All language subtitles for Bin.Laden.The.Road.To.9.&.11.S01E02.

[eerie music]

Man: American 11,
ident please or acknowledge.

American 20
will not respond to me now.

[ominous music]

[explosion]

Woman: Oh, my god!

[screams]

Voiceover:
9/11 still haunts us all.

The events of that day

have defined much of the world
ever since.

The hunt for Bin Laden drove
the West to invade Afghanistan.

Now they've left,
a new reign of terror begins.

[shouting]

How much do we really know

about the man Osama Bin Laden?

He may be dead,

but his legacy
continues to impact us all.

Obaidullah Baheer: Growing up,

I worshipped everything
about Bin Laden.

He was a hero.

Khalid Batarfi:
My heart at that time

told me to love him,
and I loved him then.

Voiceover: We know Bin Laden
as the terrorist,

the world's most evil man.

For those once closest to him,

his story is more complex.

Now some are ready to speak
for the first time.

[gunshots]

Aimen Dean: He could say that

you should take
that leap of faith.

With will,
determination and faith

we can change
the course of history.

Voiceover: They tell us
about the man they knew,

the choices he made,
the points of no return.

People change
and war changes people.

That's what happened to Osama.

Aimen Dean: We are going into
the path

of endless, perpetual bloodshed.

[explosion]

Woman: Oh, my god!

[sobs]

[suspenseful music]

[sombre music]

Aimen Dean: Bin Laden
did not want to be

the commander of all Muslims.

He wanted to claim authority
only in a war situation -

a warfare situation.

Al-Qaeda knew
what they were doing.

They had a plan,

and they knew
what they were doing.

This is why I joined al-Qaeda.

I was born and raised
in Saudi Arabia.

At the age of 16

I went to join the jihad
in Bosnia.

From there, my journey
took me to Afghanistan,

where for the first time
I met Osama Bin Laden,

a living example
of a Muslim warrior

from the Arabian desert

going to the mountains
of Afghanistan.

[shouting]

[explosions]

Voiceover: The Soviet Union's
withdrawal from Afghanistan

left the door open for
the Taliban to seize control,

not dissimilar from today.

Osama Bin Laden
was quick to claim the glory

and was elevated
to war hero status.

Obaidullah Baheer:
I remember as a child

editing Che Guevara's
black-and-white picture

and putting
Bin Laden's face on it,

because we'd want to wear
shirts like that.

That's how hip he was for us.

He'd become the culture.

He became a trendsetter.

Everything that he did
was later impersonated

or copied by jihadi groups
all over the world.

He became that person

who you didn't need to know
too much about,

it was just his image.

Voiceover: Osama returned
to Saudi Arabia in triumph.

But within 18 months,
Iraq invades Kuwait,

destabilising the whole
of the Arabian-Gulf region.

[sombre music]

Aimen Dean:
After Saddam Hussein's forces

invaded Kuwait

and it became clear
that they were poised

on the Saudi-Kuwaiti border,

to advance further,

the Saudi government decided
that the best course of action

is to seek help
from the UN Security Council

and to seek help in particular
from the United States.

Khalid Batarfi: According to
Prince Turki al-Faisal,

who was the head of intelligence
in Saudi Arabia,

Osama Bin Laden told him,

"Please don't bring
foreign troops,

especially American troops,

because if they come here,
they will occupy us.

They will not leave."

The last time
I spoke with Osama Bin Laden,

he was telling us,

"Let us train our people
to defend Saudi Arabia".

He said, "I'm willing to bring
all my mujahideen here

to support you,
and that would be enough".

He believes in that.

And he was angry
when his country

declined to accept his offer

and chose instead
to invite foreign troops,

especially American troops,

to help in liberating Kuwait.

It was like a cat
turning into tiger,

an injured tiger.

You didn't expect that.

Voiceover: In a pre-digital age,

Bin Laden began distributing
his sermons on audio cassettes,

which sold in their thousands.

[suspenseful music]

Aimen Dean:
He viewed the landing

of half a million US troops
in Saudi Arabia

as an act of invasion.

They are not there just only
to repel Saddam Hussein

and then leave -

he believed that they will stay.

Man reading: "This aggression
has reached

such a catastrophic
and disastrous point

as to have brought about
a calamity

unprecedented in history.

Namely, the invasion
by the American and Western

crusader forces
of Saudi Arabia."

There was the scaremongering
that somehow our whole identity

as Muslims in Arabia

is going to be erased

because we allowed
the American forces

to come in such large numbers.

Sending 'invasion forces',
he called it,

was an anathema to everything
that he believed in.

[call to prayer]

He was talking about jihads
even when he was young.

But it was the jihad
I understood

and every Muslim understood -

"Let us go
and liberate Jerusalem.

Let's fight
for the good cause."

Obaidullah Baheer:
He went from being this person

that was guided
by Saudi policies

to someone who challenged
Saudi policies

and said, "No,
now you play with my rules."

Bin Laden was
the first person to call...

..call the Saudi monarchy out

and call them 'tyrants'.

Aimen Dean: It was an event
that shattered all conventions

and turned the politics
of the region upside down,

and it created this schism
between Osama Bin Laden

and the royal family
of Saudi Arabia.

It was a moment where, you know,

that moment
shaping the world view

of Osama Bin Laden
for years to come,

because he saw the events
very differently

from how many other Saudis
saw the events.

Khalid Batarfi: That was
when the Saudi government

put a stop,
or tried to put a stop,

to his ambitions
and his speeches

and tried to return him
to civilian life,

and to return to his business.

But he wouldn't listen,

and so he split ways
with his own government.

Aimen Dean: This is
the moment of break-up.

This is the moment where
he actually gave up completely

on Saudi Arabia,

decided that he renounces
allegiance to the royal family

and that he will become
a Pan-Islamic warrior.

[plane engine roars]

Osama Bin Laden left
Saudi Arabia never to return.

[gentle music]

Voiceover: Bin Laden
moved his family of wives

and numerous children

to a house in the suburbs
of Khartoum.

Ali Soufan: He was trying
to craft an image

of one of the early
Muslim leaders.

He lived a humble life,

but that image, you know,
had a reason behind it.

That is basically his narrative.

That's part of his story.

I never thought
I will be an FBI agent.

I was 25 years old.

My favourite show
was 'The X-Files',

which is about two FBI agents
trying to figure out

if there are aliens or not.

And I was, you know, intrigued
with the whole possibility.

I worked al-Qaeda
and Osama Bin Laden

from the beginning.

I believe knowing the language,

knowing the culture,
knowing the history,

definitely was helpful
for me to do my job.

I was intrigued by him.

[suspenseful music]

In Sudan, he had people
from the Moroccan jihadis,

he had Libyan fighting groups,

he had Egyptian jihad.

And all of them
looked at Osama Bin Laden

as a person
who basically had the wealth

to have food on their table.

[suspenseful music]

Man reading: "We came here
to co-operate and work

in the areas of road
construction and agriculture.

I inherited this type of work
from my father.

May God have mercy on him."

Ali Soufan: Osama Bin Laden
offered jobs

for a lot of people,

either in his
construction company

or in the different farms
that he had.

But also, at the same time,

he continued the work
of al-Qaeda.

[gunshots]

They started to train people,
started to recruit.

So he was...
he was establishing

and building upon the network

that he continued to have
from the time of Afghanistan.

Voiceover: According to
US intelligence analysts,

Bin Laden was financing
several training camps

in Sudan and Afghanistan.

[gunfire]

Man reading: "We have to stop
the head of the snake.

The snake is America."

[gunfire]

Voiceover: When American
peace-keeping troops

were attacked in Somalia,

Bin Laden claimed
some of his fellow jihadis

contributed to the fight.

[shouting]

Man reading: "Our people
realised more than ever

that the American soldier
is a paper tiger,

and after a few blows,
runs away.

America forgot all the hoopla
and media propaganda

and left, dragging their corpses
full of shame and defeat."

Ali Soufan:
Osama Bin Laden's name

always came up
as a financier,

never as a terrorist mastermind.

I think in 1996
that started to change.

He was involved in
a lot of the terrorist attacks

that was happening
around the Muslim world,

and people don't know about it.

He is very Machiavellian
in a way that,

"Yeah, I'm defending Muslims
around the world,

but I am willing
to kill Muslims

in order to prove a point".

He was a person
who truly believed in

his own preaching
and his own narrative.

You know, talk the talk
and walk the walk.

Voiceover: Other extreme
Islamist groups

vehemently opposed
Osama Bin Laden's approach.

In 1994, a group of armed men
made an attempt on his life.

Voiceover: The Saudi
royal family

sent Osama Bin Laden's mother
to Sudan

to beg him
to cease his jihadi activities

and return to the
family business in Saudi Arabia.

He said,
"I don't want to be a goat

that is tied to a post

who cannot say anything or
go anywhere without permission.

I want to be the free man
I am here,

and that would not happen
if I go to Saudi Arabia".

A man of this stubbornness,

even with his crying mother
appealing to him to come back,

and he refused.

Man reading: "I can sacrifice
my life for you,

but right now,
what you are talking to me about

is against Islam.

I'm fighting against
the enemies of Islam,

and you want me to consider
a ceasefire with them."

Voiceover: The American
and Saudi governments

eventually demanded
his expulsion

from the safety of Sudan.

They kicked him out of Sudan
and took all his money,

all his projects, everything -

even his own house.

He became a man
who was just angry and hateful

and looking for revenge.

[suspenseful music]

This anger wasn't pure
and wasn't Islamic.

It was self-interest.

It was, "You hurt me,
and I'm going to hurt you back".

And that changed him.

Now he's not the mujahid
who does everything for Allah -

now he's doing things
for himself.

And he went down
a slippery road

to what eventually
he became a terrorist.

Voiceover: When Bin Laden
was expelled from Sudan,

he returned to Afghanistan,

where he had founded
al-Qaeda eight years earlier.

[gunfire]

[gunfire]

Voiceover: On his arrival
in Afghanistan,

Bin Laden was welcomed
and housed

by former mujahideen associates.

It was one of them
that later allowed him

to use land in Tora Bora,

where he established
his infamous al-Qaeda compound.

Aimen Dean: When I arrived
to Afghanistan,

the country was in chaos.

It was civil war.

The Taliban were controlling

roughly about
maybe 60% of the country.

Once you enter Afghanistan
from Pakistan

through the Khyber Pass,

you feel as if
you've travelled in time.

You think, "I'm back 100 years"

because there isn't even
a phone line, even a landline.

You arrive in a very different
era altogether.

The first time
I met Osama Bin Laden,

we enter the compound

and we find lots of crates
and boxes and suitcases

scattered here and there.

People who looked like
as if they just escaped

with their own lives.

When you say 'Osama Bin Laden',

the first image
that comes to your mind

is this iconic image
of the clean, white turban

and the neat, white robes -

no crease whatsoever.

However, our meeting of him
was completely different.

He was wearing, you know,

a robe that was creased,

and the headscarf
was not at all ironed.

So he went in to talk about,

"This is where the march towards
the liberation of Jerusalem

and also the liberation
of Saudi Arabia will start.

This is the victorious vanguard

that the Prophet Muhammed
foretold about

will arise from here,

from the mountains
of Afghanistan,

and will sweep all the way
to the Middle East."

So we were all looking at him
thinking,

I mean,
"We don't see armies here,

we see a bunch of refugees here
in this compound,

and you don't even
own this compound -

you're a guest!"

Voiceover: Bin Laden
escaped from Sudan with his life

but little else.

He had lost
his Saudi citizenship,

his family,

and most importantly,
his fortune.

But his conviction that America

was the mortal enemy of Islam
was undiminished.

Aimen Dean: There is definitely
that quiet charisma about him -

the ability to hold you
and hold your attention

for long enough
for him to explain

what he wants to do.

And the fact that he's not
doing it with shouting style,

or with revolutionary zeal.

He would read your face -

"Look, I know you're sceptical,

I can see it in your faces".

But he already had
a trick up his sleeve

that he could use to say

that you should take
that leap of faith.

"With will, determination,
and faith,

we can change
the course of history".

[ominous music]

While his appearance
might have given the impression

that he was not in control
of anything,

his words and his charisma
and determination

really give the impression
of a man with a plan.

And five years and one month,

five years and one month
from that day,

he and his band of refugees
in that compound,

dusty compound in Afghanistan,

changed the course of history.

[gunfire]

Man reading: "First,
we obliterate America.

We can destroy America
from within

by making it economically weak.

That's what we did
with Russia."

- Allahu Akbar!
- Allahu Akbar!

Man reading: "We bled the blood
from their body in Afghanistan.

Holy warriors brought
a huge nation to its knees.

We can do the same thing
to America and Israel."

Ali Soufan: Osama Bin Laden
believed

that all these dictatorships

and all these regimes
that exists in the Muslim world

and across the Arab world

exists because of
the United States.

Ali Soufan: The declaration
of jihad of 1996,

it is about America stealing
the wealth of the Muslim world.

It's about America
humiliating Muslims.

It's about, you know, regimes

that works with
the United States

to suppress Muslim people
and the Muslim population.

[energetic music]

[cheering]

Aimen Dean: Osama Bin Laden
talked passionately

about targeting the Americans
for what he called

the 'American cultural invasion'

of the Arab and Muslim world.

The effects
of American TV stations,

American music,
American movies -

he viewed all of this
as corrupting influence.

A cultural and religious enemy
that needs to be confronted.

Voiceover: As word
of Osama Bin Laden's declaration

spread around the world,

journalists began to arrive
in Afghanistan to interview him.

Hamid Mir: When I interviewed
Osama Bin Laden in 1997,

I was the editor
of 'Daily Pakistan'.

From Peshawar,
we entered in Afghanistan

through to Tora Bora mountains.

The start of the meeting
was not very good

because we were taken to a cave,

and on the entrance of that cave

there were some guards who
started searching our bodies.

My cameraman
was very uncomfortable.

Then they started touching
the hidden parts of your body,

so he protested.

And I joined his protest

because I thought
the same will happen with me.

[laughs]

He greeted us a tall man,
very soft-spoken, smiling face.

He was speaking English.

It was not only a cave.

There was a library
full of books.

There was kitchen,
guestroom, washroom -

everything was there.

Voiceover: Hamid Mir
was investigating

whether Bin Laden was
responsible for the deaths

of more than 20 UN peacekeepers
in Somalia

four years earlier.

Hamid Mir: He was trying
to speak about his problems

with the Saudi government
and the American government,

and I was dragging him
back to Somalia again and again.

He was trying to
send his message to world,

and I was trying
to get my story from him.

Frankly speaking,
when I met him first time...

..due to my ignorance,

due to my lack of information
about him,

I was not very careful.

But when I came back,

the Egyptian ambassador,
he called me.

He was a very good friend
of mine.

And he said, "Do you know
you met the biggest terrorist

in the world?"

So that was, you see,
a big statement for me.

I said, "Mr Ambassador,
I just went there,

and I wanted to know
why he killed them".

He said, "No, no,
he is the head

of a multinational
terrorist militia".

Voiceover: In the same month
that he met Hamid Mir,

Bin Laden gave his first

international
television interview, to CNN.

Mr Bin Laden,
you have declared a jihad

against the United States.

Can you tell us why?

Tracy Walder: I was actually
working out in a gym,

and I saw this individual
on CNN being interviewed,

and his name
was Osama Bin Laden.

Through the course
of that interview,

when asked about
his plans for the US,

he had a smirk,
but his eyes lit up

when he was asked about

what his plans were
for the United States.

I actually remember that,
strangely, very specifically.

And, you know,
I guess in hindsight,

looking back,
this was clearly a big plan

that he was very excited about.

But his eyes
actually spoke to me

more than the smile on his face.

Voiceover: With new recruits
arriving all the time,

Bin Laden established
a large al-Qaeda training camp

called Tarnak Farms.

Tracy Walder: We knew that

he was using these camps
to train terrorists.

There were a lot
of propaganda videos

that they had put out there

about these terrorist
training camps.

It wasn't necessarily a secret,

the secret more was what was
going on in those camps.

You know, what were they
being trained for?

Who was in those camps?
What were they doing?

And so that was really my job,
was to get intelligence

on what was actually going on
in the camps.

Voiceover: It was at
Tarnak Farms training camp

where Bin Laden met Aimen Dean
for the second time.

Aimen Dean: It was between
60 and 80 structures.

It looks like barracks,
basically.

Bin Laden's appearance
was a far cry

from that appearance
a year earlier.

His robes were neat and ironed.

His turban was clean.

I remember
in that second meeting,

I joined al-Qaeda

officially to swear
the oath of allegiance

to Osama Bin Laden.

The oath of allegiance
is a handshake,

and with it you say
these words in Arabic.

[speaks Arabic]

You say like that,
"I give you my allegiance

to obey you
in the good times,

in the bad times.

I fight against those
who you fight against

and I make peace with those
who you make peace with,

without disobeying God."

And this baya'a,
or this allegiance,

is the allegiance of war.

You understand
that you are on the path

towards supporting
and protecting

our entire Muslim nation.

I mean, I thought
I was joining for life.

[suspenseful music]

[gentle music]

In the month
of September of 1997,

when I gave my allegiance
to al-Qaeda

and I became
part of their ranks,

they sent me
to a specialist camp

that was for bomb-making

and chemical weapons
and poison.

It is a beautiful place to be.

Tobogganing was one of
the favourite pastimes

for the jihadis over there.

And that included
Osama Bin Laden's kids.

There were four of us
being trained.

So we are four,
plus the instructor.

He was telling us the reason why
there are only four of you

is because the more, you know,
students you have,

the more the possibility

there will be an idiot
among you.

"Your first mistake
is your last mistake."

Chemicals tend to get angry

if you mix them
in the wrong order

or in the wrong quantities

or under the wrong conditions,

and then you could
blow yourself up.

I started to hear
from my fellow trainees

ideas about using these
in civilian settings -

cinemas, nightclubs
and movie theatres,

as venues for these devices
and chemical weapons.

Osama Bin Laden's message
was very clear -

to push forward
towards, you know,

a full-fledged war
against the Americans.

Man reads: "Every tribe
on the Peninsula of the Arabs

must struggle
on the path of Allah

and cleanse the lands
from those occupiers.

God knows that their blood
can be spilled with impunity

and their wealth seized

by denigrating them
with everything

that will lead them
to being chased out, crushed

and defeated
from Islamic holy places."

[ominous music]

Focusing on the Americans
resonated,

because we're not fighting
against any fellow Muslims.

Voiceover: Despite
Abu Hafs' reservations,

Osama Bin Laden
pushed forward with his plan

and issued new orders
to his bomb-makers

in the Tora Bora caves.

We were told
that Osama Bin Laden sanctioned

the establishment of
a suicide squad within al-Qaeda.

I didn't know that one of them
was already a friend of mine

who sat next to me in the first
meeting with Osama Bin Laden.

Now, you have to understand

that the use of suicide bombers
by jihadis

outside of
the Palestinian context

really never happened,

because suicide is suicide.

We understood that

killing oneself is wrong
no matter what.

The blanket prohibition
on suicide

stood the test of time,
like 1,400 years.

Finally, they have crossed
the Rubicon here,

and they decided that
suicide bombing now

is the way forward

in order to target
the Americans,

and especially impregnable
American targets

that they wanted to attack.

I think this is where
the biggest theological shift

within al-Qaeda really occurred.

I remember we were
talking about it

day and night,

and debating and debating
and debating the merits,

the theological aspects of it

because it was such a big thing.

Voiceover: Al-Qaeda
was changing fast.

Increasingly,
Bin Laden aligned himself

with more radical thinkers.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed,
a militant Pakistani Islamist,

came to him with a plan.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

always had this dream

to use planes

to attack the World Trade Center

and other facilities.

Osama Bin Laden listened,

and then he looked at
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

and he said, "Why do you want to
go to war with an axe

when you can go with
a bulldozer?"

And he started
changing the plan

to include hijacking planes

that are going from the
east coast to the west coast,

because they're going to be
full of fuel,

and hit them, you know,

fly them
into targeted buildings.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
started to work on developing

the operational elements
of this.

[ominous music]

Ali Soufan:
He was a true believer,

and he did not care
how many people will die

in the process for him

to accomplish his goal
and his outcome.

[suspenseful music]

At the time,

it was obvious for people

who are working
Osama Bin Laden

that he is planning
to do something.

He's escalating his narrative.

Something is coming.

[suspenseful music continues]

Captioned by Ai-Media
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