The Al-Damazin Farms, about 300 miles south-east of Khartoum

Khartoum

Khartoum is the capital and largest city of Sudan and of Khartoum State. It is located at the confluence of the White Nile flowing north from Lake Victoria, and the Blue Nile flowing west from Ethiopia. The location where the two Niles meet is known as "al-Mogran"...

, Sudan

Sudan

Sudan , officially the Republic of the Sudan , is a country in North Africa, sometimes considered part of the Middle East politically. It is bordered by Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the northeast, Eritrea and Ethiopia to the east, South Sudan to the south, the Central African Republic to the...

, was an "enormous" farm owned and run by Osama bin Laden

Osama bin Laden

Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was the founder of the militant Islamist organization Al-Qaeda, the jihadist organization responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets...

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Bin Laden had an arrangement with high officials in the Sudan government to build the farm. He received the land on which the farms were based in payment by the Sudanese government for construction work he had performed. The farms employed thousands of people. On the farms he raised cow, cattle, and horses and grew white corn, sesame, soybeans, sorghum, and peanuts.

Mohamed Zeki Mahjoub was hired by bin Laden to, between February 1992 and May 1993, supervise 4,000 employees at the Farms.

Al-Qaeda

Al-Qaeda

Al-Qaeda is a global broad-based militant Islamist terrorist organization founded by Osama bin Laden sometime between August 1988 and late 1989. It operates as a network comprising both a multinational, stateless army and a radical Sunni Muslim movement calling for global Jihad...

held "refresh courses" in small arms and explosives on the farms.