complications from surgery: “None of the 32 deaths resulted from the 3 major potentially survivable causes of death . . . defined in the literature. One casualty with potentially survivable extremity wounds died of post-surgical complications following evacuation” (ibid., 1352).
rate proved to be lower: “Although the DOD does not have a process to systematically evaluate potentially survivable deaths, the regiment’s 3% rate (1 in 32) is significantly lower than the 24% rate (232 in 982) previously reported for a subset of US fatalities from Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom” (ibid.).
wounded 4,500—mostly Kenyans: “U.S. Grand Jury Indictment Against Usama Bin Laden: Usama Bin-Laden, Muhammad Atef et al.,” (Counts 4 thru 238), United States District Court, Southern District of New York, November 6, 1998, 37.
blinded: Wright, Looming Tower, 308.
immediately suspected Osama bin Laden: Commission members and staff: Thomas H. Kean et al., The 9/11 Commission Report: The Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, July 22, 2004, 115–16.
lived in Sudan: Wright, Looming Tower, 187.
fax machine from the Hindu Kush: Notes to Osama bin Laden, “Declaration of Jihad Against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Sanctuaries” in Al Qaeda in Its Own Words, ed. Gilles Kepel and Jean-Pierre Milelli (Belknap Press, 2008), 274.
primarily a financier: Central Intelligence Agency, “Usama Bin Ladin: Islamic Extremist Financier” (declassified 1996 memorandum), available on the George Washington University’s National Security Archives website.
“these young men love death”: The full text of this fatwa can be found translated as Osama bin Laden, “Declaration of War Against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places,” in Princeton Readings in Islamist Thought: Texts and Context from al-Banna to Bin Laden, ed by Roxanne L. Euben and Muhammad Qasim Zaman, (Princeton University Press, 2009), 436–59.
volley of cruise missiles: Commission members, 9/11 Commission Report, 117.
including nerve gas: Wright, Looming Tower, 320.
produced pharmaceuticals: Ibid.
deprived thousands of Sudanese of medicine: Thomas Cushman and Simon Cottee, eds., Christopher Hitchens and His Critics: Terror, Iraq, and the Left (New York University Press, 2008), 223.
filed suit against the United States: Ibid.
sixty-six Tomahawk cruise missiles: Wright, Looming Tower, 320.
thought bin Laden would be: Ibid., 321.
on the road to Kabul: Ibid., 321–22.
wounding twice that number: The various casualty claims were reported in Ibid., 323.
thirty militants were killed: Commission members, 9/11 Commission Report, 117.
twenty of its trainees: Weaver, “Real Bin Laden,” 37.
snow-tracked Afghan mountains: Ibid., 32.
“killed Pakistani intelligence officers”: Ibid., 38.
less inclined to act that way: Ibid., 37–38.
counts against the accused: Figures related to the trial are from Benjamin Weiser, “4 Guilty in Terror Bombings of 2 U.S. Embassies in Africa; Jury to Weigh 2 Executions,” New York Times, May 30, 2001.