To the Mountains

The Algerian Islamist Abdullah Anas, ''perhaps the greatest warrior of the Afghan Arabs'', fought the Soviet Union for a decade. As one of the earliest Arabs to join the Afghan jihad, he counted as brothers-in-arms the future icons of Al-Qaeda''s global war, from Abdullah Azzam to Osama bin Laden to Omar Abdel-Rahman, and befriended key Afghan jihadi figures such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Ahmad S...