A CNN journalist spent years reporting on al-Qaeda. Now he’s handing over a massive archive.
Georgetown is getting 150,000 pages of printed and digital files — documentation from a lifetime of scouring the Middle East. And then there are some special items.
Bergen holds a super-rare paper copy of a fatwa issued by Omar Abdel-Rahman (known as the “blind sheikh”), whom he’s called the “spiritual guide” of the September 11 attacks. Abdel-Rahman issued the theological order while incarcerated in the United States and had it relayed by his lawyer. It was then distributed to attendees at what Bergen called “the one and only al-Qaeda press conference” in Afghanistan in 1998.
“Kill them in the sea, on land, and in the air,” it read. Bergen did not attend the press conference, but obtained the card with an Arabic message from an attendee afterward. He said the fatwa gave religious permission to al-Qaeda’s members to kill Americans and set the stage for the 2001 attacks.
