In the Film

Professor Fouad Ajami
Director of the Middle Eastern Studies Program at Johns Hopkins University. His publications include The Dream Palace of the Arabs: A Generation’s Odyssey and The Arab Predicament: Arab Political Thought and Practice Since 1967.   

Back to top

Mohammed Mahdi Akef
Leader of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. He was imprisoned from 1954 to 1974 and 1996 to 1999.

Back to top

General Fouad Allam  
For 20 years, General Fouad Allam headed Egypt's security service. Following Anwar el-Sadat's assassination in 1981, the new president, Hosni Mubarak, and General Allam waged an intensive campaign against radical Islam. 

Back to top

Sa’ad Al-Fagih 
Leader of the Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia and a leading Saudi dissident who now lives in exile in London. He was a professor of surgery at King Saud University until 1994.     

Back to top

    

Prince Turki Al Faisal
Saudi Arabian Ambassador to the United States. He is a son of the late King Faisal and a nephew of the late King Fahd. He held the position of Saudi Head of Intelligence for 25 years, from1977 until shortly before the 9/11 attacks.

Back to top

Hassan Al Turabi
Leader of the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood since the early 1960s. He is a former leader of the Sudanese National Islamic Front.

Back to top

Bakr Atyani
Asia Bureau Chief for Al Arabiya Television.

Back to top

Montasser Al Zayyat
A Cairo-based lawyer who was imprisoned with Ayman Al Zawahiri in the early 1980s later wrote a critical biography of him, published in English as The Road to Al-Qaeda: the Story of Bin Laden's Right-Hand Man. He has defended many leading Egyptian Islamists in court.

Back to top

Abdullah Anas 
An Algerian, Abdullah Anas went to Afghanistan to fight with the Mujaheddin in 1983. He remained there until 1992. He was a founder of the "Office of Services", forerunner of Al Qaeda and knew Osama Bin Laden well. He married the daughter of Sheikh Abdullah Azzam, leader of the "Afghan Arab" fighters, and became a principle military commander to Ahmed Massoud, the Mujaheddin leader who became head of the Northern Alliance and was assassinated in 2001. Anas is on the council in exile of the FIS, the Algerian Islamist Party, and lives in London, having gained political asylum.

Back to top

Abdul Bari Atwan
Editor of London-based AL-Quds newspaper. He was born in a Palestinian refugee camp in the Gaza strip in 1950.  He went on to obtain a diploma in translation from the American University in Cairo and a B.A. in Media & Journalism from Cairo University. In November 1996 he interviewed Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan. He is the author of The Secret History of Al-Qaeda.

Back to top

Hutheifa Azzam
Hutheifa’s father, Sheikh Abdullah Azzam was the most prominent fundraiser for the Afghan mujaheddin until his death in 1989.  As a teenager Hutheifa fought the Russians in Afghanistan. He now lives in Amman, Jordan, where he is studying for a doctorate in classical Arabic literature.

Back to top

Khaled Batarfi
A childhood friend of Osam Bin Laden, he is now the Managing Editor of Al Madina newspaper and a columnist for Arab News. He has a PhD in Political Science from the University of Oregon.

Back to top

Gary Bernsten
A decorated former CIA career officer who spent 23 years with the agency between October 1982 and June 2005. In December 2001, he was the CIA field commander for the agency's Jawbreaker team at Tora Bora.

Back to top

Rick Bennett
Rick Bennett is an ABC News Cameraman.

Back to top

Jamal Khashoggi
Media Advisor to the Saudi Ambassador in Washington DC, Prince Turki Al Faisal. In the 1980s and 1990s Khashoggi worked as a correspondent and editor for various Saudi newspapers, covering important events in the Middle East and Afghanistan.

Back to top

John Miller
Assistant Director of Public Affairs at the FBI.  John Miller began his career in journalism in 1973 at WNEW in New York. From 1985 to 1994 he covered criminal justice issues for WNBC in New York. Before moving over to the FBI, Roberts worked from 1996 to 2002 as a correspondent and anchor for ABC News.

Back to top

Gwynne Roberts
The first Western TV journalist to interview Osaam Bin Laden. Roberts is an award-winning British documentary producer. His films include Kurdistan: The Dream Betrayed (1991), Mandela's Nuclear Nightmare (1995), Saddam's Secret Time Bomb (1998) and Saddam's Road To Hell (2006).

Back to top

Osama Rushdi
Former spokesman for the militant Islamist group Gammaa Islamiyya. Rushdi was imprisoned with Ayman Al Zawahiri after the Sadat assassination.  He also fought with the Mujaheddin in Afghanistan in the 1980s.  He now lives in exile in Britain, where he has political asylum.

Back to top

Abdallah Schleifer
Washingtom Bureau Chief for Al Arabiya News Channel.  For over twenty years he was a Professor of Journalism and the Director of the Adham Center for Television Journalism at the American University, Cairo. Previous to that he was an NBC Producer based in Egypt.      

Back to top

 

Michael Scheuer
First head of the CIA’s Bin Laden Unit in 1996. He resigned from the CIA in 2004. He is the author of Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror and Through Our Enemies’ Eyes: Osama Bin Laden, Radical Islam and the Future of America.

Back to top

Major General Shaukat Sultan
Director General of Inter-Services Public Relations, Pakistan. 

Back to top

Malise Ruthven
A professor of Islamic Studies at a number of universities, including the University of California, San Diego.  Ruthven is now a full-time writer. His many books include A Fury for God: The Islamist Attack on America; Islam in the World; Islam: A Very Short Introduction and Fundamentalism: A Very Short Introduction.       

Back to top

Lawrence Wright
The author of the critically-acclaimed book, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11.

Back to top

Ahmed Zaidan 
Pakistan Bureau Chief for Al Jazeera Television. 

Back to top