NOVEMBER 24, 1989

The day a student destroys his master

If there actually is a school for terrorism, then it exists in the heart of Afghanistan. This is where Abdullah Yusuf Azzam— “the father of global jihad”— teaches his pupils how to instill terror in their enemies. But one in particular will surpass his master within just a few years— and strike a vicious blow against a world superpower. His name: Osama bin Laden. It’s the 1980s, and Azzam is organizing a guerrilla war against Soviet occupation in Afghanistan. With success: At the end of 1988 the Soviets withdraw. Azzam can’t celebrate his victory for long— on November 24, 1989, he dies in a bomb blast in Pakistan. To this day, controversy surrounds who was responsible for his death. The likely culprit: Osama bin Laden himself, because the actions of his mentor did not go far enough. Whereas Azzam’s terror was always confined to the local level, bin Laden wanted to move the war— and transport it right into the center of power of the enemy. “Bin Laden conceived the Afghan guerrilla war on a global scale,” says Islamic scholar Marc Thoerner. On September 11, 2001, the largest guerrilla action ever takes place, not in Afghanistan or any another occupied country, but in America’s financial capital. The unprecedented escalation of asymmetric warfare is bin Laden’s triumph over his teacher.