After Saudi Arabia Cast Him Out, Why Bin Laden Was Happiest in Sudan
Stripped of his citizenship, cut off by his family, and hunted by the United States, Bin Laden built his own commercial and militant network in Sudan — until Washington forced Sudan to expel him.
The video won't play here. Listen to the audio instead:
The argument · tap a timestamp to hear it
From war hero to a dissident under soft house arrest
When Bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia in 1989 he was a genuine celebrity, and recordings of his lectures circulated privately among young people. After Saddam invaded Kuwait in 1990, he volunteered a memorandum to the Saudi Ministry of Defense proposing that he lead Afghan veterans to defend the kingdom, with no need for American or other "infidel" troops. The Saudi royal family was polite to his face and laughed behind his back, and turned him down. After the rejection he began publicly attacking the royal family for allowing U.S. troops to be stationed on holy soil, and aligned himself with the "Awakening Sheikhs." Saudi Arabia did not arrest him — because he was a member of the Bin Laden family — but restricted his passport and sent his older brother Bakr to talk him around. But he no longer listened to his brother.
— Steve CollThe Sudan years were the happiest of his life
At the end of 1992 Bin Laden left Saudi Arabia under the cover of the family's construction projects in Port Sudan, bought salt flats outside Port Sudan, and then moved to Khartoum. There he had wives, children, a large house, a horse farm, and his own business office, and he began building al-Qaeda into an international revolutionary organization. He paid his members salaries, kept in touch with the outside world by fax machine, and simultaneously funded militant activity in Yemen, Libya, the Maghreb and elsewhere. Steve Coll says that across his short and turbulent life, the Sudan years may have been his happiest and most comfortable period.
— Steve CollHe claimed more credit than he actually earned
The December 1992 hotel bombing in Aden, Yemen, targeted U.S. troops heading to Somalia, and Bin Laden did have a role in it. But in the October 1993 Black Hawk Down incident in Mogadishu, the forces that actually inflicted American casualties were the militia of local warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid, and Bin Laden was claiming credit he did not deserve. In East Africa, however, he did build a network, and the later bombings of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam were entirely the work of his network. It was from the embassy bombings onward that he turned from a financier into a direct commander.
— Steve CollHe fired at both America and the Saudi royal family at once
After the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, the investigation showed Bin Laden was a node for funding and weapons. But in the same period he was also using audio tapes to preach inside Saudi Arabia, publicly denouncing the royal family as illegitimate. Steve Coll points out that he had no strategic subtlety whatsoever — someone who wanted to strike America could have avoided offending the Saudi royal family so openly, but he did not do so. The Saudis deployed almost every tool they had: Prince Turki, the head of intelligence, the Badr brothers, his brother Bakr, and even his mother were all sent to persuade him, and all of it failed.
— Steve CollAfter being struck from the family, he never publicly denounced his brothers
Bakr publicly denounced his younger brother and cut him off from the family fortune, and Saudi Arabia stripped him of his citizenship. But Bin Laden never once publicly denounced his brothers in his life; he laid the responsibility on the Saudi royal family and believed his brothers were merely acting under coercion. His shares in the company were sold to his brother Ghalib, who sympathized with his ideology, and that opaque transaction eventually ended up in a Saudi court, with the shares placed in trust in case of a future reconciliation with the royal family. Steve Coll says that in that Saudi Arabia, nothing was ever monolithic.
— Steve CollAmerican pressure was the real force that changed his situation
Around 1995, his aide Jamal al-Fadl embezzled $110,000 and fled to the U.S. embassy in Eritrea, becoming a reliable inside source. The CIA station in Khartoum began tracking Bin Laden, even having agents wear wigs and dress as Africans to follow him by car. But what truly made it impossible for him to stay was American pressure on the Sudanese government. Sudan wanted international loans and political legitimacy, and in 1994 it quietly handed Carlos the Jackal over to French agents, already showing it would bow to pressure. In the end Sudan informed Bin Laden that he had to leave.
— Steve CollHis family refused to go with him to Afghanistan
When he was expelled from Sudan, Bin Laden's family broke apart. Some of his wives and sons were told the next stop was Jalalabad, and they chose to return to Jeddah, with some of the sons rejoining the family business. Steve Coll explains why: in Khartoum they had money, horses, air conditioning, their own bedrooms, schools; Jalalabad was in the middle of a war, with the Taliban attacking the forces that controlled the area, and even housing was uncertain. It was not the same thing at all — Jalalabad was far more savage, a return to the jihad front line.
— Steve CollThe CIA set up a dedicated unit to hunt him
Before Bin Laden flew from Sudan to Afghanistan in 1996, the CIA had already set up "Alex Station" at its Langley headquarters, aimed specifically at him. This marked America's recognition that he was a global problem, not merely a problem of one country. Steve Coll points out that the 1990s were the beginning of technological globalization, and Bin Laden himself was an innovator: he used fax machines to communicate clandestinely with Saudi Arabia, and he adopted satellite television very early. The CIA set up Alex Station not only to track him but also to figure out how he used communications technology to connect militant organizations across different places.
— Steve CollIn their own words · checked verbatim
He was a public figure who lectured, who was seen as a veteran of a worthy cause, of a righteous cause in the name of Islam.
Steve Coll3:14
But the Saudis, you know, the royal family think he's ridiculous at this point. They have to be polite because he belongs to the bin Laden family. But you can hear their sniggering under their breath and attempt to control their mirth as he presents this idea.
Steve Coll6:24
when you look over the whole of his short and troubled life uh the sudan years were probably the happiest that he knew and the most capacious
Steve Coll14:43
someone in his position who wanted to have an impact, say, you know, war against the United States might find a way to keep the Saudi royal family at bay by not so explicitly offending them. That's not his way.
Steve Coll25:11
Throughout his life, he never really denounced his brothers. He blamed the Saudi royal family for putting them in an impossible position.
Steve Coll27:16
Figures
| Date Bin Laden was stripped of Saudi citizenship | 1990s (exact year unclear) | 26:12 |
| Death toll of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing | 6 | 30:22 |
| Number injured in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing | more than 1,000 | 30:22 |
| Number of U.S. service members killed in the 1995 Riyadh car bombing | 5 | 35:40 |
| Date Bin Laden left Sudan for Afghanistan | May 1996 | 37:42 |
Glossary
- Awakening Sheikhs
- A group of influential conservative Islamic clerics in Saudi Arabia in the 1990s who publicly opposed the stationing of U.S. troops in the kingdom.
- Alex Station
- A unit set up by the CIA at its Langley headquarters specifically to track Bin Laden.
How to listen
Listeners interested in the prehistory of 9/11, modern Middle Eastern history, intelligence, and terrorist networks; anyone who wants to understand how Bin Laden went from Saudi elite to globally wanted man.
The opening ads and the closing preview can be skipped; the main episode starts at 2:13.