Page 141 - Encyclopedia Of Terrorism

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“When the Russians decide to leave Afghanistan, fled the United Kingdom, had instructions on writing
bin Laden, he decide to make his own group,” testified in code, poisoning people, and blending into Western
Jamal al-Fadl, a former Al Qaeda insider who became society. The manual, along with seized computer
a top government informant and the trial’s first files, witness testimony, and postarrest statements by
witness. Al-Fadl, a Sudanese man who became the al-’Owhali, Odeh, and K. K. Mohamed, revealed the
third rank-and-file member to swear a bayat, or loyalty anatomy of Al Qaeda terror cells. The organization
oath, to bin Laden, defected after embezzling money would divide an attack into compartmentalized
from Al Qaeda. He showed up at the U.S. embassy in phases—surveillance, logistics and planning, prepara-
Eritrea in the summer of 1996, warning of Islamic tion, and execution—with the group behind each
militants who were training to attack. phase not necessarily knowing any of the others.
“Maybe they try to do something inside the United Al-’Owhali told his FBI interrogator that Al Qaeda
States and they try to fight the United States Army out- chose the Kenya embassy because it was an easy
side, and also they try to make a bomb against some target that housed a variety of U.S. government and
embassy outside,” al-Fadl had explained, according to military personnel and a female ambassador whose
his testimony. Due to his paramilitary activities in death would generate more attention. Al-’Owhali,
Afghanistan, bin Laden was already on counterterror- who rode in the passenger seat of the Nairobi truck,
ism investigators’ radar, and he was listed as an unin- was seen by an eyewitness throwing stun grenades at
dicted coconspirator in a foiled plot to bomb New York embassy security guards so the bomb truck driver
City landmarks inspired by the blind Egyptian cleric could get closer to the building. Al-’Owhali, expected
Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, whose followers were to die in his mission, ran away from the building prior
among the bombers of the World Trade Center in 1993. to the explosion. The driver blew himself up.
Al-Fadl and another Al Qaeda defector in the U.S. Odeh, trained in explosives, told his FBI inter-
government’s witness protection program, L’Houssaine rogators that he felt the bombing had been a “blunder”
Kherchtou, a Moroccan, offered an insider’s account of because it had killed so many Kenyans—many in
the conspiracy behind the embassy bombings and the Ufundi house. Handwritten sketches bearing a strik-
structure of Al Qaeda. When the group was headquar- ing resemblance to the embassy and roads leading to
tered in Khartoum, Sudan, for five years starting in it were found by investigators in Odeh’s home in the
1991, its business interests spanned road and bridge rural Kenyan coastal city of Witu. Prosecutors called
construction, trucking, currency exchange, a leather him a “technical adviser” to the bombing. He stayed
tannery, and exporting farm products such as sesame at a Nairobi hotel blocks from the embassy along with
seeds and peanuts. Prosecutors claimed these compa- other conspirators in the days before the attacks.
nies were fronts to provide income for the terrorist Clothing in the travel bag he was carrying at the time
enterprise. of his arrest in the Karachi airport bore traces of TNT.
After returning to Afghanistan in 1996, bin Laden K. K. Mohamed rented the Dar es Salaam house
and his top associates communicated with their East where the Tanzania embassy bomb was assembled
African cell and other operatives worldwide with a and bought the jeep the bombers used as a utility
laptop-sized satellite phone. The most frequent voice vehicle. On the morning of the attacks, he helped the
on the other end was an alleged founder of the East suicide driver get on his route, but Mohamed exited
African cell, Khaled al-Fawwaz, a Saudi dissident the passenger seat to go back and clean up the bomb
later based in London, who disseminated the bin house.
Laden’s fatwas. British police arrested al-Fawwaz and After 12 days of deliberations, the jury found the
two other alleged London cell operatives in 1998 and four men guilty all 302 counts brought against them,
held them in custody for more than three years as they starting with having joined bin Laden’s worldwide
fought extradition to the United States and prosecu- conspiracy to kill Americans. Though the U.S. sought
tion under the embassy bombings indictment. the death penalty against the two trial defendants with
British police also discovered what became known the most direct roles in carrying out the embassy
as the “terror manual,” an 18-chapter, 180-page opus bombings—al-’Owhali in Kenya and K. K. Mohamed
called “Military Studies in the Jihad Against the in Tanzania—the jurors rejected a death sentence.
Tyrants.” The manual, found in the Manchester home Among their reasons, stated on the verdict form, were
of Anas al-Liby, a Libyan Al Qaeda operative who had not wanting to make them martyrs, thus inspiring