Osama
bin Laden urged Muslims to kill Americans |
This material is excerpted from an article by Robert Windrem
of NBC NEWS NEW YORK, Aug. 17
Ossama bin Laden is thought to have bankrolled more than a
half-dozen terrorist attacks, including the bombings of the World
Trade Center in New York City and Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia. And
wealthy Saudi exile Usama bin Laden is suspected to be behind the
attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. He was one of the
chief targets of the U.S. missile attack on Afghanistan Thursday.
U.S. strikes Afghan, Sudanese 'terror' sites Afghan leader vows
to protect bin Laden
BIN LADEN, who has denied responsibility for the embassy
bombings, issued a religious edict Feb. 23 against all U.S.
civilians and military, U.S. intelligence officials say. The order
was issued in the name of a coalition of Muslim groups. Many of the
groups have been identified as terrorists by the United States. That
includes the Gamat al Islami in Egypt, believed responsible for
recent massacres of tourists there. On Monday, Pakistan handed over
to Kenyan officials a suspect in the U.S. Embassy bombings, Mohammed
Saddiq Odeh, also known as Mohammad Sadiq Howaida and Abdull Bast
Awadh. The Pakistan Foreign Ministry and another government source
said Sunday that Howaida was sent to Kenyan authorities last week,
bypassing U.S. investigators who had flown to Pakistan to question
him. Pakistani newspapers reported that in recent interrogations,
Howaida had confessed to being involved in the Nairobi bombing and
had outlined a plan that included co-conspirators. The Pakistani
national newspaper The News, quoting unidentified government
sources, reported Monday that the suspect, Mohammad Sadik Howaida,
claimed the attack was sponsored by Osama bin Laden, an exiled Saudi
businessman whom U.S. officials have identified as a possible
suspect.
American officials are particularly interested in hunting down
bin Laden because he launched his violent crusade with the
assistance of the United States, which armed his followers with
Stinger missiles when he was a member of the Mujahedeen forces
fighting Soviet troops in Afghanistan in the 1980s. While bin Laden
proved himself an able fighter in Afghanistan, it is his personal
financial assets — approximately $300 million (in 1995) — and
organizational abilities that set him apart in the world of
terrorism, U.S. counter-terrorism officials say. ”[Because of his
wealth] he operates with little state sponsorship other than safe
haven, and his independent, fundamentalist motivation makes him and
his followers a much more difficult challenge for Western
intelligence agencies,” said one senior intelligence official, who
spoke with NBC News on condition of anonymity. The State Department,
in a report issued in February 1996, called him “one of the most
significant financial sponsors of Islamic extremist activities in
the world today.” Senior U.S. officials say “most of the
intelligence” gathered on the bin Laden terrorist network was
electronic eavesdropping gathered from the U.S. spy satellites and
ground-based facilities. “I was amazed to find how easy it was to
make the connection [to East Africa bombings],” said one official,
adding that it was difficult to do so after other bombings like
Riyadh and Khobar. The official added that the United States had “wired”
bin Laden’s network in the past few years and had “looked at it
for a long time, how to get connection ... so this time, it was
easier to make the connection. The East Africa bombings provided us
with the opportunity.” He said the information had been obtained
in the first few days after the bombings Aug. 7. He said the United
States has been targeting the terrorist complex with spy satellites
as well as electronic eavesdropping and that the United States had a
longstanding “target package” ready for presidential approval.
Similarly, the electronic eavesdropping provided the United States
with threats that allowed for the quick removal of personnel out of
Pakistan and Albania. Another U.S. official said “rarely do
numerous sources converge” as they did on this, providing “high
confidence” in bin Laden’s responsibility.
Bin Laden is currently believed to be living in a cave in
Afghanistan, surrounded by hundreds of followers, according to Sen.
Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. But because he can avoid scrutiny by traveling
on chartered or private jets, intelligence officials say his
primitive surroundings do not preclude him from being involved in
terrorist plots worldwide. A senior U.S. official describes Bin
Laden terror network called al-Qaida or “The Base” this way: “Al-Qai’da
is multinational, with members from numerous countries and with a
worldwide presence. Senior leaders in the organization are also
senior leaders in other Islamic terrorist organizations, including
those designated by the Department of State as foreign terrorist
organizations, such as the Egyptian al-Gama’at al-Islamiyya and
the Egyptian al-Jihad. (Both are suspected of involvement in the
East Africa bombings.) Bin Laden, the official said, supports “Muslim
fighters in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Chechnya, Tajikistan, Somalia,
Yemen and now Kosovo. [His network] also trains members of terrorist
organizations from such diverse countries as the Philippines,
Algeria and Eritrea.” Another official said the United States
believes that there was “a diverse mix” of terrorists from a
variety of nations at the complex Thursday when it was bombed, but
hinted that Egyptian terrorists predominated. A senior Pentagon
official says that the 600 people who were at the Afghanistan terror
complex Thursday represent a “small fraction” of Bin Laden’s
network, which number “in the low thousands” and that Bin Laden’s
financial infrastructure is “hard to track.” If he comes out of
this alive, he will continue to retain a viable network, the
official added. Furthermore, officials note that this is not the
first time Bin Laden has been bombed by a superpower, that he was
bombed repeatedly by the Soviets during the years he fought as a
Mujahedeen.. ‘We with God’s help call on every Muslim who
believes in God and wishes to be rewarded to comply with God’s
order to kill the Americans and plunder their money wherever and
whenever they find it.’ — FATWA ATTRIBUTED TO OSAMA BIN LADEN.
“He’s the ‘Where’s Waldo?’ of the terrorism game,”
said one senior U.S. counter-terrorism official. “Most of what we
get on him is third-hand information. We pick up someone else
talking about where they have seen him.” Among the nations where
bin Laden has been seen in recent years are Iran, Malaysia, the
Philippines, Yemen and Switzerland. Intelligence officials believe
he attended a “terrorism summit” that Western intelligence
officials believe took place in the Iranian capital of Tehran in
June 1996.
A list of the terrorist attacks bin Laden is suspected of
financing supports the theory that he is able to travel freely
despite being one of the most-wanted men in the world: The December
1992 hotel bombings in Yemen that targeted U.S. servicemen. The
attempted assassination in June 1993 of Jordan’s Crown Prince
Abdullah. The attempted assassination in June 1995 of Egyptian
President Hosni Mubarak. A November 1995 bombing that killed five
U.S. servicemen in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The bombing of Egypt’s
embassy in Pakistan later that month that killed 17 people. More
recently, U.S. officials tell NBC News, the finger of suspicion has
pointed at bin Laden as being the money man behind the first Islamic
attack on American soil: the Feb. 26, 1993, bombing of the World
Trade Center, which killed six people and injured hundreds more.
Ramzi Yousef, who was convicted in November of masterminding that
plot, lived in a bin Laden-operated “guest house” in Peshawar,
Pakistan, both before and after the attack. And when Yousef was
finally arrested there in February 1995, he had bin Laden’s name
and address in his pocket. Bin Laden is also thought to be behind an
attempt to kill the pope in January 1995 in the Philippines. Now, a
senior CIA official tells NBC News, intelligence agents have
identified bin Laden as having participated in the planning of the
June 25, 1996, bombing of the Khobar Towers housing complex near
Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, which killed 19 U.S. servicemen. June 1996:
the damage outside the Khobar Towers barracks near Dhahran, Saudi
Arabia. “He is a primary suspect,” said Dr. Neil Livingstone, a
counterterrorism expert and NBC News consultant. “He is not one of
the people on the scene who drives the truck to the Khobar Towers
and blows it up. He is the person that makes it possible through
money, through contacts, through the kinds of activities he has been
carrying out for years ... in basically supporting these groups,
which are backed by Iran, which are opposed to the present Saudi
government, which are opposed to the United States, which are
opposed to Israel.”
Intelligence officials say bin Laden is one of 53 children of
Saudi construction magnate Muhammad Awad bin Laden, but the only
offspring of his union with a Palestinian woman, the least favored
of the elder bin Laden’s 10 wives. “He has no full brothers or
sisters, which is rare in the bin Laden clan,” the senior U.S.
intelligence official said. “The combination made him somewhat the
runt of the litter. He was not held in high standing in the family
even before the allegations of terrorism arose.” Nevertheless, he
labored in the family construction business until shortly after the
Jan. 11, 1979 invasion of Afghanistan by Soviet troops, which deeply
offended him as a Muslim. “He knew little of Afghanistan except
that it was a Muslim country and that ‘it had great horses,’ ”
said Issam Daraz, a Muslim journalist who interviewed bin Laden in
1989 during the waning months of the Mujahedeen’s war with the
Soviet forces. Using his personal fortune, he financed the
recruitment, transportation and training of other Arab nationals who
volunteered to fight alongside the Afghan Mujahedeen, and organized
the Islamic Salvation Front for this purpose.
Video and photographs of bin Laden fighting in Afghanistan, shot
by Daraz, clearly shows that the Saudi and his fighters were armed
with Stinger anti-aircraft missiles clandestinely supplied by the
United States. Sen. Hatch told NBC News that he personally helped
persuade the Reagan administration to send the Stingers to the
Mujahedeen after he and fellow members of the Senate Intelligence
Committee visited the region. “We convinced [administration
officials] that the Mujahedeen should be given the stingers…,”
he said. “And once that happened, then [Soviet President Mikhail]
Gorbachev did see that it was a losing proposition to keep fighting
in Afghanistan and that’s when he decided to withdraw the Soviet
forces. … Those were very important, pivotal matters that really
played a significant role in the downfall of the Soviet Union.”
Asked whether bin Laden’s subsequent activities have made him
question the wisdom of supplying advanced U.S. technology the
Mujahedeen, Hatch replied, “It was worth it.”
THE SUDAN CONNECTION
After the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, bin Laden
returned to work in the family’s Jeddah-based construction
business. However, he continued to support militant Islamic groups
that had begun targeting moderate Islamic governments in the region
and after the Saudi government seized his passport, he fled to
Sudan, where he was welcomed by National Islamic Front (NIF) leader
Hassan al-Turabi. ‘When his name was mentioned and he received
information that his presence … would become an obstacle for the
Sudan to clear its relationship with neighboring countries and
Western countries … he decided to leave and we encourage him for
that.’
ALI OSMAN TAHA
Sudan's foreign minister In Sudan, which the United States has
charged is a sponsor of terrorism, bin Laden financed at least three
terrorist training camps in cooperation with the NIF, and his
construction company worked “directly with Sudanese military
officials to transport and provision terrorists’ training in such
camps,” according to the CIA. His three-year stay in the African
country came to an end in May 1996, when he left for Pakistan.
Sudanese officials interviewed by NBC News say he left voluntarily
when it became clear his presence was harming the image of his host
country, but U.S. officials say he apparently was expelled. “His
name was mentioned [in connection with terrorism] by many countries
…” said Ali Osman Taha, the Sudanese foreign minister. “Whether
this accusation is right or wrong, we don’t know. But when his
name was mentioned and he received information that his presence …
would become an obstacle for the Sudan to clear its relationship
with neighboring countries and Western countries … he decided to
leave and we encourage him for that.”
One senior U.S. official says the training-camp complex which the
United States bombed Thursday has existed for more than a decade and
was expanded recently. Another official said Bin Laden was an
investor in the suspected chemical weapons plant bombed Thursday in
Khartoum. Bin Laden had invested tens of millions of dollars in
Sudanese facilities, including an agricultural company, a bank, a
construction company and import-export operation, all believed to
have been involved in terrorist activities.
Senior U.S. intelligence officials tell NBC News the United
States has been aware for years of “exchanges of chemical weapons
technologies” between Iraq and Sudan, that Iraq had “dispersed
its technology to Sudan” after the Gulf War, in part to hide it
from U.N. inspectors. Included in the dispersal was the technology
to make VX nerve gas, a deadly an persistent nerve gas ideal for
terrorist attacks in that it remains in the area for up to a week
after an attack, making it difficult for emergency workers to enter
a facility. ENEMY NO. 1: U.S. While bin Laden has financed terrorism
around the world, his primary target is the U.S. military in his
homeland, which he calls “the occupying U.S. enemy.” ‘Efforts
should be pooled to kill him (the American soldier), fight him,
destroy him, lie in wait for him.’
According to the CIA, bin Laden exhorted his followers to strike
against U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia in August 1996, only two months
after the Khobar Towers bombing: “Efforts should be pooled to kill
him (the American soldier), fight him, destroy him, lie in wait for
him,” the CIA quoted bin Laden as saying. Despite his abilities to
elude his pursuers, the mounting evidence of bin Laden’s
involvement in terrorism has, at least for the time being, forced
him to circle the wagons in Afghanistan.
Robert Windrem is an investigative producer with NBC News. This
story is adapted from a piece he did for MSNBC in Jan. 1998. The
Nation newspaper of Kenya (in English) U.S. State Department's
travel advisories. |