Who is Osama bin Laden?

Is he a cog in a vast wheel of state-sponsored terrorism -- or a new breed of freelance evil genius?

By Laura Miller

Nov 1, 2001 | The American readers who have put Yossef Bodansky's "Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America" on bestseller lists across the nation are probably hoping that the book will tell them something about the inner Osama, the psychology of the man thought to be behind the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. As my mother asked when I told her what I was reading, "Does it explain what makes him so crazy?"

But like all of the books and in-depth reports on bin Laden currently available, Bodansky's was written before the attacks and published by a small specialty press; it wasn't created with the demands of a general readership in mind. It's odd to think of ordinary people across the nation dutifully plowing through this monumental conglomeration of facts looking for answers to why bin Laden would order the slaughter of thousands of American office workers just as they were finishing their first cups of coffee on a fine fall morning. Bodansky, an Israeli-born military analyst who is the director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare and has done consulting work for the U.S. departments of State and Defense, doesn't really deal in that kind of explanation; he's a professional speaking, for the most part, to other professionals and perhaps to the occasional buff. But burrow between the lines in "Bin Laden" and you can find clues about the character of America's Most Wanted -- intimations that paint bin Laden as a disturbingly impressive man.

First, let it be said that the book so many Americans are turning to in their efforts to learn more about our new archnemesis has its peculiarities. The title, for example, is misleading; throughout most of the book, bin Laden plays a decidedly supporting role. Often he vanishes for 20 or 30 pages at a stretch. It's only in the later parts of the book that he takes center stage, and even then Bodansky doesn't see him as the Napoleon of terrorism -- Professor Moriarty in a turban and beard -- as he's been made out to be in the press. "Ultimately," the author concludes, "the quintessence of bin Laden's threat is his being a cog, albeit an important one, in a large system that will outlast his own demise -- state-sponsored international terrorism."

Bin Laden is a "cog," Bodansky explains, because there is no such thing as an independent terrorist network capable of significant "spectacular" attacks. "Major terrorist operations," he writes, "are conducted by agencies of states in pursuit of the long-term, strategic interests of the controlling and sponsoring states." Since the Sept. 11 attacks, Bodansky has given numerous interviews in which he maintains that bin Laden "hasn't got a penny" and that attention should be paid to the "states" that are footing the bill for his activities.

It's clear from reading "Bin Laden" that the state Bodansky considers to be the primary culprit is Iran, and that his book is as much an indictment of that nation as of bin Laden himself. In order to provide deniability, the terrorism "controlled and sponsored by Iran" is "run via Sudan under the leadership of Sheikh [Hassan] al-Turabi." If there's a Professor Moriarty in Bodansky's tale, it's Turabi, the spiritual leader and de facto head of Sudan, a baby-faced cleric whose excellent English and cultured manner have lately made him a fixture in TV documentaries about militant Islamism. ("Islamism" -- rather than "Islamic fundamentalism" -- is the preferred term to use when referring to what's essentially political extremism tied to religious ideology.)

Many experts on Islamist movements name Turabi as a significant coordinator of international terrorism, but this "Iran's behind it all" scenario is dicier, which brings up the question of Bodansky himself. A former editor of the Israeli Air Force's official magazine, he is hardly unbiased. He is reportedly an associate of superhawk Richard Perle, a former Reagan administration assistant defense secretary; the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Association has gone so far as to suggest that he is an Israeli intelligence agent who helped run convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard. This is another accusation that should be taken with a grain of salt, but one that gives a sense of how tricky this terrain can be. (Israel and Iran, of course, are implacable enemies: Iran set up and supports the radical Hezbollah organization, which is based in Lebanon and has battled the Israelis for years. Bodansky asserts that bin Laden plays a leading role in an Iranian-led group called Hezbollah International, which he asserts was established in 1996 at a terrorist summit to promote and coordinate terrorist activities around the world.)

If Bodansky is correct, Iranian intelligence leaders would have had to reach across not only the rift between Sunni and Shiite Muslims (Iran is Shiite; the Taliban and al-Qaida, Sunni) but between Islamists and the secular government of Iraq, which Bodansky depicts as an eager junior partner and newcomer to the conspiracies -- all to advance a shared anti-Americanism. In that case, though, how would he explain the current warming of relations between Iran and the U.S.? (The latest example: Wednesday's Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. will ship wheat across Iran to help refugees on the Iran/Afghan border.) Is Iran's hatred of the Taliban really enough to accomplish that?

Of course, in the strategic mare's nest of the Mideast and Central Asia, any kind of doublecross is not only possible but quite likely to lead to resounding success, as the recent history of Pakistan (at least according to Bodansky) demonstrates. Bodansky maintains that in the late '80s the ISI, Pakistan's intelligence service and "a state within a state," essentially tricked the CIA into funding training camps ostensibly for mujahedin warriors preparing to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan, but also used to train venomously anti-Western Islamist terrorists, many of whom were earmarked for operations against Indians in the disputed province of Kashmir. Others, "from all over the Arab and Muslim world," were trained in Pakistani and Afghan camps, then sent to advanced training camps in Sudan and Yemen to be deployed elsewhere. The ISI, Bodansky says, "was actively courting and recruiting foreign Islamists" to train in the camps even after the "Afghan jihad was dwindling." Saudi Arabia also funded the camps, at first hoping to protect its oil assets from the Soviets but eventually -- and very foolishly -- using the training centers as a way to siphon troublesome Islamists out of the kingdom and off to vent their zeal in the battles of faraway lands.

Next Page: Did Pakistan double-cross the mujahedin to set up the Taliban?

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