Senior Taliban spokesman Mullah Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil meets diplomats from the US embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan, to examine new ways of resolving the problem of Osama bin Laden’s presence in Afghanistan after judicial proceedings against him collapse there (see (October 25-November 20, 1998)). Ahmed expresses his opinion that Taliban leaders are caught between “a rock and a hard place” since, if they expel bin Laden without cause they will have internal problems and, if they do not, they will have external ones due to the US. Ahmed suggests that the Saudis have a key to the solution. Afghan and Saudi religious scholars could convene a joint meeting and issue a ruling that bin Laden had acted illegally, for example by holding a news conference when he was under a communication ban. He could then be expelled without this causing internal unrest in Afghanistan and the problem would be resolved “in minutes, not hours.” The US would be happy if bin Laden were expelled to Saudi Arabia or Egypt, but the Saudis apparently do not favor a joint meeting and the proposal is not acted upon. [US Department of State, 11/28/1998 
]
December 5, 1998: Unocal Abandons Afghan Pipeline Project
Unocal announces it is withdrawing from the CentGas pipeline consortium, and closing three of its four offices in Central Asia. President Clinton refuses to extend diplomatic recognition to the Taliban, making business there legally problematic. A concern that Clinton will lose support among women voters for upholding the Taliban plays a role in the cancellation. [New York Times, 12/5/1998]
Late 1998: Taliban Stall Pipeline Negotiations to Keep Western Powers at Bay
During the investigation of the August 7, 1998 US embassy bombings (see 10:35-10:39 a.m., August 7, 1998), FBI counterterrorism expert John O’Neill finds a memo by al-Qaeda leader Mohammed Atef on a computer. The memo shows that bin Laden’s group has a keen interest in and detailed knowledge of negotiations between the Taliban and the US over an oil and gas pipeline through Afghanistan. Atef’s analysis suggests that the Taliban are not sincere in wanting a pipeline, but are dragging out negotiations to keep Western powers at bay. [Salon, 6/5/2002]
1999: CIA Builds Network of Informants throughout Afghanistan, Central Asia
CIA already has a network of local agents in Afghanistan by this time (see 1997). However, in this year there is a serious effort to increase the network throughout Afghanistan and other countries for the purpose of capturing bin Laden and his deputies. [United Press International, 10/17/2002] Many are put on the CIA’s payroll, including some Taliban military leaders. Many veterans of the Soviet war in the 1980s who worked with the CIA then are recruited again. All of these recuitments are kept secret from Pakistani intelligence because of their support of the Taliban and al-Qaeda. [Coll, 2004, pp. 491-492] CIA Director George Tenet will later state that by 9/11, “a map would show that these collection programs and human networks were in place in such numbers to nearly cover Afghanistan. This array means that, when the military campaign to topple the Taliban and destroy al-Qaeda [begins in October 2001], we [are] able to support it with an enormous body of information and a large stable of assets.” [US Congress, 10/17/2002] However, apparently none of these sources are close enough to bin Laden to know about his movements in advance. [Coll, 2004, pp. 491-492]
1999: Award-Winning Playwright Writes a Play in Which an Afghan Woman Warns of the Taliban ‘Coming to New York’
Tony Kushner, a Pulitzer Prize-winning American playwright, writes a play in which Osama bin Laden is referred to and a disgruntled character warns that Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban—which will be condemned for harboring bin Laden after 9/11—is “coming to New York.” [Village Voice, 12/4/2001; Washington Post, 12/12/2001; Los Angeles Times, 12/20/2001] The play, called Homebody/Kabul, is about a middle-aged English woman who travels to Afghanistan in 1998 and mysteriously disappears there. Her husband and daughter then go to Afghanistan to search for her. [Cleveland Jewish News, 9/19/2002]
Character Is Told the Taliban Are ‘Coming to New York’ – In one scene, Mahala, an embittered Afghan woman, complains to Priscilla, the young English woman who is searching for her mother, about the world’s indifference to the brutal rule of the Taliban. “We must suffer under the Taliban so that the US can settle a 20-year-old score with Iran!” Mahala says. Apparently mistakenly thinking Priscilla is American, she continues, “You love the Taliban so much, bring them to New York!” In conclusion, she says, “Well, don’t worry, they’re coming to New York!” [Washington Post, 12/12/2001; Los Angeles Times, 12/20/2001; Kushner, 2002, pp. 85]
Character Jokes about Bin Laden Being Killed – In another scene, bin Laden, who will be accused of ordering the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, DC, is mentioned. Two characters, Quango and Milton, are joking that the United States “has smiled down on the Taliban” up until the previous week, “when America bombed them!” Quango says the Americans killed “quite a number of people” in the attack. In response, Milton jokingly exclaims, “Osama bin Laden!” but Quango comments, “No, they missed him.” [Kushner, 2002, pp. 100-101]
Play Is Written in Response to the US Attack on Afghanistan in 1998 – Kushner reportedly writes Homebody/Kabul partly in response to America’s cruise missile attack on terrorist training camps in Afghanistan, in August 1998 (see August 20, 1998), in retaliation for the bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania (see 10:35-10:39 a.m., August 7, 1998). [Los Angeles Times, 12/20/2001; Cleveland Jewish News, 9/19/2002] It is unclear, however, exactly when the play is written. Kushner writes it, or at least starts writing it, in 1999, according to some reports. [Los Angeles Times, 12/20/2001; Metro Weekly, 3/10/2004; Denver Post, 3/16/2011] But according to other reports, he started work on it as early as 1997 or 1998. [Washington Post, 12/12/2001; New Yorker, 1/28/2002; San Francisco Chronicle, 4/14/2002; Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 2/18/2007]
Writer Will Say that 9/11 Was Foreseeable – Homebody/Kabul will have its world premiere in New York about three months after 9/11, in December 2001. Coverage of the play will be filled with mentions of Kushner’s supposed “prescience” and “prophesy.” [Village Voice, 12/4/2001; Los Angeles Times, 12/20/2001; Observer, 5/5/2002] But Kushner will later dismiss these suggestions. “I’m not psychic,” he will write, adding, “If lines in Homebody/Kabul seem ‘eerily prescient‘… we ought to consider that the information required to foresee, long before 9/11, at least the broad outline of serious trouble ahead was so abundant and easy of access that even a playwright could avail himself of it.” [Kushner, 2002, pp. 144] “So much of [what happened on September 11, 2001] was foreseeable—and had been foreseen by clear-thinking people,” he will explain to the Denver Post. Therefore, he will say, “It wasn’t very hard to smell that particular rat.” [Denver Post, 3/16/2011]
Shortly After February 11, 1999: Persian Gulf Politics Causes Resentment after Missed Chance at Bin Laden
The failure to strike at bin Laden in February 1999, despite having unusually good intelligence about his location (see February 11, 1999), causes strong resentment in the US intelligence community. It is believed that the US held its fire because of the presence of royalty from the United Arab Emirates(UAE), but some felt those royals were legitimate targets as well since they were associating with bin Laden there. Further, intelligence at the time suggests the planes carrying these royals to Afghanistan were also bringing weapons to the Taliban in defiance of United Nations bans. Michael Scheuer, head of the CIA’s bin Laden unit at the time, is particularly upset. He reportedly sends a series of e-mails to others in the CIA that are, in the opinion of one person who read them, “angry, unusual, and widely circulated.” His anger at this decision not to strike at bin Laden will apparently contribute to him losing his position leading the bin Laden unit a few months later (see June 1999). Some resentment is directed at counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke, who voted against the missile strike. Clarke was known to be close to the UAE’s royal family. He’d negotiated many arms deals and other arrangements with them, including an $8 billion deal in May 1998 to buy F-16 fighters from the US (see Early February 1999). [Coll, 2004, pp. 447-450] In March 1999, Clarke calls Emirati royals and asks them to stop visiting bin Laden. However, he apparently did not have permission from the CIA to make this call. Within one week, the camp where the Emiratis and bin Laden met is abandoned. CIA officers are irate, feeling that this ruined a chance to strike at bin Laden if he made a return visit to the location. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 138]
April 1999: Kosovo Militants Being Funded by Al-Qaeda and Drugs from Afghanistan
An unnamed European intelligence agency secretly reports that al-Qaeda has provided financial support for the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). Documents found on a KLA militant further reveal that he has been smuggling combatants into Kosovo, mostly Saudis with Albanian passports. The report further notes that the KLA is largely financed by drug trafficking, bringing drugs from Afghanistan into Europe with the blessing of the Taliban. [Jacquard, 2002, pp. 71-72]
July 1999: Ex-ISI Head Is Providing Taliban Information on US Missile Launches
The US gains information that former ISI head Hamid Gul contacts Taliban leaders at this time and advises them that the US is not planning to attack Afghanistan to get bin Laden. He assures them that he will provide them three or four hours warning of any future US missile launch, as he did “last time.” Counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke later suggests Gul gave al-Qaeda warning about the missile strike in August 1998 (see August 20, 1998). [New Yorker, 7/28/2003]
July-August 1999: Taliban Leaders Visit US
About a dozen Afghan leaders visit the US. They are militia commanders, mostly Taliban, and some with ties to al-Qaeda. A few are opponents of the Taliban. Their exact names and titles remain classified. For five weeks, they visit numerous locales in the US, including Mt. Rushmore. All their expenses are paid by the US government and the University of Nebraska. Thomas Gouttierre, an academic heading an Afghanistan program at the University of Nebraska, hosts their visit. Gouttierre is working as a consultant to Unocal at the time, and some Taliban visits to the US are paid for by Unocal, such as a visit two years earlier (see December 4, 1997). However, it is unknown if Unocal plays a role in this particular trip. Gouttierre had previously been paid by the CIA to create Afghan textbooks promoting violence and jihad (see 1984-1994). It is unknown if any of these visitors meet with US officials during their trip. [Chicago Tribune, 10/21/2001]
July 4, 1999: Executive Order Issued Against Taliban
With the chances of a pipeline deal with the Taliban looking increasingly unlikely, President Clinton finally issues an executive order prohibiting commercial transactions with the Taliban. The order also freezes the Taliban’s US assets. Clinton blames the Taliban for harboring bin Laden. [CNN, 7/6/1999; US President, 7/12/1999]
