“On December 12 [2001], a defining moment came in the Tora Bora [Afghanistan] battle, and al-Qaeda would swiftly exploit it. Haji Zaman Gamsharik, one of the Afghan warlords leading the attack against al-Qaeda, had opened negotiations with members of the group for a surrender agreement. ‘They talked on the radio with Haji Zaman,’ an Afghan […]
Category: quotes
12/11/2001
“Mr. [Zacharias] Moussaoui, a French citizen of Morrocan [sic] descent, was indicted last week [December 11, 2001] on charges of conspiring in the Sept. 11 terror attacks.” – Philip Shenon, “Flight School Warned F.B.I. Of Suspicions,” The New York Times, Dec. 22, 2001 […]
12/11/2001
“The Justice Department indicted [Zacarias] Moussaoui in December [11] 2001 for conspiring to commit terrorist attacks, and he was sent to Alexandria, Virginia, only minutes from the Pentagon, for trial.” – John Yoo, War By Other Means, Page 211 […]
12/11/2001
“…at some point prior to December 11, 2001, Osama bin Laden and as many as eighteen hundred of his fighters slipped away in the dead of night from the Tora Bora mountains [in Afghanistan] and made their way across the border to the safety of northern Pakistan. Regardless of who is responsible, bin Laden and […]
12/11/2001
A WikiLeaks Guantanamo Bay document focused on Osama bin Laden’s (UBL’s) escape from the Tora Bora compound in Afghanistan in December 2001. “Other Guantanamo assessments seen by CNN suggest that bin Laden abruptly left Tora Bora on December 11 [2001]. ‘UBL suddenly departed Tora Bora with a few individuals UBL selected,’ reads one report. His […]
12/10/2001
” ‘Mistaken policy or accident of history–take your pick,’ the Saudi foreign minister Saud al-Faisal, [Saudi Intelligence Chief Prince] Turki’s brother, said in an interview with The Washington Post during the same period [as Turki’s December 10, 2001, Nightline interview]. ‘The stability of Afghanistan seemed a bigger concern than the presence of bin Laden. …When […]
12/10/2001
Saudi Intelligence Chief Prince “Turki [al Faisal] interpreted [Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed] Omar’s words as a clear decision to force bin Laden out of Afghanistan. ‘I repeated to Sheikh Mullah Omar,’ Turki recalled [in a December 10, 2001, interview on Nightline]: ‘ *Do you agree that you’re going to hand over this fellow and that […]
12/10/2001
“On December 10 [2001], the U.S. National Security Agency, which sucks up signals intelligence around the world, picked up an important intercept from Tora Bora [Afghanistan]: ‘Father (bin Laden) is trying to break through the siege line.’ This was then communicated to the Delta [Force] operators on the ground. Around 4 p.m. the same day, […]
12/10/2001
In a news conference at the Pentagon on December 10, 2001, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz said: ” ‘It is very important to keep our focus on this war in Afghanistan. It’s a classic military mistake to leave a partially defeated enemy on the battlefield in one form or another.’ ” – Peter Bergen, […]
12/10/2001
On December 10, 2001, in the battle of Tora Bora, in Afghanistan, signals intelligence had pinpointed bin Laden’s location. “As dusk fell, [Delta Force leader (pseudonym) Dalton Fury’s key Afghan ally, Hazarat Ali, had retreated from the battlefield back to Jalalabad for some dinner to break his Ramadan fast, as is the Afghan way. Fury […]