The Osama bin Laden I know

In November 1996, five months after al Qaeda’s bombing of the Khobar towers in Saudi Arabia and less than five years before al Qaeda would attack New York and Washington, Osama bin Laden’s “ambassador” to Britain approached the editor in chief of the London-based Arabic-language newspaper al-Quds al-Arabi. After exchanging some pleasantries, Khaled al-Fawwaz got to the point. His offer? A trip to Afghanistan to meet and interview Osama bin Laden, who had recently gone into hiding.