Sudan and return to Afghanistan
In Sudan, bin Laden established a new base for Mujahideen operations in
Khartoum. He bought
a house on Al-Mashtal Street in the affluent Al-Riyadh quarter and a retreat at
Soba on the
Blue Nile.
[101][102]
During his time in Sudan, he heavily invested in the infrastructure, in
agriculture and businesses. He was the Sudan agent for the British firm
Hunting Surveys,
[103]
and built roads using the same bulldozers he had employed to construct
mountain tracks in Afghanistan. Many of his labourers were the same
fighters who had been his comrades in the war against the Soviet Union.
He was generous to the poor and popular with the people.
[104][105]
He continued to criticize King Fahd of Saudi Arabia. In response, in
1994 Fahd stripped bin Laden of his Saudi citizenship and persuaded his
family to cut off his $7 million a year stipend.
[1][106]
The maker of this replica seems to have assumed, anomalously, that the corner towers were in the Banteay Srei style -- visually, as you can ...