Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden--From 9/11 to Abbottabad Read Online Free PDF

his every pronouncement, and when they addressed him, they asked his permission to speak. His followers
loved
him. Abu Jandal, a Yemeni who was one of his bodyguards,described his first meeting with bin Laden in 1997 as “beautiful.” Another of bin Laden’s bodyguards characterized his boss as“a very charismatic person who could persuade people simply by his way of talking. One could say that he ‘seduced’ many young men.”
    So, on the morning of September 11, bin Laden’s crew of bodyguards eagerly set out with the man they regarded as their “father,” leaving his main base near the southern city of Kandahar for the mountainous region of Khost, in eastern Afghanistan. Bahlul rigged up a TV satellite receiver in a minibus that was part of bin Laden’s caravan of vehicles, but when they reached Khost, he found it hard to get a television signal, so bin Ladentuned his radio to the BBC’s Arabic service.
    Bin Laden told his followers, “If he [the newsreader] says: ‘We have just received this …’ it meansthe brothers have struck.” Atabout 5:30 in the evening local time, the BBC announcer said, “I have just received this news.Reports from the United States say that an airliner was destroyed upon crashing into the World Trade Center in New York.” Bin Laden told his men to “be patient.” Soon came the news of a second jet flying into the South Tower of the Trade Center. Bin Laden’s bodyguards exploded with joy; their leader truly was conducting a great cosmic war against the infidels!
    About eight hundred miles to the south, in the heaving Pakistani megacity of Karachi, some of bin Laden’s most trusted lieutenants had also gathered to watch television coverage of the attacks. They were Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the portly commander of the 9/11 operation; Ramzi bin al-Shibh, an intensely religious Yemeni who was a key coordinator of the attacks; and Mustafa al-Hawsawi, the Saudi paymaster who had transferred tens of thousands of dollars to the hijackers living in the States for their flight lessons and living expenses.
    Also watching TV with the three architects of 9/11 were some other al-Qaeda “brothers.” As the television showed the hijacked planes flying into the Trade Center, the brothers started weeping with joy, prostrating themselves, and shouting “God is great!” Bin al-Shibh admonished them, “Patience! Patience! Follow the news! The matter is not over yet!” Then came the attack on the Pentagon and the news of the fourth aircraft, which went down in Pennsylvania. The men from al-Qaeda embraced each other and wept again, this time in sadness for the brothers who had died on the hijacked planes.
    Bin Laden was confident that the United States would respond to the attacks on New York and Washington only with cruise missile strikes, as it had done three years earlier, following al-Qaeda’s attacks against two American embassies in Africa in 1998. At most,he expected the kind of air strikes that the United States and NATO had employed against the Serbs during the air war in Kosovo in 1999. The paper tiger might bare its fangs, but it wouldn’t go in for the kill.
    I N WASHINGTON , news soon circulated that a Palestinian terrorist organization, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, had claimed responsibility for the attacks. Bush summoned Morell, asking, “What do you make of this?”
    Morell replied, “The DFLP has a history of terrorism against Israel, but its capabilities are limited. It does not have the resources and reach to do this.”
    In the early afternoon, Air Force One headed from Louisiana toOffutt Air Force Base near Omaha, Nebraska, home of the U.S. Strategic Command, which controls America’s nuclear missiles. Bush asked to see Morell again, and pushed him for his opinion about who was behind the attacks. “I don’t have any intelligence as yet, so what I am going to say is my personal view,” Morell said. “There are two terrorist states capable