The prime suspect is Osama bin Laden, a notorious terrorist who lives in Afghanistan. He probably also planned the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center (6 dead, more than 1,000 wounded), the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania (224 dead, more than 5,000 wounded), and the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in the harbor of Aden, Yemen (17 dead, 39 wounded). Bin Laden publicly proclaimed in 1998, "To kill Americans and their allies, both civil and military, is an individual duty of every Muslim who is able, in any country where this is possible." Bin Laden has already been formally charged by the United States government with engineering the 1998 embassy bombings.

But looking at the bigger picture, no single person could have been behind this attack. Planning it took years in camps where terrorists worked on the details and trained followers. Because planning the attack took so much time and money, we know that bin Laden (or whoever) could not have done so without the assistance of at least one foreign government. We know, and have known for years, which governments in the Middle East and Africa permit terrorist training camps within their borders. Those countries are Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, the Sudan, and Afghanistan, where bin Laden has been holed up since 1996. All these countries have refused American demands to shut the camps down or destroy them, even after terrorists attacked Americans again and again. All have refused to send suspected terrorists abroad for trial.