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On 11 September 2001, two aircraft demolished the World Trade Centre buildings in New York City; a third aircraft subsequently hit the United States Department of Defence building in Washington DC, while a fourth aircraft crashed in Pennsylvania. Soon thereafter, a little-known organization called al-Qa'ida (the base) was named responsible for these attacks. Al-Qa'ida's origins can be traced to the 1979 Soviet Union invasion of Afghanistan. Thousands of Muslims travelled to Afghanistan during the 1980s to help fight against Soviet occupation of Muslim land. Usama bin Laden, a member of one of Saudi Arabia's wealthiest families, quickly established himself as a patron of this 'Afghan jihad' (holy war) and together with Abdullah Azzam founded the Maktab al-Khidamat (MAK) or 'Office of Services'. MAK functioned as a recruiting office and way station for non-Afghan Muslims who fought against the Soviet presence in Afghanistan. Following the Soviet withdrawal in 1989, Usama bin Laden relocated to Sudan, bringing a number of these fighters with him. Many of the fighters would eventually form the nucleus of al-Qa'ida, responsible for attacks not only in the United States, but also in Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Kenya, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Tanzania, Tunisia, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and Yemen.
Although the broad outlines of this story are well known, less attention has been paid in academic and popular literatures to the early development and evolution of al-Qa'ida - that is, the twelve years between 1984 and 1996. How and why did al-Qa'ida leaders latch on to the United States as a primary adversary? What motivated Usama bin Laden to form al-Qa'ida in the first place? How did this motivation change over time? This absence of attention to the early history of al-Qa'ida perhaps is due to a lack of original source material on the subject. Indeed, until recently, most documents produced by al-Qa'ida were unavailable to academe and only a select few journalists had access to al-Qa'ida. That situation changed in 2006, when the United States military released numerous al-Qa'ida documents that had been captured in Afghanistan as part of Operation Enduring Freedom (2001 and 2002).1 This collection of captured documents included, among others, internal memos, letters written to and from al-Qa'ida leadership, employment forms, as well as...