BIN LADEN, THE MADE-TO-ORDER ENEMY

As in the JFK assassination, on the day of the 9/11 attacks authorities had a suspect even before anyone knew for certain what had happened. He was identified as Osama bin Laden, the son of a wealthy Saudi Arabian family and a man who during the Russo-Afghan War of the 1980s received arms and financing from the US government.

Despite the fact that bin Laden repeatedly denied knowledge of the attacks, he was presumed guilty by both the government and the press. No other interpretation of the attack was allowed in the corporate mass media. Bin Laden was a made-to-order enemy. He is the man blamed for the 1993 WTC attack, and the bombing of American embassies in Africa in 1998, and had been a fugitive from US justice for more than a decade. No one might ever have heard of Osama bin Laden if President Bill Clinton had not fired missiles indiscriminately into Afghanistan in an attempt to kill him in 1998.

Bin Laden's history is relatively nondescript yet fascinating as an example of a piously religious man being drawn into a world of geopolitics and murder. A lengthy biography of bin Laden was presented by PBS’s Frontline that relied in part on a document that the show's editors said came from an anonymous source close to bin Laden. They added that while some of the information could not be independently verified and even ran contrary to other sources, the document nevertheless was “a very useful source of information.” The document seemed to be a fairly accurate and somewhat sympathetic biography of bin Laden.

According to this document, bin Laden was born in 1957 to a Syrian mother. He was the seventh son of more than fifty brothers and sisters. His father, Mohammed Awad bin Laden, had immigrated to Saudi Arabia in about 1930, where he worked as a laborer in the port city of Jeddah on the Red Sea. During the post-World War II reign of King Ibn Saud, the founder of modern Saudi Arabia, the elder bin Laden gained a fortune by constructing the king's palaces. He impressed the king and began to build good relations with the royal family, especially Faisal, who took the throne when his brother, King Saud IV, was forced to abdicate in 1964. The elder bin Laden reportedly played a role in convincing Saud IV to step down in favor of Faisal. For his support, Faisal issued a decree that all construction projects would go to bin Laden. This included contracts to restore the holy mosques in Mecca and Medina, the most venerated of Muslim shrines.

According to the PBS document, the elder bin Laden was a stern disciplinarian who kept his children in one location and instilled in them strict business and religious mores. To his credit, the father reportedly showed no difference in the treatment of his vast brood. During the Haji holy season, the elder bin Laden spent his construction company wealth on funding the travels of many Islamic leaders and scholars. Through the father's generosity, the son made many long-lasting friendships.

Mohammed Awad bin Laden died in a 1968 plane crash when Osama bin Laden was still a teenager. By age seventeen, bin Laden had married a young Syrian relative and had completed his early education. In 1981, he received a degree in public administration from the King Abdul-Aziz University in Jeddah. During this time, bin Laden followed many other educated Arabs in joining the Muslim Brotherhood. As early as the first two weeks of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979, bin Laden was taken to Pakistan to meet leaders of the anti-Soviet forces and to witness the pitiful columns of refugees. Returning to Saudi Arabia, he began collecting for the Afghan cause. He made several short trips to Pakistan during the next couple of years, taking with him an immense amount of money and materials.

In 1982, bin Laden finally entered Afghanistan to meet with the Mujahideen fighters, taking along construction machinery and even a few of the bin Laden construction workers. He also reportedly established a “guesthouse” in Peshawar on the Afghan-Pakistan border that became a way station for Arab fighters, sent by him to various Afghan factions fighting the Soviets. By 1988, he had established more than six camps of his own in Afghanistan and his own force, the Maktab al-Khidimat (MAK), which soon was engaging the Soviets. Composed primarily of devout Muslims, these fighters came from Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern nations.

From 1984 through 1989, he spent more than eight months out of each year in Afghanistan, where he participated in several major battles and numerous smaller skirmishes. His relations with the Taliban were warm because they both saw themselves as devout practitioners of Islam. Theirs was a bonding of religion, not of politics.

Returning to Saudi Arabia in late 1989 as the Soviets were withdrawing from Afghanistan, bin Laden found himself trapped by a royal ban on his travels. He had angered the Saudi royals by announcing his intention of spreading his holy war into South Yemen and warned of invasion by Saddam Hussein, who then had warm relations with the Saudis. When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1991, he saw it as a sign of his prophecy come true and proposed to the Saudis that he bring in his Arab Mujahideen to protect the kingdom. Before a decision was made on his suggestion, bin Laden was shocked to learn that American troops had arrived in Saudi Arabia.

It was a transforming moment, as the presence of any foreign troops on Saudi soil was considered intolerable by many Muslims. He had much earlier stated that the next great battle would be against America. His virtual house arrest in Jeddah and an armed raid on his suburban farm by the National Guard caused his relations with the Saudis to sour. Bin Laden convinced a brother to arrange for him to visit Pakistan on business, but once he arrived there in the spring of 1991 he sent back a letter stating he would not return and apologized for his perfidy.

Heading immediately for Afghanistan, he tried unsuccessfully to mediate between the various factions there. His devout demeanor endeared bin Laden to fellow Muslims. He was considered a truthful person, a simple person with good manners and a humble and generous personality. Despite his frail appearance and bland speeches, his followers saw him as an inspirational leader and showed him great respect. He also evinced a cunning caution, to the point of avoiding electronic devices, including wristwatches, which he believed might be used to track him.

During his stay and later in Sudan, the Saudis with the aid of Pakistani intelligence and perhaps their close associates, the CIA, reportedly tried to kill him but his many friends within the Pakistani establishment tipped him off each time. Apparently, the forces of the status quo desired to eliminate this religious fanatic who heeded neither bribes nor Western reasoning. By 1994, the Saudis publicly renounced bin Laden, withdrawing his citizenship and freezing his assets, estimated at between $200 million and $300 million. But this was only money traceable to him through the bin Laden Group. Millions more are tied up in bin Laden family money and their complex joint ventures with the royal Saudi family, including the late King Fahd.

During a stay in Sudan, there were anti-American incidents in Somalia and South Yemen, followed in 1995 by a car bombing in the Saudi capital of Riyadh. Although bin Laden was blamed in each of these incidents, the PBS document claimed he had no direct knowledge of them. They reportedly were carried out by Arabs who had trained with bin Laden in Afghanistan and had been imbued with anti-American feelings. There was no indication of who truly was behind them and the perpetrators may not have known themselves.

Sought by both the Americans and the Saudis, bin Laden returned to Afghanistan, where he was granted sanctuary by the ruling Taliban. Shortly after arriving back there in mid-1996, the Khobar Towers on an American base in Saudi Arabia was bombed, killing nineteen American soldiers. Although no one claimed responsibility for the attack, once again Arab Afghan fighters who had been connected to bin Laden were blamed.

But no one was paying much attention to the diminutive “freedom fighter,” so bin Laden issued what may have been his first public anti-American message, a twelve-page declaration of war against America. At that time his only demands were that American troops leave Saudi Arabia.

Reportedly, American special forces planned to attack his residence in 1997 but canceled the plan when an Arab newspaper in London published a report on the operation, again apparently provided by leaks from the sympathetic Pakistani military and intelligence personnel. By now, bin Laden was completely caught up in his own war against what he considered “infidels.” He utilized every resource at his command, including the media. He even allowed an ABC television interview in April 1998, warning at that time that attacks would come within weeks.

An attack was expected inside Saudi Arabia. Instead American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed on August 7, 1998, provoking outrage all around the world. President Clinton responded by ordering missiles fired at bin Laden's Afghan camp in Khost. About 250 Arabs were killed but bin Laden was not there. A plant in the Sudan, suspected of producing chemical weapons, also was targeted by sixteen cruise missiles. Later it was found that the plant, owned by Saudi businessman Saleh Idris, actually was producing medicine, not chemical weapons.

The Taliban government of Afghanistan offered to put bin Laden on trial on condition that the US government supply sufficient evidence of his guilt in the bombings. Nothing came of this offer. By then, some members of the US intelligence establishment were saying that bin Laden was training Islamic fighters for action in Chechnya and other areas of Russia, through an organization called al Qaeda.

In fact, the al Qaeda network is quite different from World War II “fifth columnists” and traditional insurgent movements in that its far-flung groups of operatives are not closely connected and do not have a clear command structure. It is a loose conglomeration of dedicated fighters operating across continents. Such an organization would be susceptible to penetration by any number of national security forces, in fact, almost anyone.

At least one intelligence insider has suggested that al Qaeda—translated as “the base”—does not mean a central headquarters but rather a CIA database of Arab mercenaries available for missions at a price. If this is the case, al Qaeda could well be following orders from someone other than bin Laden or his god.

However, the PBS document stated that bin Laden's followers are not true mercenaries but religious zealots who do not require much money. “Explosives and weapons are very cheap in some parts of the world,” it stated. “In Somalia, TNT, for example, is cheaper than sugar. In Yemen, you can buy an RPG [Rocket Propelled Grenade] for less than a TV set. The role of money here is over-exaggerated by many writers.”

According to this document, bin Laden was nearly forgotten by his Arab followers until the African bombings that killed twelve Americans, about three hundred Kenyans and Tanzanians and wounded five thousand. President Clinton, after briefings by US intelligence officials, told the public, “Our target was terror. There is convincing evidence from our intelligence community that the bin Laden terrorist network was responsible for these bombings. Based on this information, we have high confidence that these bombings were planned, financed and carried out by the organization bin Laden leads.”

With bin Laden's name bantered about by the news media, his notoriety rose once again. The PBS document stated, “People's reaction, however, was mixed. While many Muslims felt triumph for scaring the Americans, many others felt upset by the picture of hundreds of civilians killed and injured in the attack. They felt this can never be justified.

“After the American [missile] attack on Sudan and Afghanistan, it became almost shameful to criticize bin Laden. The American strike with associated remarks by Clinton and American officials proved that bin Laden is a big challenge to America. In the minds of the average Arab and Muslim, bin Laden appeared as the man who was able to drive Americans so crazy that it started shooting haphazardly at unjustified targets. Their view was that while bin Laden or others can make ‘executive’ mistakes because of their difficult circumstances, logistics and communication, America is not supposed to [make] mistakes unless it is done on purpose.”