Walter told me that he had not been long in the Middle East before he had realized that Qaddafi's links with terrorism had not ceased after 1986 but had, perforce, merely become more discreet. Qaddafi, still animated by a desire for revenge against America, maintained contact with and sometimes funded a variety of Islamic terrorist groups but tried simultaneously to ensure that the United States would have no excuse to repeat the 1986 raid. "I was surprised", Walter said, that "Libya was still far more active in training and assistance to terrorist groups than was commonly realized. They sometimes trained such organizations in third countries such as Egypt and Yemen in order not to attract further U.S. attention towards Libya itself." He continued: "Most of the core Taliban fighters were Libyan trained, you know. Libya also gave a lot of support and training to the fundamentalist FIS (the Islamic Salvation Front) in Algeria, and Algeria was sometimes used as an external training ground by Libyan instructors, for example in the training of Hamas, most of whose operatives are Libyan-trained. Hamas has very close links to Libya."

He mentioned as a key Libyan contact a terrorist leader who had accidentally blown himself up in Yemen in February 2002-"if they'd captured that guy they would have found out a whole big story tracing things back to Libya." Lebanese and Iraqi groups had also benefited from Libyan training, as had the PLO, he said. "From what I've seen, the Libyans are the best in the world at terrorist techniques."

But what about Al-Qaeda itself, I asked? Well, naturally Qaddafi maintained links with Al-Qaeda as well, Walter averred, but he had never come close to exercising the quasi-control over it that he did over some terrorist groups simply through the weight of his patronage. But any Middle Eastern terrorist group which needed help would be likely to beat a path to Qaddafi's door. This was how it came about in September 2000 that Qaddafi asked Mugabe to receive an Al-Qaeda contact, Ayman Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's Egyptian deputy. "In a way there'd been a dry run", Walter said. "Mugabe already had close relations with Yasir Arafat and when Arafat visited Mugabe in 1998, he brought with him six Lebanese members of Islamic Jihad. These guys were all men wanted by the Israelis but they stayed on in Harare for two weeks after Arafat left before exiting via Zambia to Libya"-a fact later confirmed to me by another ex-CIO operative. "Qaddafi learned all about this from Arafat-the two men are close-and clearly realized that Mugabe might be willing to host wanted Arab terrorists."

Al-Qaeda in Zimbabwe

Ayman Mohammed Rabie al-Zawahiri is one of the world's most wanted men-even at that stage he had been indicted in U.S. courts for his role in the East African bombings. He is also wanted in his native Egypt for the November 1995 suicide bombing of the Egyptian embassy in Islamabad and was sentenced to death by the Egyptian military for the multiple activities of his Al-Jihad group, including the assassination of Anwar Sadat in 1981. A former pediatrician, Zawahiri is regarded as the brains of Al-Qaeda-he is known as "The Doctor" or "The Teacher", as befits a man who has been a fundamentalist militant since 1966. Fully one-third of Al-Qaeda's fighters come from his Al-Jihad movement, including Mohammed Atta, the man who flew the first airliner into the Twin Towers.

But why should Qaddafi want to introduce Zawahiri to Mugabe? "We surmised that what had happened was that Osama had sent Zawahiri to Qaddafi to ask for his help", said Walter. "At the time, of course, we were in the dark but after the September 11 attack, everything suddenly made sense. You see, this was exactly a year before 9/11, and Al-Qaeda must have been planning that event well over a year ahead. They must have known that one of the things they needed most were safe bases far from the action. Qaddafi could hardly provide anyone with that-he would be an immediate suspect and anyway was eager to keep the Americans off his back. But Zimbabwe would have occurred to him right away-by then he was very close to Mugabe-and because we're not a Muslim country no one would suspect us."

The logic was indeed obvious. From Al-Qaeda's point of view, Zimbabwe would have had many advantages. Once an atrocity on the scale of September 11 took place, the United States would clearly scan the Muslim world for possible Al-Qaeda hideouts. Sudan and Afghanistan were clearly already potential targets, as were Somalia, Yemen and, after the bombing of the U.S. embassies in East Africa, so were any African countries with large Muslim populations. But Zimbabwe? No chance. And the country also had, as most African countries do not, the modern communications and banking facilities Al-Qaeda needed. It was also conveniently close to Nairobi, Durban and Cape Town-the three centers where Bin Laden already had links. In addition, Walter said, there were small Afghan communities in both Cape Town and Port Elizabeth (they had come there originally as seamen) and there was a lively trade between them and a small number of Bolivians in both places. Hashish from the Khyber Pass was brought through Cape Town and traded for cocaine from the Bolivians. These networks were also useful for smuggling personnel or equipment, or laundering money.

According to Walter, Zawahiri spent four or five days in Zimbabwe and met with Mugabe, Vice President Simon Muzenda, the late Defense Minister Moven Mahachi, Sydney Sekeremai, the minister in charge of the CIO, and other top ranking officials. He offered large sums of money to Mugabe personally. His instructions from Bin Laden were to acquire an Al-Qaeda base in Zimbabwe where, far from the scene of the crime, it could train its militants and plan its military strikes.

Walter knew nothing of the outcome of Zawahiri's negotiations with Mugabe, though he knew that they went on for days, and Walter thought it improbable that Mugabe would have turned down a gift in hard currency. The Al-Qaeda strikes against the U.S. embassies in East Africa could not have left Mugabe in any doubt as to what he was dealing with, nor that he was risking extreme U.S. displeasure-particularly since it must have been obvious that Al-Qaeda was planning further large-scale strikes against U.S. targets. Later, Walter added, Zawahiri returned a second time to Zimbabwe, this time staying for two weeks, but he knew little more. However, this return visit and Zawahiri's quick fade into invisibility are perfectly consistent with what one would expect if, as Walter was inclined to believe, Al-Qaeda had then proceeded to construct some sort of safe-house in Zimbabwe. Walter recounted all this to me while gripping the arms of his chair tightly and was clearly nervous at every extra minute he spent in my presence. As soon as he'd finished he slipped away into the night-as did I, after waiting the ten minutes he requested.

In considering this information, it is important to remember that from 2000 on, with his position now clearly under tremendous threat, Mugabe's relationship with Qaddafi became of central importance to him-while for Qaddafi, Mugabe's collapse into almost complete reliance on him presented a heaven-sent opportunity to extend his influence in Africa and acquire a commanding position within the new African Union. Mugabe had already begun to explore plans for exile in Namibia, whose president, Sam Nujoma, is his passionate admirer and follower. Mugabe's nephew, ironically christened Innocent and, conveniently, a high-ranking CIO officer himself, was instructed to take up an undercover job in the Zimbabwean High Commission in Windhoek, Namibia, where he was told to buy a suitably large and secure house for his uncle. However, Innocent was almost immediately killed in a car crash, so while plans went ahead for Mugabe's purchase of a large cattle ranch in Namibia, the Windhoek house project was put on hold.

Qaddafi, hearing of this mishap, offered to build a house in Libya instead, where Mugabe could live in secure exile. Mugabe determined to look into this new offer seriously, and accordingly, together with his young wife, Grace, flew to Tripoli, spending ten days as Qaddafi's guest and receiving a large gift of money from him. Not long after came another seven-day trip there.

Mugabe was clearly overwhelmed by the generosity of the Libyan dictator-who gave him such gifts as a new armored stretch limo and several 4x4 vehicles-and increasingly took on Qaddafi's lifestyle himself, using his doctors and even getting Qaddafi's interior decorators and landscape gardeners to come out to Harare to redesign his house and garden in the approved Qaddafi style. By this stage Qaddafi was not only supplying Zimbabwe with its oil but had become a major investor there. The Libyan dictator was keen to set up Quranic schools in Zimbabwe and propagate Islam-but was also not content with a minority share in Noczim, Zimbabwe's state-owned oil company. Qaddafi wanted to take it over completely. Significant numbers of Libyans moved into Zimbabwe to manage these assets and to provide intelligence and military backup for Mugabe.