Osama bin Laden BIOGRAPHY(page10)

rights, environmental, and anti-abortion movements, may also pose

a signifi cant threat, and can not be overlooked. Additionally, the new

millennium is an important apocalyptic milestone for many religious or

extremist cults. Many terrorist groups, both traditional and “new,” have

privatized their practices through a few standard business techniques

(fund-raising, use of technology, etc.)

APPENDIX 137

Osama bin Laden BIOGRAPHY(page9)

5. Al Qaeda functioned both on its own and through some of the

terrorist organizations that operated under its umbrella, including:

Egyptian Islamic Jihad, and at times, the Islamic Group (also

known as “el Gamaa Islamia” or simply “Gamaa’t”), led by Sheik

Omar Abdel Rahman and later by Ahmed Refai Taha, a / k/a “Abu

Yasser al Masri,” named as co-conspirators but not as defendants

herein; and a number of jihad groups in other countries, including

the Sudan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Somalia, Eritrea,

Djibouti, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bosnia, Croatia, Albania, Algeria,

Osama bin Laden BIOGRAPHY(page8)

decision resulted from a change of government rather than intimidation,


al-Qaeda claimed victory. Italy, too, left the coalition following the deaths

of 12 of its soldiers in Iraq.

On the eve of the 2004 presidential election, bin Laden spoke again

to the American people. He admonished them to repudiate the wicked

policies of their government and explained al-Qaeda’s long-term strategy

of attrition. “All we had to do was send two mujahedeen to the farthest

east to raise aloft a piece of rag with the words ‘al-Qaeda’ written on it, and

the [U.S.] generals came a-scurrying — causing America to suffer human,

economic, and political damages while accomplishing nothing worth

Osama bin Laden BIOGRAPHY(page7)

NOTES


1 . Osama Rushdi, quoted in Peter Bergen, The Osama bin Laden I Know

( New York: Free Press), p. 106.

2 . Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11

( New York: Knopf, 2006), p. 151.

3 . Abu Walid al Misiri, in Bergen, The Osama bin Laden I Know , p. 109.

FIGHTING THE GREAT SATAN 89

4 . Turki and Clarke quoted in Steve Coll, The Bin Ladens: An Arabian

Family in the American Century ( New York: Penguin, 2008), p. 46.

5 . Bruce Riedel, The Search for al-Qaeda: Its Leadership, Ideology, and Future