June 1993-October 1994: 9/11 Funder Saeed Sheikh Links with Al-Qaeda

Saeed Sheikh, a brilliant British student at the London School of Economics, drops out of school and moves to his homeland of Pakistan. He had been radicalized by a trip to Bosnia earlier in the year (see April 1993). Two months later, he begins training in Afghanistan at camps run by al-Qaeda and the Pakistani ISI. By mid-1994, he has become an instructor. In June 1994, he begins kidnapping Western tourists in India. In October 1994, he is captured after kidnapping three Britons and an American, and is put in an Indian maximum-security prison, where he remain for five years. The ISI pays a lawyer to defend him. [Los Angeles Times, 2/9/2002; Daily Mail, 7/16/2002; Vanity Fair, 8/2002] His supervisor is Ijaz Shah, an ISI officer. [Times of India, 3/12/2002; Guardian, 7/16/2002]