Another person at the meeting said the real obstacle was the Pentagon, which feared another "Black Hawk Down" debacle similar to the one in Somalia in 1993 and insisted that a raid would require hundreds, if not thousands, of troops.
In the end, rather than sending a kidnapping squad, Freeh sent a letter to Qatar's government. By the time permission was granted and American agents went to Doha, Mohammed was gone.
"We reached out to every one of our friends out there to try and get him," recalls one senior Justice Department official. "But he just kind of slipped off the screen."
Afghanistan: Regrouping
Being on the run did not mean that Mohammed was out of commission.
He left Qatar about the same time Bin Laden was making common cause with the newly emergent Taliban in Afghanistan, who in exchange for his assistance gave him a secure base from which to operate.
A pair of attacks in Saudi Arabia marked the beginning of a new jihad, Bin Laden told British journalist Robert Fisk in 1996. He began expanding the reach of Al Qaeda across the world. Investigators now suspect that Mohammed was the key man in that effort. While Bin Laden and the men previously identified as his main deputies -- Zawahiri, Mohammed Atef and Abu Zubeida -- spent the bulk of their time in Afghanistan and Pakistan consolidating and rebuilding their training camps, Mohammed traveled the globe, searching out allies and recruits, and assembling what now seems like an omnipresent worldwide network.
"He was building a terrorism business. He was one of the key lieutenants in the entire Al Qaeda structure," said the FBI's Herman.
Investigators suspect that Mohammed developed direct personal relationships with several of the men who became Al Qaeda's top regional operatives.
His trail wound through Europe, Africa, the Gulf, Southeast Asia and even South America, according to investigators in Malaysia where Mohammed, traveling under an Egyptian passport, obtained a Brazilian visa.
At times, said one senior U.S. counter-terrorism official, Mohammed would travel to other countries to personally establish terrorist cells and provide them with plans for attack, money, manpower and logistical support. Other times, he would operate at a higher level, overseeing senior Al Qaeda commanders who led the attacks.
