Stephen Emerson remembers every minute of September 11, 2001, as if in slow motion.
Like it happened yesterday.
"I tried to travel to central Washington to meet with a counterterrorism official, with whom I had worked for al-Qaeda for five years," he recalls.
"The city looked like World War II. There were tanks and trucks in almost every corner. Thousands of soldiers from the National Guard and the army. Literally, on every corner we were stopped with rifles aimed at us directly, and asked to identify and report what we were looking for downtown. It took us four hours to drive four. Streets. "
"The prophet of the attacks."
Emerson, courtesy of the photographer
Emerson told Israel Today: "Every time I looked back at the mountain of evidence I had gathered, it was clear to me that something was about to happen. After we were attacked, I was in a storm of emotions. I could not believe that our country was attacked so wildly."
Unlike the millions who were beaten in shock, Emerson was actually not surprised.
For years he warned of the jihadist threat, and in 2001 itself of a major terrorist attack that was about to take place, but too few attached importance to the warnings.
"In the summer of 2001, the evidence was enormous. I also warned in an article in the Wall Street Journal I wrote in August 2001, with Middle East researcher Daniel Pipes. We both predicted that bin Laden would launch an offensive on American soil in a very short time. We have an idea that it will be less than a month later. "
Emerson is one of the world's greatest experts on jihad in the US. In fact, he discovered the phenomenon years before anyone else, long before the twin attacks. Among other things, Emerson worked as a commentator on intelligence and national security at CNN. Today he edits The Investigative Project for Terrorism, a site that specializes in Islamic extremism.
Fate touched him at Christmas 1992, when he worked for CNN and traveled to Oklahoma City to cover the final report of "Iran Contras," an affair centered on the sale of American weapons to Iran to fund opponents of the Nicaraguan (Contras) regime during the Reagan administration. 1987-1985). "On December 25, everything was closed, even the hotel's restaurant," Emerson recalls in a conversation with Israel Today. "Emerson was sure that this was a movie and that the thousands around him were standing. Curiosity overcame him and he went inside the conference hall.
"I immediately realized it was some kind of conference, and I did not really know what kind, until I went to tables full of books, tapes, pamphlets and Middle Eastern clothes for sale. The play aroused my suspicion, but I was welcomed when I began to review the materials. Parts were in Arabic, but many were "And those who were in English had very extreme rhetoric, anti-American, anti-Israel and anti-Semitic, and with the names of organizations that were established all over the country."
Terrorism Conference in the Heart of the United States
At this point Emerson befriended a man named "Abdullah," who introduced himself as a former Jew who converted to Islam and took him "under his wing."
He led him to another floor in the conference hall, where a panel called "Palestine Night" was about to begin, which included Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal, Muslim Brotherhood leader Kamel Halabi, and leaders of other terrorist organizations such as al-Jama'a al-Islamiya.
The lectures were translated simultaneously, but in some respects Emerson was surprised because he did not understand the meaning of the stormy applause.
“What are they shouting?” He asked.
"Itbah al-Yehud," replied his host.
"I was in the market for something like this to happen in the United States," said Emerson, who returned to the conference for three days until he thought he had collected enough material. The first inferno in the twins happened.
CNN offered Emerson to produce a series about the source of the attack, but refused his request to target it at the jihadist organizations operating in the country at the time.
According to Emerson, he was told that "it's too sensitive" - which led him to resign from the news giant to produce the series himself.
In 1994, Emerson's documentary was released on CBS, U.S. public television. Preparations for the film included trips to Pakistan, where he spent weeks with the Mujahideen, including a meeting with the son of Palestinian Abdullah Azzam, one of the founders of al-Qaeda, who was assassinated. He then appeared on a regular basis in congressional hearings on global jihad.At the morning of February 28, 1998, at such a hearing, and while warning members of Congress, one Saudi guy named Osama bin Laden published his declaration of war "on Crusaders and Jews."
"No one took it seriously until al-Qaeda's attacks on the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania (August 1998)," Emerson added. "Every time I looked back at the mountain of evidence I had gathered, it was clear to me that something was about to happen," he adds. No one knew the extent of the incident nor the extent of the casualties. "Emerson traveled to central Washington." I was in the midst of a storm of emotions, not believing that our country was attacked so savagely. "
20 years later, Emerson defines himself today as a pessimist. He said that at the end of 20 years, the lessons of the attack had not been learned, and he also attacked the dominant narrative that "the perpetrators of this horrific act cannot be called by their name: Islamic terrorists." "If we can not label our enemy, how do we expect to defeat him, her, that? I'm pessimistic mainly because of the elites in academia, the media, publishing, and the big high-tech companies. May God help us." It is worth listening to those who foresaw the phenomenon.