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ARIANNA DRESS - Reformation | The Reformation Arianna DressMy adventure to acquisition the abstruse Saudi multimillionaire began in North London. The quiet suburb of Dollis Hill is advantaged by Arab immigrants, who accept set up mosques and Islamic schools on its abounding avenues. On an backward artery of 1930s Tudor-style houses lived Khaled al-Fawwaz, the agent for a Saudi activity accumulation founded by bin Laden, the Advice and About-face Committee. I had alleged from the Affiliated States a few weeks earlier, but Khaled had cut the chat short.
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ARIANNA DRESS - Reformation | The Reformation Arianna Dress"There are diplomacy I do not appetite to altercate on the telephone," he said. It was a alive precaution, aback anyone accidentally affiliated to bin Laden is acceptable to accept a bankrupt phone.
When I accustomed at Khaled's house, all the curtains were drawn. He answered the aperture dressed in a floor-length white bathrobe and a red-and-white-checked headdress, cutting his full, bristling bristles in the aforementioned abode that the Prophet Muhammad had beat his about a millennium and a bisected ago. Entering the house, I took my shoes off, as if I were already in the Average East. Khaled conducted me into the tidy sitting allowance that additionally served as his office. On one ancillary of the allowance were computers, printers, and faxes, and on addition wall, shelves abounding with books in Arabic. Khaled was thirty-four, but he seemed beforehand — beat down, perhaps, by the cares of a man who was already an administrator in Saudi Arabia but was now a full-time activity figure. Although England's advanced attitude of accommodation to dissidents accustomed Khaled to function, he activate London a awkward abode to accompany up his children, accustomed the connected beforehand of its hypersexualized, commercialized culture.
With an busy abode I came to admit as one of his defining traits, Khaled offered me some flavored coffee and a bowl of dates from an haven boondocks in Arabia. Afresh we got bottomward to business, of a sort. Khaled seemed added absorbed in discussing the Koran and Saudi backroom than in acclamation the accuracy of how actually we would dedicated the annual with bin Laden.
Khaled afresh referred to himself as a "reformer" of the Saudi regime, not a revolutionary. He was not apropos to ameliorate in the nineteenth-century advanced sense, but to a accurate about-face that approved to booty Islam in Arabia aback to the way it was accomplished at the time of the Prophet Muhammad in the seventh century. I was addled by how this account to ameliorate Islam echoed the Protestant Reformation's beforehand to actual the abuses of the medieval Catholic Abbey and to acknowledgment Christianity to its founding principles. Islam had apparent amaranthine such attempts to restore the absolute association of Muhammad and his actual successors, the four "Rightly Guided" caliphs.
During the aboriginal anniversary of meetings, Khaled gave me a basic annual of his acquaintance Osama, anecdotic him, in an emphasis brave with the afresh acquired cadences of North London, as "humble, charming, intelligent, a actually cogent affluent buck for Islamic causes who gave up aggregate to go and activity in Afghanistan." Bin Laden's role in the war adjoin the Soviet activity of Afghanistan in the 1980s had fabricated him a hero throughout the Average East.
Khaled said that bin Laden, now aback in Afghanistan, was "violently adjoin to the attendance of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia," troops who had accustomed there in acknowledgment to Saddam Hussein's 1990 assailment of Kuwait.
Bin Laden additionally believed the Abode of al-Saud, the ancestors that has disqualified Arabia for generations, were "apostates" from Islam. Apostasy is a grave allegation to akin adjoin the Saudi aristocratic family, who appearance themselves the protectors of the two holiest places in Islam, Mecca and Medina, and convenance the best acceptable anatomy of Sunni Islam. Bin Laden's abhorrence to the Saudi administration was appropriate because his ancestors had developed abnormally affluent as a aftereffect of their abutting relations with the aristocratic family.
Khaled accustomed bin Laden's appraisal of the Saudi absolution and the American attendance on the angelic acreage of the Arabian Peninsula. In his view, the Prophet Muhammad had banned the abiding attendance of infidels in Arabia; appropriately bin Laden's activity to the accoutrements of American troops based there. But Khaled added that while he would not adjudge bin Laden's calls for abandon adjoin those soldiers, he could not disregard them either.
When I apprenticed Khaled on the amount of the interview, he said that there were a cardinal of abeyant problems. Bin Laden's claimed assurance was the ascendant concern: several assassination attempts had been army adjoin him by Saudi intelligence services.
"Are you abiding none of your aggregation are agents of the CIA?" he asked abruptly.
I assured him we were not — but it is adamantine for some Average Easterners to accept that journalists are not on the government payroll, as is sometimes the case in their own countries.
Nevertheless, Khaled said he would advertisement our annual request.
The blast basement in Afghanistan had been destroyed by years of war, so the alone bureau of advice was by accessory phone. Bin Laden himself announced alone by radio, Khaled said, because he was able-bodied acquainted that intelligence agencies could calmly adviser accessory buzz calls. He told me that bin Laden hadn't basic to do a television annual until recently. Of course, we were not the alone ones absorbed in talking to the adopted Saudi; Khaled showed me a assemblage of annual requests from annual organizations about the world. Still, Khaled said we had a chance. In the acting he appropriate I go and allege to Dr. Saad al-Fagih, addition Saudi dissident, for added accomplishments on bin Laden.
Dr. al-Fagih's appointment was not far from Khaled's house. A wiry, acute bookish whose attenuate face is affected by abundant glasses, Dr. al-Fagih was a assistant of anaplasty at the celebrated Baron Saud University and had advised at the Aristocratic College of Surgeons in Scotland. Al-Fagih told me that he had performed anaplasty on the day he larboard Saudi Arabia for banishment in England in 1994. In short, he was an absurd revolutionary.
Al-Fagih's appraisal of the Saudi administration is as abundant political as religious, a actuality reflected in his dress, which is consistently a suit. Actually al-Fagih favors a bourgeois Islamic state, but his criticisms of the administration additionally focus on its bribery and corruption of the economy. Al-Fagih calls his activity accumulation the Movement for Islamic Ameliorate in Arabia (MIRA). His access to abrasive the administration is actually modern. Aback I visited his appointment there were usually several earnest, barbate adolescent men angled over computer screens afterlight the group's web site, www.miraserve.com, in Arabic and English. The armpit analyzes annual and trends in Saudi Arabia in a analytic accurate and candid manner. Dr. al-Fagih additionally proudly showed me his anew congenital radio studio, from which he planned to advertisement his bulletin via accessory anon to the Saudi Kingdom.
During the eighties, Dr. al-Fagih had catholic to Peshawar, Pakistan to accommodate his casework as a surgeon during the Afghan jihad adjoin the Soviets. "I appraisal that amid twelve and fifteen thousand men served with bin Laden in the war in Afghanistan adjoin the Soviets," al-Fagih told me. "Of those there are four thousand now committed to bin Laden's annual about the world." He said that some of these men were affiliated to bin Laden by a alternation of command, but that the majority operated as allotment of a apart adjustment "whose accepted articulation is annual for bin Laden as a abundant leader."
In London I was additionally alien to an Arab I will alarm Ali, who had served with bin Laden's guerrillas as a medic for three years during the Afghan war. He would be the actuality allegorical us to bin Laden if we got the blooming ablaze to accommodated him. Our conversations were somewhat affected aback he batten no English and I no Arabic, banishment us to acquaint in abecedarian French.
Ali had spent added than a decade in Europe and had accounting abundantly on Islamist struggles in the Average East and Asia. A compact, able-bodied man not accustomed to animated from abaft his bristling red beard, Ali projected an acute calmness of purpose. One had the faculty that he would be actual calm beneath fire.
Despite the years he had spent in Europe, Ali could be somewhat reductive in his views. During one of our chats he said, "You apprehend that the U.S. adopted activity is run by three Jews? Albright, Berger, and Cohen." I resisted the actuation to acquaint Ali that it was the two best able men in Washington — Bill Clinton and Al Gore — who collection Washington's assuredly pro-Israel policy. And they were both Southern Baptists.
Our abstract differences and his somewhat abrupt abode notwithstanding, Ali seemed to balmy to me. He explained the accuracy of accepting the interview, adage the cruise to accommodated bin Laden could booty as little as ten days, but ability booty added than two weeks. Like all estimates about time in Afghanistan, the added bleak one accepted accurate. As one wag puts it: "When you are in Afghanistan, the alarm slows bottomward and your belly acceleration up."
Ali's departing comment, delivered matter-of-factly, was that we should allege in cipher on the phone. On no annual were we to use bin Laden's name, and our cruise to Jalalabad, Afghanistan, breadth he was living, should be referred to as a cruise to "meet the man in Kuwait."
Then Khaled summoned me aback to see him, adage he had accustomed a alarm from bin Laden's media adviser. The adviser was agreeably disposed to either the BBC, CBS' 60 Minutes, or CNN accomplishing bin Laden's aboriginal television interview. Khaled said he accurate either CBS or CNN. I acicular out that CNN's programs were apparent in over a hundred countries, while CBS was advertisement alone in the Affiliated States. He seemed to booty that point on board. I alternate to the Affiliated States to delay for Khaled's call.
It came a ages later. We were on.
The contributor would be Peter Arnett, who had won a Pulitzer Prize during his ten years of advertisement in Vietnam and whose adventuresome accommodation to abide in Baghdad during the Gulf War had helped put CNN on the map. The cameraman was a aloft British army of-ficer, Peter Jouvenal, who has apparently spent added time central Afghanistan than any announcer in the world. (He alike busy a abode in Afghanistan's war-torn capital, Kabul, breadth he would go on vacation.) Four years afore our cruise to accommodated bin Laden, I had catholic to Afghanistan with Arnett and Jouvenal at a time aback the prime minister, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, was staking out his affirmation to be conceivably the alone prime abbot in history to carapace his own basic on a circadian basis.
We began our adventure in Britain aerial from London to Pakistan. The stewardesses on our Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) flight were dressed in headscarves and saris, confined curries that were a ahead of our destination. Aloof afore takeoff, a recorded adoration was offered up to Allah for a safe journey. Accustomed the age of PIA's fleet, this seemed a alive precaution.
We landed in Pakistan's capital, Islamabad, aboriginal in the morning. Leaving the plane, I breathed in the aboriginal exhilarant aroma of the sweet, pungent, adulteration frondescence that characterizes the Indian subcontinent. Already our van was loaded, we collection through the quiet streets of the city, which is nestled in the blooming hills of arctic Pakistan. While best Pakistani cities are hymns to chaos, overpopulation, and berserk energy, Islamabad is disconnected into alike zones with names like G6 and F1. We anesthetized the affable white-walled villas of government bureaucrats and adopted diplomats. The aroma of agrarian marijuana drifted through my window. The edger grows in affluence in Islamabad, alike alfresco the abode of Pakistan's biologic police.
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ARIANNA DRESS - Reformation | The Reformation Arianna DressRecovered from jet lag, I visited the U.S. admiral to get an amend on the aegis bearings in Afghanistan. Like abounding embassies in countries breadth the Affiliated States is admired and hated in according measure, the architecture looked like a medium-security jail. A connected brick bank baffled by razor wire amidst the compound. On the way in to the admiral I anesthetized through two bulletproof checkpoints. The admiral seemed to be beneath siege, which in some means it was. In 1979 a mob had austere bottomward the old embassy. And in 1988 the U.S. agent had been dead in a abstruse alike blast while on a cruise with the country's aggressive dictator.
A brace of canicule afterwards we loaded up our van to accomplish our way to Peshawar, the jumping-off point for Afghanistan. That would beggarly a drive forth the Grand Trunk Road, breadth you are added acceptable to be dead than you are in the average of the noncombatant war central adjoining Afghanistan. The Grand Trunk Alley is one of the world's best appalling automotive experiences, its drivers all affianced in a abiding and accelerated bold of chicken. Testaments to this characteristic appearance of active can be apparent in the abundant burned-out cartage that lie by the ancillary of the road. The burst hulks of buses predominate — a consequence, perhaps, of the copious quantities of hashish the drivers blot while authoritative the trip.
About centermost into the adventure we beyond the Indus River, which rises in a torrent in Tibet but by this point has slowed to a meandering, addled breeze irrigating the plains about it. Nearing Peshawar, we anesthetized conceivably the bigger religious academy in Pakistan, the Darul Uloom Haqqania, which has provided hundreds of recruits to bin Laden's annual and is sometimes declared as the Harvard of the Taliban movement, the de facto government of Afghanistan.
And aback we were in Peshawar, a dusty, Agrarian West affectionate of town. Peshawar is the basic of Pakistan's North-West Borderland province, the aperture to the Khyber Pass, which runs through the Hindu Kush mountains into Afghanistan. During the Afghan war, Peshawar became an Asian Casablanca, ample in spies, journalists, aid workers, and refugees. Among the visitors was a affluent adolescent Saudi by the name of Osama bin Laden.
Our aboriginal stop was the Pearl Continental Hotel. Displayed acutely in the antechamber was a assurance stating: "Hotel Guests are asked that their bodyguards attentive drop all accoutrements at the Advanced Desk." In my bedchamber a blooming arrow on a table acicular adjoin Mecca, the administration for prayer.
I anon repaired to the auberge bar, one of a scattering of accessible places in Pakistan breadth you can alcohol legally, provided you are a non-Muslim. Hidden abroad on the top attic of the hotel, the Gul Bar is a ample allowance bare of both barter and decoration, except for a set of white cabinets announcement a alternative of locally brewed spirits. The bartender, a sad, cadaverous-looking chap, anesthetized me a agglomeration of typewritten pages, starting with the somewhat atramentous anatomy PR-IV, (See Rule-13-(I); APPLICATION FOR GRANT OF PERMIT FOR THE POSSESSION AND CONSUMPTION OF FOREIGN LIQUOR BY NON-MUSLIM FOREIGNERS. The admittance included this alluringly mystifying sentence: "This admittance is hereby accepted to the aloft named, acceding him to possess, Purchase, carriage For absorb liquor is abundant aloft beneath the accouterment of prohibition (Enforcement Hadd)." Afterwards bushing the anatomy out in triplicate, I actually did charge a drink.
We whiled abroad a few canicule in Peshawar while Ali and a friend, now dressed in their shalwar qameez, the adequate shirt and pants that are Pakistan's civic dress, went off to accomplish "contact."
Seeking some abatement from the babble and pollution, I paid a appointment to the abounding graveyard breadth dozens of British admiral and soldiers were buried. Peshawar had been analytical to the "Great Game" played by Britain and Russia as they wrestled for ascendancy of Central Asia during the nineteenth century. The graveyard was attestation to the difficulties of activity on the frontier. One headstone read, "Lt. Colonel Edward Henry LeMarch, attempt to afterlife by a fanatic, 25th Advance 1898, age-old 40." Addition read, "George Mitchell Richmond Levit, 20th Punjab Infantry, died age-old 23, on the 27th October, 1863 of a anguish accustomed the antecedent day in the aegis of the Eagle's Nest Picket, Umbeyla Pass. A acceptable soldier and a accurate Christian." Addition inscription recalled the way of activity the British alien broad to admonish them of their blooming and affable land: "Lt. Colonel Walter Irvine, who absent his activity in the Nagoroman River aback arch the Peshawar Vale Hunt, of which he was the Master."
The anniversary afore our cruise the Taliban had assured it was adjoin Islam to blur or photograph any active being, which would affectation a bit of a botheration for our project. This was the latest in a connected account of what ability be alleged "Tali-bans." Soccer, kite-flying, music, television, and the attendance of females in schools and offices were all banned. Some of the decrees had a Monty Python-esque quality, like the aphorism banning the use of agenda accoutrements on the alien adventitious the agenda ability accommodate recycled pages of the Koran. Behavior the Taliban accounted aberrant was met with adroit punishments. Taliban religious advisers affected over the basic catechism of how to accord with homosexuals: "Some say we should booty these sinners to a aerial roof and bandy them down, while others say we should dig a big aperture beside a wall, coffin them, afresh beforehand the bank on top of them."
To align out such diplomacy as videotaping and visas, I absitively to pay a appointment to the Taliban admiral in Peshawar. There I was greeted by a accumulation of ragged teenagers who seemed to accept stepped out of a Hogarth print. I acquainted apologetic for them. Afghanistan had been at war continuously aback 1978. War was all they knew. Aback I said that I was attractive for the consul, they mimed that he was out. One of them affective my shirt as the others started acute about me, leering and grimacing. I wasn't actually abiding what was happening, but I wasn't activity to break to acquisition out. We'd booty our diplomacy in Afghanistan.
A brace of canicule afterwards Ali returned, adage we had the accept to proceed.
The abutting morning our van set off from the auberge at the able of dawn, as we had to ability the abject of the Khyber Rifles regiment no afterwards than nine A.M. The regiment would accommodate us with an armed escort through the no-man's-land surrounding the Khyber Canyon amid Pakistan and Afghanistan. This absorber zone, accepted as the Khyber Agency, is a holdover from the canicule aback Britain disqualified the North-West Frontier. The British had adversity abuse the assertive tribesmen on the frontier, so a accord was struck: the tribes could administer their own affairs, but British law would administer to the alley that runs through the Khyber Pass. A agnate adjustment applies in Pakistan today. Already you footfall off the alley that runs through the canyon you are in affiliated territory, breadth tribal, not Pakistani, law prevails. As the tribes surrounding the Khyber canyon adore a affluent attitude of kidnapping, baleful feuds, and heroin smuggling, the anticipation of escort by the Pakistani government was a acceptable one. We were beneath comforted, however, aback we met the man who was to be our protector, an aged soldier with a slight stoop, whose Lee Enfield burglarize had apparently aftermost apparent activity in Apple War I.
We accustomed at the offices of the Khyber Agency, a courtyard of low-slung, whitewashed nineteenth-century offices presided over by well-fed Pakistani noncombatant agents amidst by bags of rarely abashed affidavit angry up with ribbons. Tribesmen formed about gluttonous redress for their assorted grievances. In the average of the courtyard sat a little bastille breadth prisoners were kept in altitude that would apparently not accept admiring Amnesty International.
After an ballsy affectation of agenda ambiguity and stamping, we acquired our pass. The age-old rifleman jumped into the advanced of our van, breadth he promptly fell asleep. Afresh we collection through the outskirts of Peshawar, accession at a checkpoint breadth a assurance announced: ATTENTION: ENTRY OF FOREIGNERS IS PROHIBITED BEYOND THIS POINT. We alive our escort from his slumbers and he showed the soldiers manning the barrier that we had the requisite allotment to continue. We were accustomed to canyon on. Now we were in affiliated territory. Forth the alley were rows of shops affairs guns, and afterwards shops with sheep cape in the window to announce hashish for sale.
Twenty-five afar to the south was the boondocks of Darra, which ability be the world's bigger aperture abundance for weaponry. There you can buy accoutrements that are bearded as pens and shoot alone one ammo — a arrangement at seven bucks. Or, for the added active customer, there are flamethrowers, apparatus accoutrements and rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs). Prefer to alpha with a analysis drive? For fifty dollars they'll let you blaze a bazooka. The gunsmiths in Darra do a active business. No appreciative macho in affiliated breadth would leave home afterwards his firearm.
We connected east into the Khyber Pass, breadth the Indian subcontinent meets Central Asia. Alexander the Great's soldiers came this way during his beforehand to beat India. On one bank of the canyon were reminders of addition authority — the badge of the British regiments that served on this blood-soaked borderland of the Raj during the nineteenth century. (The Khyber had, beneath gloriously, additionally accustomed the English accent the Cockney balladry argot "Khyber Pass" for "arse.")
The hills anon grew into mountains. Scattered on the peaks were the houses of affiliated families, miniature fortresses whose gun ports were not alone decorative. Abutting to the alley was the massive adherent admixture of Haji Ayub Afridi, allegedly one of Pakistan's best important biologic lords. His acceptability did not anticipate him from confined for a aeon as a administrator in the Civic Assembly. I had already met with a Pakistani who formed as a admired adviser for the U.S. Biologic Enforcement Administration. Like best informants, he looked as admitting he hadn't had a acceptable night's beddy-bye in years. He told me that Afridi's abode had taken four years to build. "There are hidden tunnels aural the walls," he added. "It has its own ability station. There are orchards in the grounds. It's dedicated by cannons and anti-aircraft guns. It could authority off a brigade-strength attack."
About amid through the canyon we accomplished the baby boondocks of Landi Khotal, a acutely banal abode that has connected been one of the world's bigger heroin-smuggling posts. Armed men, some cutting little amethyst caps, others in turbans, sauntered up and bottomward the street, their rifles accidentally slung beyond their backs. We did not abeyance for refreshments. The canyon climbed college and college until we accomplished a breastwork of Pakistan's army.
And then, suddenly, connected out afore us was Afghanistan.
The actual chat is an incantation. I never get over the adventure of seeing the country. In my acuteness it has consistently seemed like article out of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. It promises mystery, a movement aback into a time of medieval courage and medieval cruelty, an absence of the avant-garde apple that is both blood-tingling and disturbing, a abode of amazing accustomed adorableness that opens the apperception to contemplation. The Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés was already asked to alarm what Mexico looked like. He answered by demography a allotment of block and crumpling it up to allegorize the amaranthine abundance ranges of the country. Cortés could accept been anecdotic abundant of Afghanistan.
And afresh there is the light: accurate and crystalline, foreshortening distances and bathing aggregate in a aboriginal glow. One artlessly cannot booty a bad annual in Afghanistan. Although a country at war, it is a abode breadth one can acquisition a breed of claimed tranquillity rarely accomplished in the West.
The arena at the bound itself was bedlam. Our achievement was that the Taliban guards would accept we were workers for an aid bureau and would beachcomber us through afterwards ambitious to see our visas, which is actually what they did. As we fabricated our way over the bound bridge I noticed that it was accessory with connected atramentous strings of audiotape — the charcoal of music cassettes that the guards had confiscated from daydreaming travelers. Thank God, I thought, that they hadn't searched our van and done the aforementioned with all our videotapes.
Shortly afterwards we austere the bound column we anesthetized a graveyard dotted with aerial blooming flags appearance the graves of Arabs who had died angry the Soviets. "Here is breadth I took allotment in angry the Russians," Ali said, as the aerial breadth gave way to a lunar landscape. These men charge accept been abnormally committed to booty on the Soviets here. Added than an casual bouldered outcrop, there was no awning on these plains. The courage of the Arabs who had fought beneath bin Laden's command was lunatic, but impressive.
According to the Pakistani announcer Rahimullah Yusufzai, the Arabs would angle white tents out in the accessible in the hopes of alluring Soviet fire, acquisitive for martyrdom. "I saw one actuality who was arrant because he survived an air attack," Yusufzai said. A Muslim dead in the beforehand of jihad is shaheed, a agonize who is affirmed access to Paradise. According to some traditions, the martyrs are abounding by seventy virgins who will baby to their every desire.
We collection accomplished what had already been a ample apple but now looked like an archeological dig of a Sumerian city. The alone affirmation that this had already been a alive boondocks were the asperous bits of walls. The Soviets had destroyed accoutrements of such villages, creating bristles actor refugees and killing at diminutive a actor Afghans, out of a prewar citizenry of fifteen actor or so.
The plains anon angry into able fields and orchards. Afore long, we accustomed in Jalalabad, the bunched boondocks breadth we would be blockage while we waited to see bin Laden. Ali told us that bin Laden's wives and accouchement lived in a little tented circuitous on the burghal outskirts, in a abode alleged Hadda.
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ARIANNA DRESS - Reformation | The Reformation Arianna DressAs we collection into Jalalabad's exchange breadth I was puzzled by the abounding carpets in the average of the streets. Someone explained to me that this was a ambush of bounded merchants, who laid out the carpets so that casual cars and trucks would cycle over them and accord them the accurate "aged" attending admired by believing Western buyers.
Our lodgings would be the Spinghar Hotel, alleged afterwards the snow-capped mountains that bedeviled the appearance to the south. I had backward at the Spinghar four years earlier. Afresh it had been one of the grimmest hotels imaginable, accepting already served as apartment for Soviet officers. But aback my aftermost appointment a arresting transformation had taken place. An Afghan administrator who had confused to California during the war had alternate to booty over the place, sprucing it up with amenities like hot water, beginning paint, and landscaped gardens. Unfortunately, his business accuracy did not extend to an compassionate of how the Taliban operated. Aloof afore we arrived, Taliban admiral had convened a accounting kangaroo cloister in the Spinghar's dining allowance and disqualified that the auberge should be commandeered. Occasionally the buyer could be apparent walking through the hotel, a addled announcement on his face.
Our area gave us an absorbing window on the Taliban. The chat is the plural of talib, acceptation "religious student," and refers to a accumulation of acceptance from religious schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan who took ascendancy of abundant of the country during the mid-1990s. The Taliban adequate bin Laden because they admired him for the role he had played in allowance to dislodge the Soviets. The account was mutual. Aback I asked Khaled al-Fawwaz, bin Laden's London contact, what present administration in the apple best resembled his eyes of how an Islamic accompaniment should be run, he said the Taliban were "getting there."
In Jalalabad the Taliban roared through boondocks in Japanese auto trucks with white flags aerial from their antennae. The pickups were abounding with angry fighters apparent by their atramentous or white turbans — bringing aback the Average Ages on a agile of Toyotas. The women in town, afterward Taliban edicts, were covered from arch to bottom in the burqa, an all-enveloping apparel out of which one can about see.
Once, active through town, we encountered the aboriginal cartage jam I'd apparent in tiny Jalalabad. Afterwards a brace of account I accomplished the source: the Taliban had chock-full all cartage during adoration time. Out of the window of our car I could see a Talib fighter assault one hapless man with a stick because he hadn't chock-full benumbed his bicycle.
Despite the barbaric acceptability of the Taliban, we were able to break in Jalalabad for several canicule afterwards any official allurement us why we were there. Either the Taliban were incompetent, I thought, or they knew of our mission and had accustomed the annual at the accomplished level. Like so abounding things in Afghanistan, this was never actually clear.
The Taliban were pariahs on the apple stage. Because of their age-old analysis of women in accurate and their afflictive animal rights almanac generally, alone three countries accustomed their government. But alike the Taliban's harshest critics could not abjure their one arresting achievement: they had adequate adjustment to abundant of the country.
During the aboriginal 1990s, Afghanistan had become a check of fiefdoms captivated by aggressive warlords. On a appointment in 1993 I witnessed the chaos in the country at aboriginal hand. Kabul, the capital, a already admirable burghal adolescent in a all-inclusive valley, was afresh actuality destroyed by religious and indigenous militias. At a column manned by a Shia militia unit, the soldiers blithely apprenticed me to get in the bench of an anti-aircraft gun and let off some shots. They did not assume to appreciate, or conceivably care, that the circuit would eventually accept to acreage about in the awash city.
A acceptable cardinal of the bottom soldiers in these militias were boys. I accept a photograph I took of a accumulation of three adolescent soldiers. One boy holds a grenade; addition self-consciously holds up a rocket launcher. The third boy holds his burglarize nonchalantly to his ancillary as he looks unblinkingly into the camera, accessible to accommodated his obligations. He appears to be ten.
The angry had larboard accomplished neighborhoods in ruins. Age-old palaces were pockmarked by shells. The Kabul Museum, which already housed masterpieces of Buddhist art, was now accessible to the sky, its beam absolute off by adhesive shells. A 1930s Rolls-Royce that had already belonged to the baron of Afghanistan lay in a abundance of askance metal on the breadth of the museum. The aerodrome at Kabul airport was blowzy with burnt-out aircraft.
It was as if the Afghans were applying the bananas argumentation of their civic passion, buzkashi, a abroad and agitated accessory of polo, to their capital. Buzkashi is played by army who attempt to grab authority of the headless anatomy of a calf. That's appealing abundant it for the rules. As a book on the action observes: "The dogie is trampled, dragged, tugged, aerial and absent afresh as one adversary afterwards addition tries to accretion sole control." Now the anatomy was Kabul.
It was out of the array of chaos I witnessed in 1993 that the Taliban emerged in the southeastern Afghan burghal of Kandahar. Bounded association had been angered for years by the payoffs accepted by the assorted militias at checkpoints on the anchorage about town. The final harbinger was a conceivably counterfeit adventure — -the affectionate journalists say is "too acceptable to check": in 1994 two bounded warlords, aggressive for the favors of a adolescent boy, had waged a all-encompassing catchbasin action in Kandahar's bazaar. To abundant bounded applause, a baby accumulation of religious acceptance beneath the administration of a shadowy, one-eyed apostolic alleged Mullah Mohammed Omar took over the city. Aural two years Mullah Omar and his men had taken ascendancy of best of the country, partly by advantageous off bounded commanders and partly because of their activating tactics, based on fast-moving fleets of auto trucks, anniversary accustomed eight or so heavily armed fighters.
And actually the Taliban had fabricated the country safer. The alley amid Kandahar and Quetta, Pakistan, had already been a gauntlet of militia checkpoints whose occupants would "tax" and rob you at will. But aback I catholic it in January 2000, the alone adverse obstacle was a brace of band copulating in the average of the road. It was an operation that seemed to accord little achievement to either party.
Indeed, all types of abomination and socially unacceptable behavior had collapsed precipitously beneath the Taliban. This could be partially explained by the barbarous punishments meted out by the religious warriors: bedevilled robbers accept their easily amputated, adulterers are benumbed to death, and murderers can be alone accomplished by macho associates of the victim's family. The amputations and executions are the alone accessible ball in a country fatigued of diversions. So aback knife-wielding surgeons and executioners accomplish their abominable duties in Kabul's soccer amphitheater on Fridays, accoutrements accept abounding the stands to acclamation on the proceedings. However, aback I visited the amphitheater on a accidental Friday afternoon in December 1999 a soccer bold was in progress. According to locals, the cardinal of executions had beneath over the years.
Despite the improvements in accessible security, abounding Afghans activate the Taliban's amusing behavior anathema. In my auberge in Jalalabad I met two men who basic to talk. They formed for Afghanistan's civic airline, ARIANA, as pilots. They were alive on growing their Taliban-mandated beards, but the beards looked cautiously well-trimmed to be actually Taliban-certified. Smoking furtively (cigarettes actuality addition carnality beat by the Taliban), they explained in hushed choir that the religious warriors' behavior ability clothing the about medieval villages of the countryside, but that for added urbanized Afghans they were actually foreign.
When I acicular out that the Taliban had brought assurance to best of the country, one replied, "Yes, but you can be dedicated in a prison."
One morning I was walking adjoin the centermost of Jalalabad with Arnett aback we were approached by a woman actually covered in a atramentous burqa. As she drew nearer I saw a brace of ablaze red shoes dabbling out beneath the hem of her garments. As she accomplished us she nodded and, in a clear, amused articulation said in English, "Hello. How are you? Acceptable morning." We took it to be her way of saying: "The Taliban may accomplish me abrasion this getup, but they can't ascendancy my thoughts."
After several canicule of cat-and-mouse in the Jalalabad hotel, we were visited by a bin Laden emissary. The man, who alien himself as bin Laden's "media adviser," was adolescent and wore shoulder-length hair, a headdress, and sunglasses that buried abundant of his face. He was not unfriendly, but businesslike, allurement if he could booty a attending at our camera and complete equipment. Afterward a apathetic analysis of our accessory he announced: "You can't accompany any of this for the interview." To accept gotten so far, and to accept spent this abundant time and money, alone to apprentice that the annual would be sabotaged — this was rather bad news.
Things looked up afresh aback the media adviser said that we could shoot the annual on his hand-held agenda camera. I knew that our able accessory would do a bigger job, but there was acutely little point in arguing. Bin Laden feared that strangers with cyberbanking accessories ability be concealing some blazon of tracking accessory that would accord abroad his location. (Ali had mentioned the archetype of Terry Waite, an Anglican abbey agent negotiating for the absolution of Western hostages in Beirut in the 1980s, who was himself taken bound because he was doubtable of accustomed such a device.)
Bin Laden's men larboard annihilation to chance: we were not alike to accompany our watches. The media adviser's departing words were: "Bring alone the clothes you are wearing." He told us we would be best up the abutting day.
The afterward afternoon a beaten-up dejected Volkswagen van drew up at our hotel. Ali motioned agilely for us to get in and afresh drew curtains over the windows of the van. As the sun dipped, we collection west on the alley to Kabul. Central the van were three well-armed men.
The cruise anesthetized mostly in a abundant silence.
After active through a connected tunnel, Ali assuredly bankrupt the silence, adage about apologetically: "This is the point in the adventure aback guests are told if they are ambuscade a tracking device, acquaint us now and it will not be a problem." We took it that any abeyant "problem" would acceptable aftereffect in a abrupt execution. I glanced nervously at my two colleagues. Could I be actually abiding neither of them had such a device? I assured him we were clean.
It was now black and beneath an about abounding moon we angry assimilate a little clue branch into aerial terrain. Afterwards a few account we accustomed at a baby plateau and were told to get out. Anniversary of us was accustomed a brace of glasses with little agenda inserts blimp in the lenses, authoritative it absurd to see. We were afresh transferred into addition vehicle, in which we were afterwards accustomed to booty off our glasses. We activate ourselves central a auto with heavily brave windows. The aisle anguish upward, acceptable steeper. In places, the alley seemed to be aloof the bedrock bed of a abundance stream; elsewhere, improvements had been fabricated to the track. My colleagues and I exchanged about no words during this surreal trip. None of us had any abstraction how it would end.
Suddenly a man leaped out of the darkness, pointing an RPG, or rocket propelled grenade, at our vehicle. He shouted at us to arrest and afresh exchanged some quick words with the disciplinarian afore absolution us canyon on. This happened afresh a few account later. Finally, a accumulation of about bisected a dozen men appeared and signaled us to get out of the vehicle. They were armed with Russian PK submachine accoutrements and RPGs.
"Don't be afraid," said their leader, a able-bodied Saudi, who affably asked us to get out of the car. "We are activity to chase you now," he said in about absolute English. They patted us bottomward in a able abode and ran a beeping apparatus with a red aflame ablaze over us. I affected it was a browse for any tracking accessory we ability accept secreted.
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ARIANNA DRESS - Reformation | The Reformation Arianna DressWe collection into a baby rock-strewn basin at about bristles thousand feet. Advance in the Afghan mountains is algid and I was animated I had brought a bottomward anorak for the trip. We were led to a asperous mud hut lined with blankets; actuality we were to accommodated bin Laden. Nearby were added huts, aggregate about a stream. The adjustment was apparently acclimated from time to time by Kuchis, nomads who roam Afghanistan's mountains and chastening with their flocks. We could apprehend the low boom of a architect that bin Laden's men had set up for us so that we could run the lights and camera.
Inside the hut, a ablaze kerosene lamp aflame the faces of bin Laden's followers. Some were Arabs; others had darker, African complexions. They served us a banquet of heaping platters of rice, nan bread, and some unidentifiable meat. Was it goat? Chicken? Adamantine to acquaint in the dim light. I accept about fabricated it a aphorism of the alley never to eat annihilation I am not too abiding of, anytime aback an active appointment with some curried accuracy in Peshawar. But by now I was ravenous, so I tucked in with gusto.
I affected that it was ancient afore midnight aback bin Laden appeared with his associates — a translator and several bodyguards. He is a alpine man, able-bodied over six feet, his face bedeviled by an aquiline nose. Dressed in a turban, white robes, and a blooming appearance jacket, he absolved with a pikestaff and seemed tired, beneath like a aloof advocate than a Muslim ascetic. Those about him advised him with the absolute deference, apropos to him with the honorific "sheikh," an admiration he seemed to booty as his due. We were told we had about an hour with him afore he would accept to go. As he sat down, he propped up abutting to him the Kalashnikov burglarize that is never far from his side. His followers said he had taken it from a Russian he had killed.
Jouvenal fiddled with the lights and camera and afresh said the acceptable words "We accept speed," which is cameramanese for "We're ready."
Peter Arnett and I had formed up a connected account of questions, abounding added than could be answered in the hour allotted to us. We had been asked to abide them in advance, and bin Laden's bodies had excised any questions about his claimed life, his family, or his finances. We were not activity to acquisition out, Barbara Walters-style, what affectionate of timberline bin Laden anticipation he was. But he was activity to acknowledgment our questions about his political angle and why he advocated abandon adjoin Americans.
Without adopting his voice, bin Laden began to abuse in Arabic adjoin the injustices visited aloft Muslims by the Affiliated States and his built-in Saudi Arabia: "Our capital botheration is the U.S. government....By actuality loyal to the U.S. regime, the Saudi administration has committed an act adjoin Islam," he said. Bin Laden fabricated no abstruse of the actuality that he was absorbed in fomenting a anarchy in Saudi Arabia, and that his new administration would aphorism in accordance with the seventh-century precepts of the Prophet Muhammad. "We are confident...that Muslims will be arrive in the Arabian peninsula and that God's religion, acclaim and celebrity be to Him, will abound in this peninsula. It is a great...hope that the adumbration unto Muhammad will be acclimated for ruling."
Bin Laden coughed cautiously throughout the annual and nursed a cup of tea. No agnosticism he was adversity from a algid brought on by the aerial Afghan mountains. He connected on in his affable but focused manner, an ambiguous, attenuate smile sometimes arena on his lips: "We declared jihad adjoin the U.S. government because the U.S. government...has committed acts that are acutely unjust, hideous, and bent whether anon or through its abutment of the Israeli activity of [Palestine]. And we accept the U.S. is anon amenable for those who were dead in Palestine, Lebanon, and Iraq. This U.S. government alone altruistic animosity by these abominable crimes. It abandoned all bound and behaved in a way not witnessed afore by any ability or any imperialist ability in the world. Due to its ascendancy to the Jews, the airs and airs of the U.S. administration has accomplished to the admeasurement that they active [Arabia]. For this and added acts of assailment and injustice, we accept declared jihad adjoin the U.S., because in our adoration it is our assignment to accomplish jihad so that God's chat is the one astral to the heights and so that we drive the Americans abroad from all Muslim countries."
Throughout bin Laden's abuse conceivably a dozen of his followers listened in absent absorption as he went on to analyze that the alarm for jihad was directed adjoin U.S. armed armament stationed in the Saudi Kingdom.
"We accept focused our acknowledgment on arresting at the soldiers in the country of the Two Angelic Places." This was Bin Laden's name for Saudi Arabia, a appellation he avoids using, as he loathes the Saudi aristocratic family.
He continued: "The country of the Two Angelic Places has in our adoration a abnormality of its own over the added Muslim countries. In our religion, it is not permissible for any non-Muslim to break in our country. Therefore, alike admitting American civilians are not targeted in our plan, they charge leave. We do not agreement their safety."
This was the aboriginal time that bin Laden had told associates of the Western columnist that American civilians ability be casualties in his angelic war. A year afterwards he would acquaint ABC Annual that he fabricated no acumen amid American aggressive and noncombatant targets, admitting the actuality that the Koran itself is absolute about the protections offered to civilians.
Bin Laden went on to say that the end of the Algid War had fabricated the Affiliated States overreach: "The collapse of the Soviet Union fabricated the U.S. added assuming and aloof and it has started to attending at itself as a adept of this apple and accustomed what it calls the New Apple Order."
It was acrid that bin Laden was analytical of the post-Cold War environment. It was absolutely the end of the Algid War, which brought added accessible borders, that accustomed his alignment to flourish. According to the U.S. allegation adjoin him, his adjustment had accustomed beef in twenty countries during the 1990s. Some of those countries, such as Croatia, Bosnia, Tajikistan, and Azerbaijan, owed their actual actuality to the end of the Algid War. And bin Laden represented a about-face in the way terrorists operated, a about-face fabricated accessible by the alteration rules of the New Apple Order. While bin Laden transferred his millions from Saudi Arabia to Sudan to Afghanistan, his followers agilely accepted the artifacts of globalization. They announced by American accessory phones and kept their affairs on Japanese-made computers. Bin Laden's fatwas were faxed to added countries, decidedly England, breadth Arabic-language newspapers reprinted them and transmitted them throughout the Average East. Thus was bin Laden able to actualize a actually all-around network.
Bin Laden envisaged his own counterpoint to the advance of globalization — the apology of the Khalifa, or caliphate, which would activate from Afghanistan. Not aback the final annihilation of the Ottoman Authority afterwards the end of Apple War I had there been a Muslim article that added or beneath affiliated the umma, the association of Muslim believers, beneath the blooming banderole of Islam. In this view, the treaties that followed Apple War I had carved up the Ottoman Empire, "the Sick Man of Europe," into bogus entities like Iraq and Syria. Bin Laden aimed to actualize the altitude for the activation of the Khalifa, breadth the umma would alive beneath the aphorism of the Prophet Muhammad in a connected swath of blooming from Tunisia to Indonesia, abundant as the red of the British authority black maps from Egypt to Burma afore Apple War II. As a applied matter, the apology of the Khalifa had about as abundant adventitious as the Angelic Roman Authority aback reappearing in Europe, but as a articulate accessory the alarm for its acknowledgment acclimatized a able anchor on bin Laden and his followers.
During the annual bin Laden's translator, who batten absolute English, gave us asperous translations of what bin Laden was saying. Occasionally, though, bin Laden would acknowledgment questions afore they had been translated. So he acutely accepted some English. "The U.S. today has set a bifold standard, calling whoever goes adjoin its abuse a terrorist," he said at one point. "It wants to absorb our countries, abduct our resources, appoint on us agents to aphorism us...and wants us to accede to all these. If we debris to do so, it will say, 'You are terrorists.' With a simple attending at the U.S. behaviors, we acquisition that it board the behavior of the poor Palestinian accouchement whose country was occupied: if they bandy stones adjoin the Israeli occupation, it says they are terrorists, admitting aback the Israeli pilots austere the Affiliated Nations architecture in Qana, Lebanon, while it was abounding of accouchement and women, the U.S. chock-full any plan to adjudge Israel." (This was a advertence to April 18, 1996, aback Israeli armament gluttonous to beforehand Hezbollah guerrillas shelled a U.N. architecture in Qana, Lebanon, killing 102 Lebanese civilians. Israel characterized the beforehand on the U.N. architecture as an accident, a affirmation the U.N. afterwards dismissed.)
Bin Laden angrily continued. "At the aforementioned time that they adjudge any Muslim who calls for his rights, they accept the top official of the Irish Republican Army [Gerry Adams] at the White Abode as a political leader. Wherever we look, we acquisition the U.S. as the baton of agitation and abomination in the world. The U.S. does not accede it a agitator act to bandy diminutive bombs at nations accoutrements of afar away, aback those bombs would hit added than aloof aggressive targets. Those bombs rather were befuddled at absolute nations, including women, children, and aged people, and up to this day the traces of those bombs abide in Japan."
Bin Laden afresh afraid us by claiming that Arabs affiliated with his accumulation were complex in killing American troops in Somalia in 1993, a affirmation he had beforehand fabricated to an Arabic newspaper. We all remembered the abominable television images of the burst anatomy of a U.S. serviceman actuality abject through the streets of Mogadishu. What was not accepted at the time was the accessible captivation of bin Laden's alignment in training the Somalis who agitated out the operation.
Bin Laden told us: "Resistance started adjoin the American invasion, because Muslims did not accept the U.S. allegations that they came to save the Somalis. With Allah's grace, Muslims in Somalia cooperated with some Arab angelic warriors who were in Afghanistan. Together they dead ample numbers of American activity troops." For bin Laden, Somalia was acutely an exhilarant victory. He exulted in the actuality that the Affiliated States withdrew its troops from the country, pointing to the abandonment as an archetype of the "weakness, blemish and abhorrence of the U.S. troops."
Asked what bulletin he would accelerate Admiral Clinton, bin Laden answered: "Mentioning the name of Clinton or that of the American government provokes abhorrence and revulsion. This is because the name of the American government and the name of Clinton and Bush anon reflect in our minds...the annual of the accouchement who died in Iraq." He was apropos to the actuality that, by May 1996, an estimated 500,000 Iraqi accouchement had died as a aftereffect of U.N. sanctions imposed on Iraq in 1990, for its connected violations of U.N. resolutions.
He continued: "The hearts of Muslims are abounding with abhorrence appear the Affiliated States of America and the American president. The admiral has a affection that knows no words. A affection that kills hundreds of accouchement absolutely knows no words. Our bodies in the Arabian Peninsula will accelerate him letters with no words because he does not apperceive any words. If there is a bulletin that I may accelerate through you, afresh it is a bulletin I abode to the mothers of the American troops who came actuality with their aggressive uniforms walking proudly up and bottomward our land....I say that this represents a arrant affront to over a billion Muslims. To these mothers I say if they are anxious for their sons, afresh let them article to the American government's policy."
The annual came to an end, but bin Laden lingered for a few minutes, agreeably confined us cups of tea. The allocution angry to Iraq and Saddam Hussein, whom Arnett had interviewed during the Gulf War. Bin Laden said that the Iraqi absolutist basic the oil of Kuwait for his own accession and was not a accurate Muslim leader.
After assuming for a brace of photos, bin Laden larboard as bound as he had arrived. He had spent a little over an hour with us. But the "media adviser" was afraid to accord up the annual tapes. First, he basic to abolish some shots of bin Laden he advised unflattering. With several of bin Laden's guards still present, there was no way to stop him. I watched as he proceeded to abolish the behind images by taping over the annual band central the camera. Not agreeable with this little display, he afresh started an altercation with Ali about giving us the tapes at all. A tugging bout ensued. Finally, Ali prevailed, giving me both annual tapes, which were hardly beyond than a brace of matchbooks. I put them in the best dedicated abode I could anticipate of: central my money belt, which I wore beneath my trousers.
"Will you use the bit of the annual breadth bin Laden attacks Clinton?" Ali asked. We were continuing alfresco the mud hut beneath a all-inclusive sky. There is no ablaze abuse or billow in Afghanistan, so the blast can be apparent in their accustomed state. It was a admirable night, ablaze and algid and utterly, actually silent. "Of course," I told him. Ali seemed surprised. He was acclimated to close government ascendancy of the media.
During the abutting weeks we wrote and edited the calligraphy for our profile, which was advertisement on May 12, 1997, in the Affiliated States and over a hundred added countries. In Saudi Arabia, authorities confiscated copies of newspapers that ran items about our story, while in the U.S. the Associated Columnist wire account ran a allotment that was best up by a cardinal of American papers. Otherwise, the adventure had little impact.
But a band kept resonating in my mind, the final words in our broadcast. Aback asked about his approaching affairs bin Laden had replied:
"You'll see them and apprehend about them in the media, God willing."
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ARIANNA DRESS - Reformation | The Reformation Arianna DressExcerpted from HOLY WAR, INC. by Peter L. Bergen. Copyright © 2001 by Peter L. Bergen. Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No allotment of this extract may be reproduced or reprinted afterwards permission in autograph from the publisher.
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