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Bin Laden Aide Was Key Planner
By Susan Schmidt
Muhammad Atef, the top al Qaeda military commander who was reportedly killed in a U.S. bombing raid, has been accused of helping plan many of the al Qaeda terrorism network's operations around the world – deadly attacks that targeted everything from a mud-hut marketplace in Mogadishu, Somalia, to the skyscraper canyons of Lower Manhattan. A former Egyptian police officer, Atef is the suspected operations mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. He and Egyptian surgeon Ayman al-Zawahiri, who became the network's philosophical force, joined Osama bin Laden to form the triumvirate that has built and led al Qaeda for much of the past decade. The U.S. government has had a $5 million bounty on Atef's head since he was indicted on murder and conspiracy charges for the 1998 bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. But he proved to be elusive. Atef's death shows the ability of U.S. forces to zero in on bin Laden's high command, terrorism experts said. It could have a powerful impact on al Qaeda, they noted. "It's like losing the starting quarterback," said Larry Johnson, who worked in counterterrorism for the State Department and the CIA. "Bin Laden is charismatic and wealthy," but he needs Atef and Zawahiri for their organizational skills, he said. "It's a big blow to them," agreed a top federal law enforcement official. But he cautioned that al Qaeda is highly decentralized, possibly with no one being irreplaceable. Atef, born in 1944, was thought to be extremely close to bin Laden, serving not only as military commander but also as chief of security for the United States's most wanted man. Some experts had considered him a possible successor to bin Laden. Briefing journalists at the Pentagon, Rear Adm. John Stufflebeem, deputy director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said bin Laden "no longer has a principal assistant he has been counting on for developing military or terrorist operations." With Atef gone, he said, bin Laden is "going to feel much less secure" and is "one notch closer to this noose tightening." Pentagon officials said Atef is believed to have died in the bombing of a house or cave south of the Afghan capital of Kabul several days ago. Stufflebeem described the reports of Atef's death as "authoritative," but he said there has been "no confirmation." He said U.S. officials are basing their supposition on intelligence monitoring of ground conversations that followed a planned airstrike against a known Taliban and al Qaeda "command and control" target. Another senior military officer said that the facility was south of Kabul, but that U.S. intelligence officials are still trying to sort out which of two targets struck in the past few days – a cave and a house – was the one that had sheltered Atef. "The intel guys are not in agreement on where exactly the hit was against him," the officer said. Bin Laden, Atef and Zawahiri have been constant companions for much of the past decade, moving from Afghanistan at the conclusion of that nation's war with the former Soviet Union to Saudi Arabia, then to Sudan, where they established their terrorist network. When they were expelled from Sudan in 1996 at the urging of the United States, they returned to Afghanistan to pursue their jihad, or holy war, from that country's rugged hills. Zawahiri, leader of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad when he joined forces with bin Laden, brought Atef, who was part of his organization, into al Qaeda. The two Egyptians reportedly urged bin Laden to increase al Qaeda's use of violence and terror in its campaign against the West. Atef had been plotting deadly operations aimed at Americans in Africa since 1992, when he went to Somalia to target U.S. and United Nations forces stationed there as part of the Operation Restore Hope relief effort. To al Qaeda, Restore Hope was another U.S. incursion into an Islamic country. Atef trained the Somali tribesmen who attacked and killed 18 U.S. soldiers in Mogadishu in 1993, according to Atef's indictment in the subsequent embassy bombings in East Africa. According to some accounts, including one from an American intelligence official cited in British author Simon Reeve's book "The New Jackals," Atef also planned an unsuccessful 1992 attack on U.S. troops at a hotel in Yemen, while they were on their way to Somalia. Atef is accused of murder and conspiracy in plotting the embassy bombings, which killed 224 people and injured 5,500. In a document released on Sept. 30, British Prime Minister Tony Blair asserted that "one of bin Laden's closest and most senior associates was responsible for the detailed planning of the [Sept. 11] attacks," a reference, authorities later confirmed, to Atef. Because Atef was thought to regularly stay close to bin Laden, his presence outside Kabul this week could mean that al Qaeda's high command is closer to the capital than anyone had believed, some analysts speculated yesterday. Or Atef may have decided to risk a long trip to advise Taliban and al Qaeda forces as they were about to be overrun by the Northern Alliance, they said. The importance of Atef's death to al Qaeda may be felt most in the long run, Pentagon and law enforcement officials said. "It will have an impact on their future operations that will be good for us," Stufflebeem said. But, he cautioned, the loss of Atef might have no effect on al Qaeda plans that are "already in the can."
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America at War
