidence, however, demonstrated that or the

better part o a decade the CIA had been collecting reports o col-laboration between the two sides. One analytic summary o thesereports, entitled Old School ies, discussed al-Qaedas links toIran during bin Ladens time in al- urabis Sudan.10

Te last minute discovery o the evidence tying Iran to al-Qaedaprevented the Commission rom ully investigating the leads orgiving them proper prominence within the report. Nonetheless,

some startling ndings were included. Evidence demonstrated that8 to 10 o the 14 Saudi muscle operatives traveled into or out o Iran between October 2000 and February 2001.11 Not only didthese hijackers use Iran as a transit hub, Hezbollah ofcials actively assisted their movements. Te Commission reports that a seniorHezbollah ofcial traveled to Saudi Arabia in October 2000 tocoordinate activities there. Tat same ofcial planned to assist

individuals in Saudi Arabia in traveling to Iran during November.Indeed, Ahmed al-Ghamdi, one o al-Qaedas hijackers aboardUnited Airlines Flight 175, and the Hezbollah terrorist shared a

ight rom Saudi Arabia to Beirut in November. Although the 9/11Commission ails to name him, various sources have con rmedthat the senior Hezbollah ofcial was, in act, Mugniyah.12

Te omission o this name in the Commissions report seemsinexplicable, last minute discovery or no. Mugniyah is perhaps the

worlds most accomplished terrorist, whose list o American victimsis second only to bin Ladens. Moreover, i Mugniyah was involvedin 9/11, thenquite obviouslyso were his Iranian masters. Ei-ther way, it is highly likely that Hezbollahs senior leaders were at


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least aware o the travels o several o the hijackers. Te 9/11 Com-mission noted: Hezbollah ofcials in Beirut and Iran were expect-ing the arrival o a group during [October and November o 2000].Te travel o this group was important enough to merit the atten-tion o senior gures in Hezbollah.

Tere is more. Te Commission ound a urry o evidence in-dicating that Hezbollah had coordinated the travels o at least sev-eral other 9/11 hijackers. Some o them, like al-Ghamdi, traveledto Iran through Hezbollahs home tur Lebanon. In November

o 2000, Salem al-Hazmi, who was part o the American AirlinesFlight 77 hijack team, traveled to Beirut. Tat same month, threeother hijackersWail al-Shehri, Waleed al-Shehri, and Ahmed al-Namiall traveled rom Saudi Arabia to Beirut and then on toIran. One o Mugniyahs associates even accompanied them on theBeirut-to-Iran leg o their trip. Other ights taken by the hijackersoriginated in Iran or ended there. wo o the hijackers ew rom

Iran to Kuwait in November and two others, Satam al-Suqami andMajed Moqed, ew to Iran rom Bahrain. Al-Qaeda hijacker Kahl-id al-Mihdarwho the CIA had witnessed at an al-Qaeda plan-ning session in January o 2000may have taken a ight romSyria to Iran, and then traveled urther in Iran to a point near the

A ghan border in February 2001.Since the 9/11 Commission could not interview the hijack-

ers themselves about their travels, the commissioners wanted toquestion the ringleaders in American custody. But the CIA re usedto allow commissioners or sta to interview any o the al-Qaedaagents in CIA custody. Instead, as Edward Jay Epstein rst pointedout, the commissioners re erred this deeply troubling matter back to a CIA project manager, who returned an answer just in timeto be included in the 9/11 Commissions nal report.13 Te CIA tried to assuage any concerns over Iranian involvement by relyingon al-Qaedas supposed denials. Both Khalid Sheikh Mohammed(KSM), the plots mastermind, and Ramzi Binalshibh, al-Qaedaspoint man or the 9/11 plot, con rmed that several o the 9/11hijackerstransited Iran on their way to or rom A ghanistan, tak-


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ing advantage o the Iranian practice o not stamping Saudi pass-ports. But they deny any other reason or the hijackers travelto Iran. In addition, Tey also deny any relationship betweenthe hijackers and Hezbollah.14 Te commissioners were, or themost part, satis ed, concluding that they ound no evidence thatIran or Hezbollah was aware o the planning or what later becamethe 9/11 attack. But they le t the topic at least nominally open:We believe this topic requires urther investigation by the U.S.government.15

Yet there is already enough evidence to suggest that KhalidSheikh Mohammeds and Ramzi Binalshibhs denials are not cred-ible. Binalshibh, in particular, has ties to Iran that the Commissiondid not explore.

A native o Yemen, Binalshibh rst applied or a U.S. visa in1995.16 His application was denied so he relocated to Germany,

where he sought asylum claiming that he was a re ugee rom

urabis Sudan. His asylum request was denied, but he eventually was granted a German visa. While living in Hamburg, Binalshibh joined one o al-Qaedas two main European cells responsible orthe September 11 attacks. In an interview that was broadcast onal-Jazeera in 2002, Binalshibh claimed that he and other memberso his Hamburg cell rst traveled to A ghanistan or training in1999. During his training in A ghanistan, Binalshibh and his el-

low terrorists pledgedbayat , or an oath o loyalty, to bin Laden.17

U.S. intelligence also believes that it was during this trip that theSeptember 11 plan was rst mentioned to the Hamburg plotters.Binalshibh and his cell then returned to Germany and began mak-ing their preparations to in ltrate America. Binalshibh never wasgranted an American visa, so he could not take part in the actualhijackings. But he still played an instrumental role in coordinatingthe attacks, acting as an intermediary between al-Qaedas seniorleadership, including the September 11 mastermind Khalid SheikhMohammed, and the hijackers. On numerous occasions he wiredcash to the uture hijackers. And in July 2001 he met Mohammed

Atta (and possibly some others18) in Spain to nalize the details o


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the plot.Tese acts are well established and not disputed. Binalshibhs

travels to Iran, on the other hand, have received scant attention. InDecember 2000, as reported by Newsweek , Binalshibh applied ora our-week visa at the Iranian Embassy in Berlin. On his hand-

written application, Binalshibh checked a box indicating that thepurpose o his visit was or tourism or pilgrimage to one o Iransholy sites. One question on the application asked, I you are pass-ing through Iran in transit have you obtained entry visa or your

next country o stay? Binalshibh replied that he had not.19Te Iranians granted Binalshibhs visa request. On January 31,

2001 he landed at ehran International Airport. Te German in-vestigators who uncovered Binalshibhs trip know little about histime in Iran; why he went, who he met with, and whether or nothe went on to A ghanistan to meet al-Qaedas senior leadershipall remain a mystery. Binalshibh did not return to Germany until

nearly one month later, on February 28, 2001.Six days be ore the 9/11 attacks Binalshibh returned to ehran.20 Tis preemptive ight rom Hamburg is consistent with al-Qaedasstandard operating procedures. An al-Qaeda cells point man istrained to ee his temporary host country immediately prior toa particularly important attack. By thus disappearing, the opera-tive hopes to avoid a speedy arrest and to make the post-attack

investigation more difcult. Te tactic requently works. Indeed,Binalshibhwho would most likely have been scooped up quickly by German authorities had he remained in the countrywas notarrested until one year later on September 11, 2002.

More in ormation on Binalshibhs travels to Iran sur aced duringthe trials o his Hamburg accomplices. According to John Crewd-son o theChicago ribune , Shadi Abdallah, a ormer bodyguard

or Osama bin Laden, met Binalshibh during his time in A ghani-stan. Abdallah testi ed in a German court that Binalshibh toldhim o requent visits to Iran using a alse Iranian passport.21 Te

ribune also reported that another Hamburg associate, a Syriannamed Mohammed Zammar, who personally recruited several o


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parent, are among them. Press reports over the last several yearshave repeatedly mentioned al-Qaedas presence on Iranian soil.2 Itis o ten alleged that the al-Qaeda operatives are under some ormo house arrest. According to this argument, the Islamic republicconsiders the al-Qaeda terrorists inside Iran to be bargaining chips

with the West and speci cally the United States.3Such thinking is awed or a variety o reasons. It ignores the

substantial pattern o cooperation discussed above; it ignores evi-dence that Iran actively acilitated al-Qaedas and the alibans re-

treat rom A ghanistan; and it ignores evidence that Iran is com-plicit in al-Qaedas ongoing terror operations.

As American-led orces began the invasion o A ghanistan in Oc-tober 2001, al-Qaeda and the aliban government, led by MullahOmar, desperately sought avenues or retreat. Some o al-Qaedasoperatives returned to their home countries throughout the MiddleEast, where they hoped to avoid detection. Some ed to Pakistans

dense urban areas. Te 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Moham-med, or example, disguised his appearance and settled in Karachi,Pakistan, where he was later arrested. Other al-Qaeda operatives,

with their aliban allies, settled in the mountainous region separat-ing A ghanistan and Pakistan, an area the Pakistani governmentcannot or will not control, pre erring instead to make deals withlocal chie tains, many o whom are riendly with aliban and al-

Qaeda gures.4

Still others escaped to Iran with ehrans help.Iran and the aliban had long been at odds; the two regimes evennearly went to war just a ew years prior to 9/11. Te aliban ex-ecuted several I

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Iran Proxy War Against America