6/13/2002

Al Qaeda member Abd-Al-Halim Adl wrote a letter to 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed on June 13, 2002, which decried the state of al Qaeda following the American reaction to the 9/11 attacks: ” ‘…we must completely halt all external [terrorist] actions until we sit down and consider the disaster we caused. The East Asia, Europe, America, Horn of Africa, Yemen, Gulf, and Morocco [terrorist] groups have fallen, and Pakistan has almost been drowned in one push. …Regrettably, my brother, if you look back, you will find that you are the person solely responsible for all this because you undertook the mission (a reference to 9/11 it seems), and during six months, we lost what we built in years. Does not that merit that we pause and sit down, not to seek judgment, but to review and identify the errors that have been behind these disasters and not to blindly ignore them and continue what we are doing and become a joke for all the intelligence agencies in the world. My beloved brother, stop all foreign actions, stop sending people to captivity, stop devising new operations, regardless of whether orders come or do not come from Abu Abdallah (bin Laden). …Allah willing, I will write a letter to Abu Abdallah (bin Laden) to advise him more than what I advised you so that he will stop his onrush in external actions and will discuss the matter appropriately and then start again against Allah’s enemies. Let us pause now so that Allah may make us successful as we were before.’ ”

 – Peter Bergen, The Osama bin Laden I Know, Pages 429-430