Atef Death Would Be Major Blow

Nov. 17, 2001 — -- America has eliminated the military brains of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda organization, who trained members in the art of terror and wrote a handbook to guide them.

"Bin Laden had the money," ABCNEWS terrorism consultant Kyle Olson said. "Atef had the … military thinking required to realize it. I think it's safe to say that bin Laden may not have been the kind of threat he is without Mohammed Atef."

Atef’s Role

Atef, an Egyptian, was believed to have played a central role in planning past terrorist attacks on the United States, and was on the FBI's list of 22 most-wanted terrorists, with a $25 million bounty on his head.

Most notably, Atef was indicted by a federal court in Manhattan for his alleged role in planning the August 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya, that killed 224 people.

"Mohammed Atef is an extremely significant figure in the upper echelons of al Qaeda," said Matt Levitt, senior fellow in terrorism studies at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "His death is certainly a significant blow."

A Taliban official confirmed to the Associated Press earlier American intelligence reports that Atef had died in a bombing raid. Mullah Najibullah, a Taliban official in the southeast Afghan border town of Spinboldak, said seven other al Qaeda members — not including bin Laden — died with Atef, but he would not name them.

Along with bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri, Atef was considered one of the top three members in the command structure of al Qaeda. A U.S. intelligence report alleges he founded the organization with bin Laden about a decade ago, and U.S. federal prosecutors have said he was bin Laden's military commander in charge of terrorist training at specialized al Qaeda camps. Many believe he also wrote a manual intended as a tactical guide for terrorists.

"In his role as, essentially, the battle lieutenant for bin Laden, he has been responsible for, among other things, the development of the military forces within Afghanistan that have been loyal to al Qaeda, that have been al Qaeda's real muscle in that country," Olson said. "And it's almost certain that he was involved in some of the thinking, some of the planning into the Sept. 11 attacks."

Many also have alleged Atef played a part in last year's bomb attack that killed 17 American sailors aboard the USS Cole off the coast of Yemen, and the 1993 deaths in Somalia of 18 American soldiers, whose bodies were dragged through the streets of Mogadishu.

"America will not realize its miscalculations until its soldiers are dragged in Afghanistan like they were in Somalia," Atef was quoted as saying in an e-mail sent to Western news outlets last month by the Islamic Observation Center, a group representing several Islamic fundamentalist organizations.

Personal Links to bin Laden

Besides his role in al Qaeda, Atef had personal links to bin Laden. Early this year, the two men attended a wedding in Kandahar, when Atef's daughter married bin Laden's son.

He also is said to have provided personal security to bin Laden. When ABCNEWS' John Miller interviewed bin Laden in 1998, Atef searched members of the ABCNEWS party, ordered repeated searches of them, and dismantled and checked their equipment.

Briefing reporters on military developments today at the Pentagon, U.S. Rear Adm. John Stufflebeem said Atef's death, if confirmed, could be a personal blow to bin Laden.

"Osama bin Laden no longer has a principle assistant that he has been counting on for developing military or terrorist operations," Stufflebeem said. "If he has, in fact, been responsible for the personal security of Osama bin Laden, then that describes to me an environment where that individual [bin Laden] is now going to feel much less secure about where he is, what may happen to him next."

Mysterious Background

U.S. intelligence officials believe Atef — a thin but physically imposing presence at about 6 feet 5 inches tall, with a long, graying, brownish-black beard — was born in Egypt. Published reports have placed his year of birth around 1944, but the FBI officially lists it as unknown.

He has been known to use the names Abu Hafs, Abu Hafs El-Masry, El-Khabir (the big man), Taysir, Sheik Taysir Abdullah and Abu Khadijah, according to his FBI Most Wanted profile.

In his younger years, Atef is believed to have been a policeman in Egypt, but he gradually turned against the government and joined violent opposition groups. By 1983, he had joined Arabs battling against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, where he met bin Laden.

Atef eventually became a senior member of the Egypt-based Islamic Jihad terrorist organization, according to a June 1999 indictment against Atef and other al Qaeda principals in connection with the embassy bombings. By February 1998, Islamic Jihad apparently had merged with al Qaeda, and many of its members became powerful figures in al Qaeda's self-declared war against America.

"Osama bin Laden and his military commander Mohammad Atef are charged with plotting and carrying out the most heinous acts of international terrorism and murder," Mary Jo White, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said when Atef was first indicted for the embassy bombings in 1998.

Death Might Stun, Not Kill Al Qaeda

Experts said Atef's death would hurt al Qaeda, but wouldn't kill it.

"It would be nice to say that it would be fatal but I don't know that we can be confident of that," Olson said. "Atef has put in place an organization that is fanatic, that is dedicated. Whereas this would obviously be a significant blow to al Qaeda and to its leadership, simply putting one general out of play doesn't end the war."

Stufflebeem said the death may be more a long-term than short-term tactical blow in defusing potential terrorist acts.

"If, in fact, Atef has been killed, that will have an impact on [al Qaeda's] future operations," Stufflebeem said. "That's good for us. It probably has no impact on operations that have already been planned and, as you might term, are in the can, just waiting for some triggering device."

The Washington Institute's Levitt noted that al Qaeda does not always operate as a centralized organization, but often through localized cells spread around dozens of countries, including the United States.

"It's a very large organization and there have been reports in the press that bin Laden has given the go-ahead for cells to operate more or less independently," Levitt said. "If it's true that the decision-making process has been decentralized, then it's possible that the impact of somebody like Mohammed Atef is somewhat less at this point."

However, Atef's death could be a psychological blow to al Qaeda.

"The more concrete gains we have, accomplishments we make against al Qaeda, the more we diminish their capability," Levitt said. "This is the first major figure to be taken down. … It causes dissention. It makes people [within al Qaeda] feel vulnerable."

Atef's death also could have psychological benefits for America and its allies in the war on terrorism.

"We were once told by many analysts that it would be very difficult to ever get a hold of anybody within al Qaeda," Olson said. "Now we're seeing that is not the case. We are defeating the Taliban, we're defeating al Qaeda, we are beginning now to chop of the heads of this Hydra-like creature, and that's essential to our victory."

ABCNEWS' John Miller in London and John McWethy in Washington contributed to this report.