Holy War, Inc.

Inside the Secret World of Osama bin Laden

Peter L. Bergen

• Publisher: Free Press
• Year: 2001
• Print ISBN: 9780743234955
• eBook ISBN: 9780743234672
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

On September 11, 2001, the world in which we live was changed forever. The twin towers of the World Trade Center came crashing down, one side of the Pentagon burst into flame, and more than six thousand men, women, and children lost their lives in the most deadly terrorist attack on American soil. As shocking as it was, it had been long in the making: The assault was the most sophisticated and horrifying in a series of operations masterminded by Osama bin Laden and his Jihad group -- an organization that CNN's terrorism analyst Peter Bergen calls Holy War, Inc.
One of only a handful of Western journalists to have interviewed the world's most wanted man face to face, Peter Bergen has produced the definitive book on the Jihadist network that operates globally and in secrecy. In the course of four years of investigative reporting, he has interviewed scores of insiders -- from bin Laden associates and family members to Taliban leaders to CIA officials -- and traveled to Afghanistan, Yemen, Egypt, Pakistan, and the United Kingdom to learn the truth about bin Laden's al Queda organization and his mission.
Immense in scope and unnerving in its findings, Holy War, Inc. reveals:

• How bin Laden lives, travels, and communicates with his "cells."
• How his role in the crushing defeat of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan made him a hero to Muslims all over the world -- and equipped him to endure a long and bloody siege.
• How the CIA ended up funding -- to the tune of three billion dollars -- radical, anti-American Afghan groups allied to bin Laden.
• How the attacks that foreshadowed the destruction of the World Trade Center -- among them the bombings of the American embassies in Africa and the warship USS Cole in Yemen -- were planned and executed.
• The dimensions of bin Laden's personal fortune, and why freezing his assets is both futile and nearly impossible.
• The ideology of bin Laden's number two, the man who has influenced him most profoundly in his holy war -- the Egyptian Ayman al Zawahiri.
• What we can expect from Islamist extremists in the future.

Above all, Peter Bergen helps us to see bin Laden's organization in a radically new light: as a veritable corporation that has exploited twenty-first-century communications and weapons technologies in the service of a medieval reading of the Koran and holy war. Holy War, Inc. is essential reading for anyone trying to understand tomorrow's terrorist threats and the militant Islamist movements that could determine the fate of governments -- and human lives -- the world over.
Both author and publisher will donate a portion of the proceeds from this book to United Way's September 11th Fund for the relief of victims of the World Trade Center attacks.

NOTES

Prologue: How to Find the World’s Most Wanted Man

1. John L. Esposito, The Islamic Threat, Myth or Reality? (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992) pp. 49–50.

2. Dr. Saad al-Fagih, interview by PBS’s Frontline, transcript at www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/binladen/interviews/al-fagih.html.

3. Western diplomat, interview by author, Islamabad, Pakistan, September 1998.

4. Kathy Gannon, “Taliban Decrees Rain Down on Kabul Residents,” AP World-stream, March 28, 1997.

5. Ibid.

6. Ahmed Rashid, The Taliban, Islam, Oil and the New Great Game in CentralAsia (New York: I. B. Tauris, 2000).

7. Sir Olaf Caroe, The Pathans (Karachi, Pakistan: Oxford University Press, 1990). In a chapter entitled “The Passing of Alexander,” Caroe suggests that Alexander himself took a route winding through the Katagala Pass in Swat, in what is now Pakistan’s Northern Territories.

8.Newsline, Pakistan, May 1993; John Ward Anderson, “Fortress Fit for King, or Trafficker: Accused Pakistani Drug Baron Flaunts Enclave Near Khyber Pass,” Washington Post, April 29, 1993.

9. Ilyas Moshin, Secretary of the Pakistan Narcotics Control Board, interview with author, Islamabad, Pakistan, August 1993.

10. Rahimullah Yusufzai, interview by author, Peshawar, Pakistan, August 1993.

11. John F. Burns, “Afghan Capital Grim as War Follows War,” New York Times, February 5, 1996.

12. Kamal Matinuddin, The Taliban Phenomenon, Afghanistan 1994–1997 (Pakistan: Oxford Pakistan Paperbacks, 1999).

13. G. Whitney Azoy, Buzkashi: Game and Power in Afghanistan (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982)

14. The Pakistani journalist Rahimullah Yusufzai, who has probably spent more time with the Taliban leadership than any other journalist, says he has heard the story of the battling warlords from many Taliban sources.

15. Matinuddin, op. cit..

16. Michael Griffin, Reaping the Whirlwind: The Taliban Movement in Afghanistan (Sterling, Virginia: Pluto Press, 2001), pp. 40–42.

17. Rahimullah Yusufzai in The News on Friday, Islamabad, Pakistan, March 5, 1995.

18. Suzanne Goldenberg, “News Focus: ‘He Knelt, Aimed His AK-47 at the Shoulder Blades and Fired. The Condemned Man Toppled Over,’ ” The Guardian, September 26, 1998.

19. Ibid.

20. It is interesting that Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world to have the ruling family’s name embedded in its name.

21. Al-Qaeda recruitment videotape, summer 2001; accessed at www.moonwarriors.com. on August 14, 2001.

22. Reuters Newswire, “Israelis Deliberately Shelled Post, UN Says,” May 4, 1996; Marjorie Miller, “U.N. Report Disputes Israel on Shelling,” Los Angeles Times, May 8, 1996.

23. Osama bin Laden interview by Abdel Bari Atwan of Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper, Afghanistan, November 1996.

24. Osama bin Laden interview with Al-Jazeera television, aired June 10, 1999. Transcript at www.terrorism.com/terrorism/binLadi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Colophone
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Note from the Author
• PROLOGUE How to Find the World’s Most Wanted Man
• CHAPTER1 While America Slept
• CHAPTER2 The Afghan Jihad: The Making of a Holy Warrior
• CHAPTER3 Blowback: The CIA and the Afghan War
• CHAPTER4 The Koran and the Kalashnikov: Bin Laden’s Years in Sudan
• CHAPTER5 From the Peaks of the Hindu Kush: The Declaration of War
• CHAPTER6 Investigation and Retaliation: The Embassy Bombings
• CHAPTER7 The American Connection: From Brooklyn to Seattle
• CHAPTER8 True Believers: The Taliban and Bin Laden
• CHAPTER9 The Holy Warriors of Yemen: The Bombing of the U.S.S.Cole
• CHAPTER10 The Global Network: Around the World in Eighty Jihads
• AFTERWORD
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Index
• About the Author