In a camp called Al Masada, hidden in the Afghan mountains near the Pakistani border, a man known by the war name “Abu Mahmoud the Syrian” would radio orders to his fellow Islamic fighters. Like some of them, he was first inspired by the Saudi businessman who led them all.
“A very tall brother dressed in white and holding a cane in his hand received us. He wore a turban and looked awe-inspiring,” the young Syrian later recalled to a writer chronicling the struggle against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s.
“I guessed it was Osama bin Laden, and I was right.”
Now, more than a decade later, the FBI says the man known as Abu Mahmoud to his fellow fighters at Al Masada was actually Enaam Arnaout, a Syrian-born U.S. citizen living quietly in southwest suburban Justice until his arrest Tuesday. The government has charged Arnaout and the charity he heads, the Palos Hills-based Benevolence International Foundation, with perjury for allegedly lying under oath about their ties to bin Laden and terrorist activities.
The Arabic-language chronicle quoting the Syrian fighter, which was published by the founder of Arnaout’s charity, allegedly sheds new light on Arnaout’s early days in bin Laden’s inner circle. It also could provide additional corroboration for the FBI’s allegations.
None of this fits the image that Arnaout presents of himself. A 39-year-old world traveler with piercing blue eyes and a neatly trimmed beard, he said he spent his first years in the U.S. on the east coast of Florida selling used cars. In an interview earlier this year, Arnaout insisted his only concern was caring for widows and orphans, not sponsoring the terror that creates them.
An attorney representing Arnaout’s charity, Matthew Piers, denied that Arnaout is the same man known in the bin Laden camp and in the book as “Abu Mahmoud the Syrian.” Although he acknowledged that Arnaout has used the nickname Abu Mahmoud, Piers said the charity leader never fought against the Soviets and had never been to the Al Masada camp, which was established by bin Laden in about 1986.
“I know it’s in the government’s [court filings], but there’s a lot of stuff in there that’s not true,” said Piers.
Piers said Arnaout would be vindicated once Arnaout began marshaling his defense. He declined Wednesday to elaborate, citing the pending criminal case, but in an interview earlier this year, he said Arnaout could not have been at Al Masada because he was working at a seafood restaurant in a Persian Gulf country at that time.
Bin Laden’s first base
The Al Masada camp, which was bin Laden’s first base in Afghanistan, is near the town of Jaji, not far from where U.S. troops are now hunting the last remnants of Al Qaeda.
In interviews with the Tribune, several former associates of Arnaout in the relief business–and in the Afghan mujahedeen movement–positively identified Arnaout as the Abu Mahmoud featured in the book, which is titled “The Arab Volunteers in Afghanistan.”
Many of the Arabs who came to Afghanistan to fight the Soviets were known only by the war names they adopted for themselves at Al Masada, which means Lion’s Den, and other camps.
The associates, who walked a fine line between relief work and actively aiding the mujahedeen at the time, told the Tribune they had no doubt about Arnaout’s life as Abu Mahmoud.
The sources, who were interviewed before the federal charges were unveiled this week, all spoke on the condition of anonymity, saying they feared possible retaliation if identified.
“Enaam Arnaout is the Abu Mahmoud in the book,” said one of the sources, who added that he was interviewed alongside Arnaout by the book’s author in the early 1990s.
Published in 1991 by Benevolence International and its founder, Adil Abdul Galil Batargy, a Saudi businessman who was Arnaout’s mentor, the book chronicles bin Laden’s earliest days in Afghanistan and the struggles of the Arab fighters. Bin Laden set up Al Masada to train the Arabs teeming into Afghanistan to join the fight.
In its earliest days, the Al Masada camp amounted to little more than a cave, a tent, a bulldozer, munitions stocks and some equipment, Abu Mahmoud recalled in the book.
“There was hardly enough space there,” the Syrian said, according to a translation, “but these were the happiest days of my life.”
Steven Emerson, an expert on Middle Eastern terrorism, first made the book available to the Tribune. He said he got it from Batargy. Another copy was independently obtained and translated by the Tribune.
Critics of the government charges against Arnaout and Benevolence International said the government unfairly tarnished Arnaout by detailing his alleged ties to bin Laden during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
“There was a time when the [U.S.] government was supporting the Afghan mujahedeen,” said Thomas A. Durkin, an attorney for another Islamic charity hit by federal sanctions for alleged terrorism ties. “Does that mean somebody was supposed to be on notice in 1988 that if they were dealing with Osama bin Laden, he would turn out to be the mastermind for the World Trade Center attack?”
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But the FBI, in an affidavit unsealed Tuesday, said Arnaout’s ties to bin Laden and violent causes extended well beyond the 1980s.
Arnaout allegedly grew so close to bin Laden that he administered his funds and was even entrusted to care for one of his wives during a visit.
Violence in Chechnya, Bosnia
Arnaout and his charity’s alleged ties to violence and terrorism stretched to Chechnya in 2000 and Bosnia-Herzegovina this year, the FBI said. During the early 1990s, bin Laden used Benevolence International to funnel money to Al Qaeda, according to the FBI.
In an interview with the Tribune earlier this year, Arnaout said he saw bin Laden in the streets of Peshawar, Pakistan, when he was doing relief work there in the late 1980s but didn’t know bin Laden personally. Arnaout, whose family left Syria for Saudi Arabia when he was a teenager, said he first went to Pakistan in 1987 to get a degree in Islamic studies. It was there that he met Batargy, the Benevolence International founder, who was described Tuesday by the FBI as an associate of bin Laden.
While still in Peshawar, Arnaout met and married a nurse from Texas. The couple moved to Florida in 1990, where Arnaout said he made money by shipping used cars to his brother in Saudi Arabia. Arnaout and the nurse were later divorced and he has since remarried.
Meanwhile, Batargy incorporated Benevolence International in Illinois with headquarters in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, and recruited Arnaout to work for the charity in Bosnia.
After Saudi officials shut down the charity’s local offices, Arnaout took over the organization and moved to the Chicago area.
The perjury charges stem from a federal lawsuit filed by Benevolence International in January challenging the government’s decision to freeze the group’s assets as a violation of its constitutional rights.
At issue in the criminal case is the sworn statement Benevolence International filed in connection with its lawsuit in which Arnaout said the group has never supported terrorism.