Peter Bergen Papers

Peter Bergen is vice president for global studies & fellows at New America, professor of practice at Arizona State University, where he directs the Center on Intelligence & National Security and is a CNN national security analyst. He has written or edited eleven books about national security issues; three were New York Times best sellers, and four were named among the best non-fiction books of the year by the Washington Post. The books have been translated into 25 languages. He has testified before US Congressional committees 18 times about national security issues. He has held teaching positions at Harvard’s Kennedy School and Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies. Bergen has produced, or executive produced, multiple documentaries for CNN, Discovery, HBO, National Geographic, and Showtime, which have been nominated for four Emmys and won the Emmy for best documentary. He has a degree in Modern History from New College, Oxford, and is a PhD candidate in the History Department at the University of Portsmouth (UK). Bergen is married to the documentary director/producer Tresha Mabile. They have two children.

Peter Bergen Papers, GTM-20240406 Name / Subject Reference

[NOTE: This is a reference guide for individuals and subjects appearing in the inventory. It is not comprehensive, and is intended only to assist in the initial / primary identification of: 1) Lesser known individuals, or; 2) Individuals whose names frequently show variation in the Romanized spelling. Text is largely, though not exclusively, drawn from Wikipedia.org entries.]

Political Leaders

Khan, Mohammad Ismail (born 1946) is an Afghan former politician who served as Minister of Energy and Water from 2005 to 2013 and before that served as the governor of Herat Province. Originally a captain in the national army, he is widely known as a former warlord as he controlled a large mujahideen force, mainly his fellow Tajiks from western Afghanistan, during the Soviet–Afghan War. His reputation gained him the nickname Lion of Herat. Ismail Khan was a key member of the now exiled political party Jamiat-e Islami and of the now defunct United National Front party. In 2021, Ismail Khan returned to arms to help defend Herat from the Taliban's offensive, which he and the Afghan Army lost. He was then captured by the Taliban forces and then reportedly fled to Iran on 16 August 2021.

Massoud, Ahmad Shah (September 2, 1953 – September 9, 2001) was an Afghan politician and military commander. He was a powerful guerrilla commander during the resistance against the Soviet occupation between 1979 and 1989. In the 1990s, he led the government's military wing against rival militias; after the Taliban takeover, he was the leading opposition commander against their regime until his assassination in 2001.

Massoud, Ahmad Wali (born 1 November 1964) is an Afghan politician and diplomat who is the founder and chairman of the Massoud Foundation in Afghanistan and is the younger brother of the late Ahmad Shah Massoud.

Mohammad, Hajji Din, also known as Azizullah Din Mohammad, is a politician in Afghanistan who served as the Governor of Nangarhar Province followed by Governor of Kabul Province. He is currently the Chairman of Peace and Development Islamic Party. He has been involved in the peace and reconciliation process between the Afghan Government and the Taliban and is currently the deputy of High Council for National Reconciliation. During the Taliban era, Din Mohammad lived in exile and later helped Abdul Haq in his efforts to establish a broad-based post-Taliban government. In 2001, Abdul Haq was captured and executed by the Taliban while pursuing efforts to promote the formation of a broad-based representative government. Din Mohammad's son Ezatullah Sahil was captured and killed by the Taliban along with Abdul Haq in 2001.

Rabbānī, Burhānuddīn (20 September 1940 – 20 September 2011) was an Afghan politician and teacher who served as President of Afghanistan from 1992 to 1996, and again from November to December 2001 (in exile from 1996 to 2001).

Saleh, Amrullah (born 15 October 1972) is an Afghan politician who served as the first vice president of Afghanistan from February 2020 to August 2021, and acting interior minister from 2018 to 2019. He was the head of the National Directorate of Security (NDS) from 2004 to 2010.

Al-Turabi, Hassan 'Abd Allah (1 February 1932 – 5 March 2016) was a Sudanese Islamist politician who was considered "the true architect" of the 1989 coup that brought Omar al-Bashir to power. He has been called "one of the most influential figures in modern Sudanese politics" and a "longtime hard-line ideological leader". He was instrumental in institutionalizing sharia (Islamic law) in the northern part of the country and was frequently imprisoned in Sudan, but these "periods of detention" were "interspersed with periods of high political office".

Zahir Shah, Mohammad (October 1914 – 23 July 2007) was the last King of Afghanistan, reigning from 8 November 1933 until he was deposed on 17 July 1973.

Journalists

Atwan, Abdel Bari (born 17 February 1950) is a Palestinian-born British journalist and the editor-in-chief of Rai al-Youm, an Arab world digital news and opinion website. Previously he was the editor-in-chief of the London-based pan-Arab newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabi from the founding of the paper in 1989 until July 2013.

Atyani, Bakr: correspondent for Middle East Broadcasting Center who interviewed OBL and Abu Hafs in June of 2001.

Burns, John Fisher (born 4 October 1944) is a British journalist, and the winner of two Pulitzer Prizes. He was the London bureau chief for The New York Times, where he covered international issues until March 2015. Burns also frequently appears on PBS. He has been called "the dean of American foreign correspondents."

Deraz, Essam: Egyptian journalist and documentarian, who formerly fought alongside OBL in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

Frantz, Douglas (born September 29, 1949 in North Manchester, Indiana) is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning former investigative journalist and author, and served as the Deputy Secretary-General of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development from 2015 to 2017. Frantz was chief investigator for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Girardet, Edward Reinhard is an American journalist, editor, author and adventurer born in White Plains, New York on 24 March 1951. He is currently based between Bangkok, Thailand and Geneva, Switzerland, where he is editor of Global Geneva magazine, a print and online publication stressing quality journalism and focusing on so-called 'International Geneva' themes, such as humanitarian response, conflict mediation, climate change and Sustainable Development Goals.

Ismail, Jamal: Palestinian born journalist. Early recruit to Jihad magazine.

MacLeod, Scott is a TIME magazine reporter who met and interviewed bin Laden in Sudan in 1996.

Miller, John is a former ABC correspondent who interviewed bin Laden in 1998 in Afghanistan.

Mir, Hamid (born 23 July 1966) is a Pakistani journalist, columnist and writer. Born in Lahore to a journalistic family, Mir initially worked as a journalist with Pakistani newspapers. Only journalist in the world to have interviewed OBL after 9/11.

Yusufzai, Rahimullah (10 September 1954 – 9 September 2021) was a Pakistani journalist, political and security analyst, best known for having interviewed Osama bin Laden, and Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Omar.

Zaidan, Ahmad: Syrian born, Pakistani-based journalist. Formerly at Jihad magazine, later Al-Jazeera’s Islamabad bureau chief.

Al Qaeda / Taliban / Muslim Brotherhood

Abdel-Rahman , Sheikh Omar (ʾUmar ʾAbd ar-Raḥmān; 3 May 1938 – 18 February 2017), commonly known in the United States as "The Blind Sheikh", was a blind Egyptian Islamist militant who served a life sentence at the Federal Medical Center, Butner near Butner, North Carolina, United States. Formerly a resident of New York City, Abdel-Rahman and nine others were convicted of seditious conspiracy in 1995. His prosecution grew out of investigations of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Abdel-Rahman was the leader of Al-Jama'a al-Islamiyya (also known as "The Islamic Group"), a militant Islamist movement in Egypt that is considered a terrorist organization by the United States and Egyptian governments. The group was responsible for many acts of violence, including the November 1997 Luxor massacre, in which 58 foreign tourists and four Egyptians were killed.

Al-Adel, Saif (born on April 11, 1960/63) is a former Egyptian colonel and explosives expert, who is considered by many to be de facto leader of al-Qaeda. He is a member of Al-Qaeda's Majlis al-Shura and has headed the organization's military committee since the death of Muhammad Atef in 2001. "Saif al-Adel" is the nom de guerre of a colonel who was an officer of Egypt's El-Sa'ka Forces during the 1980s. His real name is Mohamed Salah al-Din Zaidan.

Aranaout, Enaam M. (born 1962) is a Syrian American who pleaded guilty to using charitable donations to support fighters in Bosnia without informing the donors of this, during his tenure as a director of the charity Benevolence International Foundation.

Azzam, Abdullah Yusuf (14 November 1941 – 24 November 1989) was a Palestinian Islamic scholar and jihadist. Belonging to the Salafi movement, during the Soviet–Afghan War of the 1980s, he advocated defensive jihad by Muslims worldwide to help the Afghan mujahideen fight against the Soviet forces and Afghan Government forces in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. Azzam was a teacher and mentor to Osama bin Laden, and was one of the key figures who persuaded bin Laden to go to Afghanistan and back the mujahideen fighters there.

Azzam, Hudhayfah: (1970-) was born in Egypt and lived in numerous parts of the world with his father Abdallah Azzam, Osama Bin Laden’s mentor, and with the Afghan mujahidin who were fighting the communist invasion in the late seventies and eighties. He was educated by his father and holds three university degrees in Islamic Sharia (Islamic Law), Arabic, and English as well as two master’s degrees in Arabic and Sharia. Hudhayfah Azzam worked closely with Bin Laden in Afghanistan for 12 years and was close to both Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi and Ayman al-Zawahiri but differed with them on important issues.

al-Bahlul, Ali Hamza Ahmad Suliman (born September 11, 1969) is a Yemeni citizen who has been held as an enemy combatant since 2002 in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camp. He boycotted the Guantanamo Military Commissions, arguing that there was no legal basis for the military tribunals to judge him. al-Fawwaz, Khalid Abdulrahman (Abu Omar al-Sebai) is a Saudi who was under indictment in the United States from 1998, accused of helping to prepare the 1998 United States embassy bombings. He was extradited to the United States and arraigned in October 2012.

Gadahn, Adam Yahiye (September 1, 1978 – January 19, 2015) was an American senior operative, cultural interpreter, spokesman and media advisor for the Islamist group al-Qaeda, as well as a prolific noise musician. Beginning in 2004, he appeared in a number of videos produced by al-Qaeda as "Azzam the American" ('Azzām al-Amrīki, sometimes transliterated as Ezzam Al-Amrikee). Gadahn, who converted to Islam in 1995 at a California mosque, was described as "homegrown," a term used by scholars and government officials for Western citizens "picking up the sword of the idea" (in the words of one FBI agent) to commit attacks in the West. American intelligence officials allege that he inspired the 2007 Osama bin Laden video.

Atef, Mohammed (Hafs, Abu) (born Sobhi Mohammed Abu Sitta Al-Gohary, also known as Abu Hafs al-Masri) was the military chief of al-Qaeda, and was considered one of Osama bin Laden's two deputies, the other being Ayman Al Zawahiri, although Atef's role in the organization was not well known by intelligence agencies for years. He was killed in a US airstrike in November 2001.

Ul-Haq, Sami: (18 December 1937 – 2 November 2018) was a Pakistani religious scholar and senator. He was known as the Father of Taliban for the role his seminary Darul Uloom Haqqania played in the graduation of most Taliban leaders and commanders, having close ties to Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar.

Haqqani, Jalaluddin (1939 – 3 September 2018) was an Afghan insurgent commander who founded the Haqqani network, an insurgent group fighting in guerilla warfare against US-led NATO forces and the now former government of Afghanistan they support.

Hekmatyar, Gulbuddin (born 1 August 1949) is an Afghan politician, former mujahideen leader and drug trafficker. He is the founder and current leader of the Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin political party, so called after Mohammad Yunus Khalis split from Hezbi Islami in 1979 to found Hezb-i Islami Khalis. He has twice served as Prime Minister during the 1990s.

Khalifa, Mohammed Jamal (1 February 1957 – 31 January 2007) was a Saudi businessman from Jeddah who married one of Osama bin Laden's sisters. He has been accused of funding terror plots and groups in the Philippines in the 1990s while head of the International Islamic Relief Organization branch there. He was murdered in Madagascar in 2007.

Khawaja, Khalid (1951–2010) was an officer of the Pakistan Air Force, and the Air Force's intelligence officer of the Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence agency. A former member of the Special Service Wing (SSW) and a veteran of Soviet–Afghan War, Khawaja described himself as a close associate of Osama bin Laden in the early days of the Afghan resistance against the Soviet Union. He was once suspected of being involved in the murder of American reporter Daniel Pearl. This was later proved to be false, but he did connect Pearl with men who would eventually kill him.

Hamid, Mustafa (born March 1945 in Alexandria, Kingdom of Egypt), also known as Abu Walid al-Masri and Hashim al-Makki, is a journalist who in the 1980s fought as an Islamic jihad volunteer during the Soviet–Afghan War. He is reported to have been an al-Qaeda advisor and taught at the Al Farouq training camp in the 1990s. He served as a bureau chief in Afghanistan for Al Jazeera from 1998–2001, before leaving for Iran.

Mohammed, Ali: The only al-Qa’ida operative known to have successfully infiltrated U.S. military and law enforcement agencies. After spending years in the US military (and sharing documents with AQ), he fled the US to Afghanistan after the 1993 WTC bombings.

Omar, Mullah Muhammad (c. 1960 – April 2013) was an Afghan cleric and Islamist militant who founded the Taliban in 1994. During the Afghan Civil War of 1996–2001, the Taliban fought the Northern Alliance and took control of most of the country, establishing the First Islamic Emirate for which Omar began to serve as Supreme Leader in 1996. Shortly after al-Qaeda carried out the September 11 attacks, the Taliban government was toppled by an American-led invasion of Afghanistan, prompting Omar to go into hiding. He successfully evaded capture by the American-led coalition before dying in 2013, reportedly from tuberculosis.

Salim, Mamdouh Mahmud (born 1958 in Sudan) is a Sudanese co-founder of the Islamist terrorist network al-Qaeda. He was arrested on 16 September 1998 near Munich. On 20 December 1998, he was extradited to the United States, where he was charged with participating in the 1998 United States embassy bombings.

Santos, Paulo: Attempted assassin of Afghan King Mohammed Zahir Shah in 1991 (ordered by OBL).

Al-Seba’i, Hani Mohammed Yusuf (born 1 March 1961 in Qaylubiyah, Egypt) is an Egyptian Islamic scholar who was a member of Egyptian Islamic Jihad and now lives in London as a political refugee. Efforts to deport him have failed. He is a supporter of al-Qaeda and is used as a scholarly reference by the movement. The leader of al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, listed him as one of four scholars that Muslims worldwide should follow, alongside Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, Abu Qatada and Dr. Tariq Abdelhaleem.

Al-Seraihi, Hasan: A former Saudi associate of Osama Bin Laden and Abdullah Azzam, Hasan Al-Seraihi claimed that he was present in Osama Bin Laden’s camp in Peshawar when Al-Qaeda organization was founded. In an interview to Asharq Al-Awsat, Al-Seraihi, one of the early Afghan Arab Mujahedeen, narrated the circumstances in which he joined the jihad in Afghanistan in 1986.

al-Shibh, Ramzi Mohammed Abdullah bin (born 1 May 1972) is a Yemeni citizen currently being held by the U.S. as an enemy combatant detainee at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. He is accused of being a "key facilitator for the September 11 attacks" in 2001 in the United States. Al-Suri, Abu Musab, born Mustafa bin Abd al-Qadir Setmariam Nasar, is a suspected Al-Qaeda member and writer best known for his 1,600-page book The Global Islamic Resistance Call (Da'wat al-muqawamah al-islamiyyah al-'alamiyyah).

Tabarak Ahmad, Abdullah (Guantanamo detainee ID is 56) is a citizen of Morocco, who was held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba. The Department of Defense reports that Ahmad was born on December 12, 1955, in Casablanca, Morocco. Abdullah Tabarak was captured near the Pakistan-Afghan border in December 2001 and he was transferred to Morocco on July 1, 2003.

Zaeef, Mullah Abdul Salam (born 1967) is an Afghan diplomat who was the Afghan ambassador to Pakistan before the US invasion of Afghanistan. He was detained in Pakistan in the fall of 2001 and held until 2005 in the Guantanamo Bay detainment camp. The United Nations removed Zaeef from its list of terrorists in July 2010.

al-Zawahiri, Ayman (19 June 1951 – 31 July 2022) was an Egyptian-born militant and physician who served as the second general emir of al-Qaeda from June 2011 until his death in July 2022.



US Government

Bakos, Nada Glass is an American former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) analyst and targeting officer who was involved in a number of notable counterterrorism operations during her career. She was part of a group of CIA analysts studying Al Qaeda and its leader, as portrayed in the 2013 HBO documentary, Manhunt: The Search for Bin Laden. She also served as the Chief Targeting Officer in the search for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq and predecessor of ISIS. After 10 years, she left the CIA.

Berntsen, Gary (born July 23, 1957) is an American former Central Intelligence Agency career officer. During his time at the CIA, he served as a Station Chief on three occasions and led several counterterrorism deployments including the United States’ response to the East Africa Embassy bombings and the 9/11 attacks.

Crumpton, Henry "Hank" A. (born 1957) is a retired Central Intelligence Agency operations officer, in his 24 year career he was appointed deputy director of the Counterterrorism Center and head the CIA's National Resources Division, which focuses on operations in the United States. He played an instrumental role in the early days of the invasion of Afghanistan, leading CTC Special Operations paramilitary forces as some of the first people with boots on the ground in pursuit of the Taliban and al-Qaeda just weeks after 9/11. Gary Schroen's seven man Northern Alliance Liaison Team (NALT) forged alliances and established camp in the mountains, while Crumpton crafted a plan for a larger incursion alongside others like Greg Vogle and Chris Wood. He went on to be appointed by President George W. Bush as Coordinator for Counterterrorism at the Department of State with the rank of Ambassador-at-large on August 2, 2005. He is an author and co-founder, Chairman, and CEO of the business intelligence and political risk firm Crumpton Global LLC.

Michael Scheuer created the CIA special unit set up to track bin Laden in 1996 and headed the unit throughout the rest of the 1990s. He’s written two books.

US Military

Franks, Tommy Ray (born June 17, 1945) is a retired general in the United States Army. His last army post was as the Commander of the United States Central Command, overseeing United States military operations in a 25-country region, including the Middle East. Franks succeeded General Anthony Zinni to this position on 6 July 2000 and served until his retirement on 7 July 2003. Franks was the United States general leading the attack on the Taliban in Afghanistan in response to the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and The Pentagon in 2001. He also oversaw the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

Fury, Dalton [Thomas Greer]: Delta Force commander of US ground forces at Tora Bora. Used the pseudonym Dalton Fury. Later author of Kill bin Laden (2008).

Other/Miscellaneous

Abdullah Anas, an Algerian scholar, was the nom de guerre of Boudjema Bounoua, who helped Afghanistan mujahideen fight the Soviet and Afghan government forces in the northern provinces from 1983–1992. Following the United States invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, Anas gave reports critical of bin Laden, reflecting the pair's falling-out after Anas insisted that the dream of a global jihad was unattainable.

Benotman, Noman M. (born 1967) is a former fighter of the Libyan militant organization known as the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group. Benotman has been active in reforming his former terrorist comrades in prison, attempting to persuade them to renounce violence. He wrote an open letter to Osama bin Laden in 2010 repudiating al-Qaeda's use of violence, and calling on bin Laden to unilaterally halt all attacks. He is also a Senior Analyst (Strategic Communications) at Quilliam.

Organizations

The Advice and Reform Committee or Advice and Reformation Committee (ARC) was the British office of what is now called al-Qaeda from 1994 until the arrest of Khalid al-Fawwaz in 1998.