Played for a Fool and Time to Go Though but thirty-two years old on his arrival in Sudan, bin Laden had nonetheless already had experience some men do not acquire in a lifetime. He had enjoyed an enviable upbringing as the child of a NOMAD, 1989–1996 | 101 102 | OSAMA BIN LADEN billionaire who hobnobbed with royals and Islamic scholars; worked as a manual laborer; managed construction projects; married and fathered a growing family; risked his life as a combat engineer; fought, led his own forces, and been wounded; returned to his country as a hero; and, finally, alienated its government and been forced into exile. Given this, one would expect bin Laden, by 1992, to be a thoroughly toughened character, not easily fooled. And mostly he was—with the disastrous exception of a still largely unshaken faith in the altruism of Islamist scholars. Bin Laden would be neither the first nor the last person—Muslim and non-Muslim—to be made a fool of by the leader of the regime in Sudan, Dr. Hasan al-Turabi. Educated at Kings College in London and the Sorbonne, al-Turabi was a brilliant, multilingual scholar who talked of expanding the sway of Islam through the Horn of Africa and eventually around the world. This was music to bin Laden’s ears, of course, and it at least temporarily deafened him to the reality that al- Turabi was a lying, self-serving windbag who saw in bin Laden what some observers called a “mobile emergency bank.”116 Al-Turabi pro- vided a warm welcome for bin Laden, staging “a lavish reception in his honor” at which he told attendees that bin Laden had been named a member and adviser to the NIF. Bin Laden responded with thanks and a five-million-dollar donation to the party.117 Bin Laden’s son Omar claims his father soon “became enthralled with a goal of bringing the impoverished country up to modern standards.”118 The goal was fan- tasy, however, and the money bin Laden donated was just the start of a fund-draining exercise al-Turabi would lead him through. Bin Laden, as noted, pursued his own economic interests in the Sudan and simultaneously contributed heavily to al-Turabi’s efforts to build a viable Islamic state. Bin Laden, a friend has said, bought into the idea that Sudan could be an Islamic state, and thought “he could offer something to this state by means of his trade and construction services and his relations to the [Saudi] kingdom and the Gulf.”119 On arriving, bin Laden provided two million dollars to the NIF, to care for Afghan Arabs already living in Sudan. He then gave the regime an- other loan to cover emergency importation of wheat, and he later guar- anteed payments for purchases of gas, helicopters, and artillery pieces. He also agreed on several occasions to buy Sudan’s entire cotton crop with hard currency and recoup costs by selling it abroad. His construc- tion outfit built major roadways—including one 350-mile highway— and, as we have seen, helped build Port Sudan’s airport, for the operation of which he contributed another $2.5 million dollars. The construction done for the NIF regime was paid for with huge land grants in eastern Sudan—one consisting of a million-plus acres— where bin Laden raised livestock and grew sesame seeds, gum Arabic, and those amazing sunflowers.120 It seems fair to say that al-Turabi got what he wanted out of bin Laden, which was enough funding to keep the regime limping along. Bin Laden’s own investments were mostly unsuccessful, and he was asked to leave the country—by al-Turabi and Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir, so they could dodge U.S. and UN sanctions—before he could determine if his enormous land holdings could turn a profit. In his rushed departure from Sudan, he lost a great deal. He sold his businesses, land, houses, and construction and agricultural machinery at fire-sale rates or simply abandoned them. There is, moreover, no evidence that his loans to al-Turabi’s regime were repaid. In sum, bin Laden got well and truly clipped by al-Turabi; as Lawrence Wright has written, his assets in Sudan were “essentially stolen from him.”121 He would arrive in Afghanistan with his personal fortune greatly reduced. Later, according to Jonathan Randall, al-Turabi would mock him as a fool, saying “all Osama could say was jihad, jihad, jihad.”122 Bin Laden did not publicly denounce al-Turabi’s betrayal. “The Sudanese government at the highest level informed me of its difficult position and the scale of Saudi pressure on it,” bin Laden told Abdel Bari Atwan, referring to the effect the ARC communiqués were having. “They asked me to stop issuing statements. On the day I was told to stop issuing statements I sought to find an alternative land capable of bearing the word of truth.”123 Bin Laden has more or less kept his silence about Sudan, merely noting that it “has not completed the required steps of the application of Shariah” and warning al-Turabi and al-Bashir that U.S. and Saudi guarantees were worthless.124 “The U.S. promised Sudan,” bin Laden said in 1997, “that, in return for my expul- sion, they would restore economic aid to Sudan . . . but Sudan’s eco- nomic aid was not restored.”125 Despite it all, bin Laden maintained cordial relations with Sudanese leaders, sending a letter of condolence, NOMAD, 1989–1996 | 103 104 | OSAMA BIN LADEN for example, to President al-Bashir after the death of the Sudanese vice president in 1998. “This tragedy has come at a time,” bin Laden wrote, “when the international Christian crusade is rushing madly against our country Sudan and the heart of the Muslim world.”126 Despite his hurried departure, bin Laden had not been entirely unprepared to leave Sudan. As noted, he had left behind operating training camps in Afghanistan with al-Qaeda members managing them.127 And while deeply frustrated with the Afghans’ apparent in- ability to consolidate power in a post-Soviet government, he refrained from publicly criticizing any leader, pointing out to Al-Quds al-Arabi that he had always focused “on helping our brothers in Afghanistan since 1985, and cooperating with anyone who might “help Muslims defend themselves and their religion.” “We harbor no hostility toward anyone or any Afghan groups.”128 He also never claimed that the Arab mujahedin had defeated the Soviets in Afghanistan, often saying that “credit must be given where it is due” and congratulating the leaders of the seven main Afghan insurgent groups for their “ability to raise the banner of jihad.”129 As noted, not only did he know such a claim was untrue, he knew with how much vitriol the Afghans would have rejected it.130 Bin Laden’s own conclusion was that “God helped me and we come to the land of Khorasan [Afghanistan] again” and that he and al-Qaeda were stronger for the move. “We are in an invincible land which enjoys security, pride, and immunity against the humilia- tion and subjugation to which our brothers are subject to in our own country.”131
Posted on: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 07:47:12 +0000
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