Watching the movie Zero Dark Thirty, I kept thinking about my own time with bin Laden, in 1994. It involved no torture. No drama. The hunt was not yet on. Instead, like him at the time, I was searching for answers in Khartoum from the preeminent enabler of Radical Islam, Hassan Al-Turabi. Through his writings and sermons, Turabi had transformed fundamentalism into a dramatic theology of liberation that millions bought into—Yes, yes, of course, once purity is reestablished, Mohammed’s voice fresh again, social problems will melt away, pharaohs will die, and Allah’s soldiers will reinstall sharia from the Pyrenees to the Himalayas.
I was working for a Rock-n-Roll magazine; bin Laden was on his own and on the lookout for talent to join his gang, Al-Qaeda.