reckless and young son osama, once reluctant to leave, was now ready to command his own all-arab army in afghanistan. his mentor adamantly opposed this idea. it was the beginning of a rift that would never heal. bin laden went and he built up his own camps, he built up his own front, and he started doing his own battles. my father doesn t want arab to work separately. that s what bin laden did in 1987. reporter: their first test was the battle of jaji in the spring of 1987. hutaifa azzam fought alongside bin laden, who was suffering from low blood pressure in the thin, mountain air. it was a very, very hard battle.
reporter: shortly after the terrorist attacks on the two u.s. embassies, this man, abdul, approached bin laden with a new scheme. two years of planning followed. on october 7th, 2000, in the yemeni port of aden, two al qaeda suicide bombers steered their small boat up to the uss cole. their bomb blew a gaping hole in the navy destroyer and killed 17 american sailors. to those who attack them, we say, you will not find a safe harbor, we will find you and justice will prevail. reporter: but the u.s. did not retaliate, and four months after the bombing of the cole bin laden praised his holy warriors at the wedding of his son in afghanistan.
reporter: but the u.s. did not retaliate, and four months after the bombing of the cole bin laden praised his holy warriors at the wedding of his son in afghanistan. even then, osama bin laden was already planning another attack, more sinister, more deadly than anyone ever imagined.
up his own camps, he built up his own front, and he started doing his own battles. my father doesn t want arab to work separately. that s what bin laden did in 1987. reporter: their first test was the battle of jaji in the spring of 1987. hutaifa azzam fought alongside bin laden, who was suffering from low blood pressure in the thin, mountain air. it was a very, very hard battle. and he joined them for more than four days. reporter: the russians fell back. jaji was the first victory for bin laden s arab army. it was not a particularly significant moment in the afghan war. but from a psychological point of view it was really the beginning of sort of bin laden s almost mythic persona because a group of arabs had held off the soviets, and it got a lot of play in the middle east. reporter: the once reticent and terrified bin laden was now hailed as a fearless leader, a
radical new ideology, he was ready to step out from azzam and ready to lead his army into the next war. and that army would take shape here in peshawar, pakistan, in this neighborhood where osama bin laden lived. meetings were held, plans were made. this is where al qaeda was born. recruits were soon put to the test. in february 1989, the soviets in the last stages of their withdrawal left behind a puppet afghan communist government. for osama bin laden and al qaeda, victory in afghanistan was not yet complete. they joined the battle against the afghan communists in jalalabad near the pakistan border. on the battlefield in jalalabad,