I can imagine how Osama bin Laden received the news  of the atrocities in the United States. In all, I must  have spent five hours listening to him in Sudan and then in the  Afghan mountains, as he described the inevitable collapse of the US,  just as he and his comrades in the Afghan war helped to destroy  the Red Army.

 

He will have watched satellite television, he will  have sat in the corner of his room, brushing his teeth as he always  did, with a mishwak stick, thinking for up to a minute before  speaking. He once told me with pride how his men had attacked the  Americans in Somalia. He acknowledged that he personally knew  two of the Saudis executed for bombing an American military base in  Riyadh. Could he be behind the slaughter in America?    If Mr bin Laden was really guilty of all the things  for which he  has been blamed, he would need an army of 10,000.  And there is  something deeply disturbing about the world's habit  of turning to  the latest hate figure whenever blood is shed. But  when events of  this momentous scale take place, there is a new  legitimacy in  casting one's eyes at those who have constantly  threatened America.

Mr bin Laden had a kind of religious experience  during the Afghan war. A Russian shell had fallen at his feet and, in  the seconds as he waited for it to explode, he said he had a  sudden feeling of calmness. The shell never exploded.  The US must leave the Gulf, he would say every 10  minutes. America  must stop all sanctions against the Iraqi people.  America must stop  using Israel to oppress Palestinians. He was not  fighting an  anti-colonial war, but a religious one. His  supporters would gather  round him with the awe of men listening to a  messiah. And the words  they listened to were fearful in their  implications. American  civilians would no more be spared than military  targets. Yet I also  remember one night when Mr bin Laden saw a pile of  newspapers in my  bag and seized them. By a sputtering oil lamp, he  read them,  clearly unaware of the world around him. Was this  really a man who  could damage America?

 

If the shadow of the Middle East falls over  yesterday's destruction, then who else could produce such  meticulously timed assaults? The rag-tag Palestinian groups that used  to favour hijacking are unlikely to be able to produce a  single suicide bomber. Hamas and Islamic Jihad have neither the  capability nor the money that this assault needed. Perhaps the groups  that moved close to the Lebanese Hizbollah in the 1980s, before the  organisation became solely a resistance movement. The bombing of  the US Marines in 1983 needed precision, timing and infinite  planning. But Iran, which supported these groups, is more involved in  its internal struggles. Iraq lies broken, its agents more  intent on torturing their own people than striking at the the US.

 

So the mountains of Afghanistan will be  photographed from satellite and high-altitude aircraft in the coming days, Mr  bin Laden's old training camps highlighted on the overhead  projectors in the Pentagon. But to what end? For if this is a war it  cannot be fought like other wars. Indeed, can it be fought at all  without some costly military adventure overseas? Or is that what  Mr bin Laden seeks above all else?

 

They can run and they can hide. Suicide bombers are here to stay