DOWNSIDE LEGACY AT TWO DEGREES OF PRESIDENT CLINTON
SECTION: MIDDLE EAST
SUBSECTION: AFGHANISTAN, SUDAN and OSAMA BIN LADEN
Revised 8/20/99
AFGHANISTAN, SUDAN and OSAMA BIN LADEN
AP 8/20/98 Statement by President Clinton "Today, I ordered our armed forces to strike at terrorist-related facilities in Afghanistan and Sudan because of the threat they present to our national security. I have said many times that terrorism is one of the greatest dangers we face in this new global era. We saw its twisted mentality at work last week in the embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, which took the lives of innocent Americans and Africans and injured thousands more. Today, we have struck back. The United States launched an attack this morning on one of the most active terrorist bases in the world. It is located in Afghanistan and operated by groups affiliated with Osama bin Laden, a network not sponsored by any state but as dangerous as any we face. We also struck a chemical weapons-related facility in Sudan. Our target was the terrorists' base of operation and infrastructure. Our objective was to damage their capacity to strike at Americans and other innocent people.."
Investor's Business Daily News Analysis 8/24/98 ".Here's the scenario: A U.S. president, troubled by a sex scandal, decides to create a media diversion in a distant land. To deflect the public's attention from his woes, the president brings in a famous political spin doctor and a Hollywood producer. Working together, they concoct a fictitious overseas conflict - including phony TV footage. Sound familiar? It should. It's the plot of ''Wag the Dog,'' a movie released in '97. But on Thursday, as U.S. forces launched attacks on terrorist camps in Afghanistan and the Sudan, many pondered the eerie parallels between that satirical movie and President Clinton's travails. Was this President Clinton's ''Wag the Dog'' scenario? The timing of the president's bold action to take out a terrorist base in Afghanistan and a chemical plant in the Sudan raised even deeper questions in the minds of many..The White House said planning for the strikes started nearly two weeks ago. Did the president really need to take action on Thursday, barely 72 hours after his publicly televised admission of marital infidelity? .''This is a sharp break in U.S. policy,'' said David Kay, director of the Center for Counterterrorism at Science Applications International Corp., a high-tech research and development firm."
8/22/98 Reuters "Video stores in the U.S. capital scrambled Friday to keep up with skyrocketing demand for ``Wag the Dog,'' the 1997 film in which a president starts a fictional war to divert attention from a sex scandal. Thursday's military strikes on what the United States called ``terrorist'' targets in Afghanistan and Sudan created intense interest, said Dale Shaw, assistant manager at Potomac Video. ``It's been renting like crazy,'' he said. ``People have been calling to try to get it on hold.'' ."
8/22/98 Andrea Peyser "ON a day he should have been begging forgiveness - from the wife he wronged, the daughter he humiliated, the public he lied to and, most of all, from That Woman - Bill Clinton was in typical selfish form. He was sending men and women - real men and women - into battle. This man is dangerous. This president must be stopped. No one who believes in him believes him fully. No one who knows him trusts him completely. No one. Bill Clinton is a demonstrated, straight-faced liar. A user. A fraud. His self-indulgence has no sane limits. He will seduce, abuse and discard anyone and everyone within his orbit for the miserable purpose of saving his reckless hide. And he has shown his willingness to wield the awesome power of the U.S. government to discredit a young woman who gave him love, while he used her like a blow-up sex toy. And so, the burning question will always remain: On the day Monica Lewinsky was testifying before a grand jury, did the president of the United States send innocent people into harm's way for the ugly purpose of changing the subject of national discourse from oral sex and semen-stained dresses to battle scars and blood-stained uniforms? The president has forfeited every shred of credibility he ever possessed. He is a menace to women. A danger to men. He must be stopped. ."
New York Post 8/23/98 Deborah Orin "Only Democrats believe President Clinton launched missile strikes primarily to act against terrorism - while everyone else is more likely to suspect a case of "Wag the Dog," a new Post Poll shows."
8/23/98 Msnbc "United Nations officials visited the site of a former pharmaceutical plant in Sudan Sunday to investigate whether it was involved in making chemical and biological weapons. The Sudanese government insists that the factory struck by U.S. missiles last week was not involved in making such weapons or linked to alleged terrorist Osama bin Laden.."
USA Journal Jon Dougherty 8/25/98 "It doesn't matter how much spin the administration tries to put on President Clinton's order last week to bomb suspected terrorist and chemical weapons sites in Afghanistan and Sudan. Millions of Americans have already made up their mind - with good reason - that Clinton ordered the action to get his dilemma with Monica Lewinsky off of the front pages. So far, no good. Cynical or not, you have to admit that if any other president had ordered this action, there would never have been any question about his integrity or his motives for doing so. But this is the Era of Clinton, you remember, and no act - no matter how outrageous - seems beyond possibility for this man.."
Wall Street Journal 8/25/98 Letter to the President from Mark Helprin ".Certainly it is now permissible to be as blunt with you as you were with the American people when you squared your jaw, pointed your finger and, in intimidating fashion as if you were our sergeant, headmaster, or jailer, commanded us to listen. Even had you not, by your own admission, lied thereafter, this was unforgivable. Presidents do not speak to Americans with such seething disrespect.. For six years you shied away from this--despite the World Trade Center bombings, the CIA shootings, the Somalia massacre, Khobar Towers, etc.--and now, mirabile dictu, you have embraced it. Pray tell, what accounts for your change of heart? Pray tell, why did you do it as you did, sticking the stick into the hornets' nest just enough to stir them up but not enough to shock or discourage them into inaction? Had you mounted a real raid, taken out Mr. bin Laden and his entire apparatus, struck harder, more widely, and at supportive governments as well, committing troops, actually gutting infrastructure, your message would have been less like an effete slap with a soft glove. What options were presented to you by your military advisers? How many levels of more vigorous response did you reject? In the language of war, Mr. President, you have sent an invitation. A war against terrorism would captivate the country and the world, and its timing would be coincident with your battle to remain in office.. Although your advisers already have hinted that they will sexually blackmail selected members of Congress (the 900 FBI files?) it's too late. For too long your defense has been that the charges against you are frivolous. What will you do, then, when the charges move beyond mere perjury, witness and evidence tampering, conspiracy, and obstruction of justice? What will you do when they expand to other instances of perjury, to fraud, conversion of government property, misuse of FBI files, influence peddling, illegal fund-raising, coverup and obstruction of justice, and, most importantly, the solicitation and reception of funds from agents of a foreign power in exchange for favorable consideration? The heart of the matter, Mr. President, is your conduct in regard to China. It is not technically treason, for we are not at war with the Chinese, but it is an isotope of treason, a metaphor of treason, a semblance of treason, the spitting image of treason. For good reason your Justice Department suppresses the facts of this case more even than it suppresses the facts of the others. But what will you do if and when Congress awakens--as it must--merely to honor its most elementary obligations, and with the power entrusted to it by the Constitution breaks open the stiff shell of obstruction you and your surrogates have secreted? What will you do when the data are made public, the hearings are held, the witnesses abandon the Fifth and come back from abroad? What will you do when your promise to the American people that nothing is amiss other than Miss Lewinsky is seen to be yet another lie? What will you do when the truth proves to have been indestructible? What will you do when you yourself begin to realize that you have betrayed your family, your party, and your country? What will you do? I will tell you, sir, what you will do. You will resign."
Michael Reagan Information Interchange 8/25/98 Mary Mostert "Some years ago I concluded that movies out of Hollywood were a mammoth waste of my time and money , and quit going to see them . However , with questions being asked in White House news conferences on " Wag the Dog , " my assistant , Lisa , decided I needed to see it , and brought me a rental video of it. So, I sat down and watched it . Folks , it is downright scary . It takes to a logical conclusion the political system that has evolved in America in the last thirty years. But , I believe the worst part of our present system is exactly what " Wag the Dog " illustrates - the combined efforts of political " handlers , " Hollywood , and media people who have made a profession out of manipulating both the public and the politicians . They are the ones who ultimately pocket the millions of dollars used in political campaigns."
New York Times 8/28/98 Editorial "Americans of both parties rallied around President Clinton's decision to launch military strikes against alleged terrorist installations in Afghanistan and the Sudan. But the Administration's refusal to share more information about its choice of targets and timing is disturbing. By its excessive secrecy, Washington only increases skepticism about its claim that the Shifa chemical factory in the Sudan was really producing nerve gas ingredients and thus had to be destroyed to prevent new terrorist attacks."
New York Times 8/29/98 Tim Weiner Steven Myers "In the days since the United States bombed what it called a secret chemical weapons plant in Sudan, some of the key statements made by administration officials to justify the attack have proven to be inaccurate, misleading or open to question.."
Sunday Times London 8/30/98 Stephen Grey, Islamabad and Matthew Campbell "PICTURES purporting to show the ruins of mosques and burnt pages from the Koran in Afghan camps raided by the United States 10 days ago are being used by Islamic zealots to whip up anti-American fervour in the Muslim world. The photographs, circulated in Pakistan by supporters of a guerrilla group fighting Indian rule in Kashmir and described as the first depicting the damage, show the ruins of two buildings said to be mosques pulverised by American missiles. Fragments of the Koran are scattered about.."America has desecrated our mosques and holy books," said a member of Harakat-ul-Ansar, a guerrilla organisation whose exploits include the kidnap and presumed murder of British tourists in Kashmir and, more recently, the establishment of an alliance with Bin Laden. "President Bill Clinton will be hanged for this." .."
8/29/98 Christopher Kremmer - Herald Correspondent in Islamabad "GENERAL Hamid Gul, a former chief of Pakistani intelligence, fastened his seatbelt as a Pakistan International Airways plane began its descent into Lahore this week. The flight had been bumpy, but not as rough as General Gul believes the war against terrorism will be. "It's not that difficult to obtain a suitcase-size nuclear weapon," the urbane former military officer reminded a fellow traveller. "Just the thing for retaliation against London or New York." .Some, but not all, of Osama bin Laden's Afghan bases were destroyed by the US strikes, but he retains the capability to retaliate through his International Islamic Front, unveiled in Khost in May this year. "His followers in the Middle East can act without any clear orders from bin Laden," said the editor of the Pakistani Urdu-language daily newspaper Ausaf, Mr Hamid Mir, who is writing a biography of the militant Muslim leader. Mr Mir believes bin Laden will continue to enjoy Afghanistan's hospitality under the Taliban's supreme leader, the one-eyed recluse Mullah Mohammed Omar. "They share similar ideas about America and the international situation...
Washington Post 9/1/98 Vernon Loeb Bradley Graham "The Sudanese pharmaceutical factory destroyed in last month's U.S. cruise missile attack was singled out as a possible target months earlier, during a covert operation in which U.S. intelligence agencies inserted an agent to obtain one of several soil samples used later to justify the strike, senior intelligence officials said Monday.."
8/31/98 Philadelphia Inquirer Charles Krauthammer "Knowing Clinton, one is tempted to say that if Osama bin Laden thought these missile attacks were bad, wait till Kenneth Starr's report comes out. Might be a good time for bin Laden to go on vacation. Temptation aside, however, it is clear that bombing bin Laden was no Wag the Dog. Defense Secretary William Cohen and Gen. Hugh Shelton would never lend themselves to an air raid whose purpose was to deflect attention from a domestic scandal. Nonetheless, there was an extrinsic force driving the Afghan and Sudanese bombings: the collapse of Iraqi policy. The air raid served to compensate for the total surrender of the Clinton administration in the face of Saddam's determination to rebuild his weapons of mass destruction. On the very same day the Tomahawk missiles went out, the United States was forced to support a humiliating Security Council statement that pitiably called Saddam's expulsion of inspectors "totally unacceptable" while pointedly dropping previous warnings of "severest consequences" if Saddam did not reverse himself.
Washington Times 9/1/98 Wesley Pruden ".Saddam, who has become America's favorite nemesis, tells all kinds of fanciful tales that we've always assumed to be lies. The Taleban guys, accomplished liars as well, are offended that anyone thinks there's anything wrong with coddling Osama bin Laden, and the Sudanese insist that the chemical factory Mr. Clinton's Tomahawks leveled was not a poison gas factory at all, but a place where the Sudanese made the laxatives, aspirin, pills, elixirs, liniment and other stuff to make life in the Islamic state tolerable. Not so long ago this never would would have been an argument. If an American president said it, who but evil-doers would have doubted him? ."
Dayton Daily news 9/6/98 OpEd Mona Charen "..When the president ordered the bombing of terrorist sites in Afghanistan and Sudan two weeks ago, most Americans believed that his motives were honorable, but a significant minority thought the attacks were pureWag the Dog. Even many who thought the attacks were justified questioned the timing and style. George Bush seemed to conduct large parts of Desert Storm from the golf course, yet President Clinton seized the opportunity to fly back to Washington and address the nation from the Oval Office. Now, reports are surfacing that the administration may have relied on incomplete intelligence about the pharmaceutical plant that was bombed in Khartoum. Sudan claims that the factory was used for peaceful purposes only and has invited the United Nations to inspect the wreckage. In normal times, Americans would turn to the administration for clarification. But with this president, can our minds be completely at rest about his motives or his reassurances? ."
Invetsor's Business Daily Editorial 9/1/98 "We took President Clinton's word that bombing Sudan and Afghanistan was necessary and that our forces punished the right people. We should have known better. His original story, as usual, isn't holding up to scrutiny. On Aug. 20, three days after half-confessing to lying about Monica Lewinsky, Clinton ordered our military to pump as many as 20 Tomahawk missiles into a plant in Sudan, a Muslim nation with which we have heretofore had no major quarrel. Clinton ordered another 60 or so Tomahawks launched against six camps near Khost, Afghanistan. To justify its attacks, the White House invoked the specters of nerve gas and a gathering of international terrorists. Yet over the past 11 days, press reports have put the lie to several statements made by Clinton and his officers to justify the two attacks. As these statements have become inoperative, officials have spun new justifications - further raising suspicions the attacks were ordered to shift attention from Clinton's personal woes."
US Newswire press Release 9/8/98 Peter Cleary of Americans for Tax Reform ".I am writing to urge you to pass -- as quickly as possible -- a Continuing Resolution to ensure that the government does not shut down this fall. It has become obvious that Bill Clinton plans to shut the government down to diver the nation's attention from his legal problems. This domestic version of the "Wag the Dog" strategy is the largest abuse of power ever considered by an elected official in the history of our country.."
Reuters 9/21/98 "U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark said Tuesday the U.S. government had wanted an excuse to strike at Sudan last month and the decision to bomb a pharmaceutical plant there was strictly political. Clark made the accusations to reporters after returning from Sudan, where he led a delegation from the International Action Center on a fact-finding mission to the El Shifa pharmaceutical factory, which was destroyed by U.S. cruise missiles on Aug. 20.."It is absolutely absurd to believe that they scooped up some dirt and found nerve gas on the outside of the plant,'' Clark said, adding there were some four million people living in the Khartoum area and that any nerve gas would have affected local residents.."
9/24/98 AP "Rep. Barney Frank, one of President Clinton's most outspoken supporters on Capitol Hill, said Thursday he believes Clinton made a mistake last month in ordering the bombing of a Sudanese factory suspected of manufacturing chemical weapons agents. Frank, D-Mass., said in a letter to Clinton he initially supported the bombing of sites in both Sudan and Afghanistan but now believes the administration went too far in the Sudan attack.."
WorldNetDaily 9/29/98 David Bresnahan "President Bill Clinton is playing war games on a top secret computer to come up with a way to be an international hero, according to the man who designed the system. According to Rev. Curt Tomlin, a former member of the battle staff of both presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, Clinton is a desperate man who is like an animal trapped in a corner. He will do anything to regain his credibility and deflect criticism from his impending impeachment hearings, he says. He also is driven by his desire to create a positive legacy of his time in the White House, according to various reports. Clinton's motivations are dangerous to the security of our nation, according to Tomlin. It was Tomlin who designed and perfected the Pentagon's first war games computer system, the top secret "Single Integrated Operating Procedure.".Clinton had tried to become an international hero by destroying hundreds of terrorists being trained by Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan and a chemical weapons plant in Sudan. Those two missile attacks were chosen through use of the SIOP computer to which Clinton has access, according to Tomlin...Tomlin expects Clinton to launch an attack very soon that will bring devastating domestic retaliation to the U.S. "If I were still on active duty, either as an enlisted man or as a commissioned officer, knowing what I know now, looking at all of the information I have available to me, I would have no choice but to resign my commission or terminate my enlistment simply because there is no way that I could now trust my commander in chief," said Tomlin.."
Agence France-Presse 9/29/98 "Arab states on Monday submitted a draft resolution to the UN Security Council calling for a fact-finding mission to verify US claims about a Sudanese factory hit by US missiles. Bahrain ambassador Jassim Buallay submitted the draft resolution on behalf of the UN Arab Group. But the US delegation said that further bilateral discussions were needed, and that the United Nations was not the appropriate forum for the issue, according to western diplomats at the closed-door session. Sudanese diplomats say they want to challenge the United States to issue a veto to prevent the fact- finding mission from going ahead..
Newsday 9/24/98 Sheryl McCarthy "WHILE OUR lawmakers split hairs over whether the president's lies about an extramarital affair are impeachable offenses, they don't seem to know the difference between high crimes and trivial misdemeanors. In the month since the United States bombed a factory in Sudan that was suspected of making chemicals for deadly nerve gas, information has surfaced that this decision was made on the flimsiest evidence. It's now clear that at the time of the bombing U.S. officials didn't know the target was a pharmaceutical plant, which makes medicine to treat diseases such as tuberculosis and malaria. There is no evidence that the plant was financed by the terrorist leader, Osama bin Laden, as U.S. officials had claimed. And the claim that Empta, a chemical used to make nerve gas, was found in soil samples near the plant has been called into question. The chemical may have been a common insecticide. The New York Times has reported that all that the policymakers involved in the decision to bomb the Al Shifa plant knew was: Terrorists were living in Sudan, the now questionable soil sample existed, and Osama bin Laden once asked Sudanese leaders to help him make poison gas. On the basis of this, they advised Clinton to launch his missiles..
AP 10/5/98 "The White House ignored Attorney General Janet Reno when she questioned whether evidence linking Islamic extremist Osama bin Laden to the bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa was strong enough to justify retaliatory attacks, The New Yorker magazine reported. The magazine also said in its Oct. 12 edition, due on newsstands today, that the White House kept planning for raids on suspected terrorist targets in Afghanistan and Sudan so secret that four members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and FBI Director Louis Freeh were bypassed entirely.."
Washington Times 10/5/98 Ralph Hallow "Former President George Bush said yesterday that scandal distracting the Clinton presidency is hurting America's ability to deal effectively with foreign crises that threaten U.S. security. "It's hard to separate the two crises," he said in an exclusive interview with The Washington Times. Mr. Bush, 74, has resisted criticizing President Clinton, who defeated him in 1992. But yesterday, in Washington to mark the publication of a new book he has written with Brent Scowcroft, he cited the widespread speculation that the August missile strikes against Sudan and Afghanistan were an effort to divert attention from the Monica Lewinsky scandal as an example of how the scandal "caused that kind of question to be raised." The world is in many ways less secure and the United States more threatened than before the collapse of global communism, he said."
The Times 10/7/98 Michael Binyon "OSAMA BIN LADEN, the exiled millionaire Saudi terrorist leader, has acquired tactical nuclear weapons from the former Soviet Central Asian states, according to a leading Arabic newspaper. Bin Laden, accused by America of masterminding the attacks on the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, has established a network of influential friends in Central Asia and Ukraine, according to the London-based al-Hayat. Citing reliable diplomaticsources in Central Asia, the paper says that the Afghan-based terrorist has used this network to get hold of weapons from the former Soviet republics. It did not say how many weapons he had obtained or if he had paid for them."
Fox News AP 10/4/98 "Ross Perot suggested Sunday that President Clinton might consider taking the United States into "a little war'' strictly for a boost in poll ratings. The billionaire businessman who ran for president in 1992 and 1996 said Clinton would consider almost anything to satisfy a lust for power. "This man will let this country rot, he will let the economy go into an international decline, he will devastate millions of people, and, if necessary, he'll start a little war just to get a bump in the polls, and that is a lust for power,'' Perot said on NBC's "Meet The Press.'' ."
FoxNews AP 10/4/98 "The White House planned bombing raids on suspected terrorist targets in Afghanistan and the Sudan without involving four members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and FBI Director Louis Freeh, The New Yorker magazine reported. The magazine also said in its Oct. 12 edition, due on newsstands Monday, that Attorney General Janet Reno was ignored when she questioned whether evidence linking Islamic extremist Osama bin Laden to the terrorist bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa was strong enough to justify the retaliatory attacks. The Aug. 20 Tomahawk missile strikes hit bin Laden's purported terrorist training camp in Afghanistan and a chemical plant in Khartoum, Sudan. President Clinton said the latter raid was based on evidence of a nerve gas component found at the Al Shifa plant. The New Yorker said the White House consulted Joint Chiefs Chairman Hugh Shelton on the raid plans but instructed him not to brief the three generals and one admiral who run the nation's armed forces, nor to consult with experts in the Defense Intelligence Agency.."
MSNBC 11/12/98 Freeper Neve Report ".Former Defense Secretary Casper Wineberger feels that the cruise missle attacks in the Sudan and Afghanistan, were a political ploy. Wineberger suggests that it was no coincidence that the military operation took place during a critical part of the Lewinski investigation. Wineberger made his comments on MSNBC's "Watch It" program.."
nando 12/13/98 ".Suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden may be planning strikes on Washington or New York to avenge a U.S. missile strike on his Afghan headquarters in August, Time magazine reported Sunday. "We've hit his headquarters, now he hits ours," the magazine quotes a State Department aide as saying. U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno organized an exercise at FBI headquarters in Washington on Oct. 14 to plan for a possible terror attack by bin Laden, the weekly said.."
FOX; AP 12/13/98 ".U.S. embassies in four Gulf nations said Sunday they have information indicating the "strong possibility'' of a terrorist attack at one or more American targets in the region over the next 30 days. A statement distributed to American citizens in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates and Bahrain asked them to be on alert to "any suspicious activity and take precautionary steps to reduce the profile and vulnerability of any U.S. facilities.'' The statement did not give details beyond saying there is "a strong possibility that terrorist elements are planning an attack against U.S. targets in the Gulf, possibly in the next 30 days.''."
Journal of Constitutional and Political Studies 12/17/98 George Landrith ".On August 17, 1998, Clinton appeared before a federal grand jury to testify about his perjury, abuse of power, obstruction of justice, and witness tampering. Later that night, he delivered the worst speech by a president in this Century in which he inflamed even members of his own party by his continued denials and arrogance. As a result numerous Democratic senators took to the Senate floor to strongly denounce Clinton. And on August 20, 1998, Monica Lewinsky testified before the federal grand jury and described how the president had encouraged her to continue denying the relationship and to submit a false affidavit. Later that day, on August 20, 1998, Clinton ordered the attack on "terrorist facilities" in Sudan and Afghanistan. It now turns out that most of the Joint Chiefs of Staff were not consulted in any meaningful way prior to the attack and that the sites that Clinton ordered bombed were probably not "terrorist facilities" at all. It is now abundantly clear that the attack was poorly planned and based on weak evidence thrown together quite hastily.. "
8/21/98 Lawrie Mifflin ".After a week of what felt like nonstop talk about sex, ties and audiotape involving President Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, television screens were overtaken Thursday by news of a different shock value. When President Clinton announced, just before 2 p.m. ET, that the United States had bombed what he described as terrorist bases in Afghanistan and the Sudan, television news networks shifted into full-tilt coverage of a more conventional kind -- interviewing experts in terrorism, military affairs and politics; showing video of the still-burning building in Khartoum, and carrying the president's formal address to the nation at 5:30 p.m. But the Lewinsky matter was melded into the bombing coverage almost immediately because of the similarity between reality and the recent movie "Wag the Dog," in which a fictional American president fabricated a war to divert attention from reports that he had propositioned a young girl in the White House..Ms. Lewinsky's appearance before the grand jury Thursday, which otherwise would have been prominent news, was relegated to brief reports near the end of the three broadcast-network evenings news programs. By day's end, the television images of Clinton had again become presidential, as he was seen interrupting his vacation, striding onto Air Force One to return to the White House, and then addressing the nation in the mode of commander in chief, against a full-dress backdrop of the American and presidential flags. It was a sharp contrast to his dreary demeanor and the somber setting of Monday's confessional appearance..."
The Sunday Times - London 12/20/98 Adrian Levy, Cathy Scott-Clark Peshawar ".THE world's most wanted terrorist, Osama Bin Laden, is preparing for war. Four months after the United States launched cruise missile attacks on his camps in Afghanistan, Bin Laden has rebuilt his "terrorist universities" and is constructing bomb-proof headquarters in a cave beyond the reach of spy satellites in the Pamir mountains in the north of the country.."
The Pioneer 12/20/98 Shubha Singh ".Among the hundreds of cruise missiles that were fired at Iraq on Wednesday night, a couple of them fell in Khorramshahr town in Iran's Khuzestan province. There was some damage to property, but fortunately no resultant casualties in Iran. That is one of the problems of these high-tech weapons, fired from afar, they are not as accurate as their users would want them to be. Fired at Iraq, they land in Iran. Aimed at Afghanistan, they drop down in Pakistan. And then there is what the Americans term collateral damage. The ugly phrase meaning civilian deaths.Bombing Iraq is an abuse of power, in the belief that there can be no retribution. This is the first time that the Security Council has been sidetracked so blatantly. Washington was so quick o send out its missiles that it did not even make the effort of getting support from anyone other than its closest ally, Britain, at the time of the attack. Even the other permanent members of the Security Council, which forms the elite core group, were not consulted.."
Voice of America 12/25/98 Ayaz Gul Islamabad Pakistan ".Mr. Bin Laden renewed his fatwa (a religious decree) in the interview reportedly conducted Wednesday night in a tent under heavy security in the Afghan wilderness. Mr. Bin Laden is quoted as saying he is confident that Muslims would rid Islamic countries of Americans and Jews. Osama Bin Laden has been indicted by the U.S. government, which accuses him of involvement in the August bombings of two American embassies in east Africa. a total of 224 people died in the bombings. Washington is offering a five million dollar reward for information leading to his arrest. Mr. Bin Laden is quoted as denying that he was responsible for the bombings. but the Saudi-born militant says he supports the attacks and knows some of the suspects who have been accused in the attacks.Mr. Bin Laden does not deny the charge that he is trying to develop chemical and nuclear weapons. The Saudi militant is quoted as saying acquisition of such weapons would be part of his religious duty. He adds the use of such weapons would be decided by him. Mr. Bin Laden is living in Afghanistan under the protection of the Taleban Islamic movement, which has rejected requests by the united states for his extradition. The Taleban says Mr. Bin Laden is a guest in Afghanistan.."
AP 12/25/98 ". Osama Bin Laden, the Saudi exile accused of masterminding the U.S. Embassy bombings in Africa, is calling on Muslims to kill Americans and Britons for the airstrikes their countries carried out against Iraq. ``The British and the American people loudly declared their support for their leaders' decision to attack Iraq,'' Bin Laden said in Friday's edition of the Arabic newspaper Asharq Al- Awsat. This made it ``the duty of Muslims to confront, fight and kill'' Britons and Americans, he said. ``And anything that can be taken from them by force is the rightful prize of Muslims,'' Bin Laden said..."
New York Post 2/3/99 Niles Lathem ".U.S. officials say the CIA has received "credible and reliable" intelligence reports that Saddam is forging alliances with some of the Middle East's most bloodthirsty terrorists - including Osama Bin Laden and Abu Nidal - as part of an apparently new campaign to strike American targets and possibly destabilize Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. News of Saddam's terrorist strategy comes as American efforts to contain him with sanctions and arms inspections appear to be unraveling in the United Nations.. U.S. intelligence agencies are concerned about the possibility that Saddam could not only help with funding and logistics for Bin Laden's far-flung network, known as al-Qada, but he could also help the group acquire chemical and biological weapons through the Sudanese connection. The CIA believes Iraq moved large amounts of
Independent (UK) 2/5/99 Andrew Marshall ". The United States may be forced to acknowledge that it mistakenly attacked a factory in Sudan with cruise missiles last year, after the threat of legal proceedings by the plant's Sudanese owner. .The strikes caused enormous controversy since they came on the day that Monica Lewinsky gave evidence on her affair with President Bill Clinton, raising accusations that the White House was seeking to distract attention. The owner of the plant, Saleh Idris, has asked the US to apologise, to unfreeze his assets and to compensate him for damage to the factory, which he says was a legitimate pharmaceuticals factory. . Mr Idris has retained the Washington law firm of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer Feld, the same firm which employs Vernon Jordan, who gave evidence in defence of Mr Clinton in the Senate impeachment trial. A legal case would be almost unprecedented, and could have major implications for Mr Clinton and for US foreign policy...Mr Idris, who is also an adviser to Saudi Arabia's largest bank, has retained Kroll Associates, the world's leading firm of private investigators, to examine the evidence. Mr Scanlon said it proves that there was no chemical weapons plant in the factory, that it had never belonged to Mr bin Laden and that there were no links between Mr Idris and Mr bin Laden or the Iraqi government. ..Mr Idris's representatives presented their case this week to the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence of the US House of Representatives, said a US government source..At the time of last year's strike, there was an argument within the Administration as to whether the Sudanese plant was a legitimate target. The US said after the strike that the facility was a Sudanese government factory, but corrected this when it became clear that it had belonged to Mr Idris since April. One US government source told The Independent that it was a case of "right country, wrong building"..."
Drudge Report 2/8/99 Matt Drudge Freeper politicket ".The NEW YORK TIMES is planning to report on Tuesday that chemists who examined soil, sludge and debris samples from a Sudanese pharmaceutical plant destroyed in August by U.S. cruise missiles found no traces of chemical weapon compounds!."
Boston Globe 2/18/99 John Ellis ".But about the pharmaceutical plant in the Sudan, we now know a lot. Almost everything we know conflicts with the Clinton administration's stated reasoning for the attack. And the more we learn, the more disturbing the picture becomes. The decision to include the Al Shifa pharmaceutical facility on the target list was a last-minute affair and was based on bad intelligence and science. The intelligence was frightfully bad. US officials said that Al Shifa was part of the Sudanese military-industrial complex. It was not. US officials maintained that Al Shifa produced no medicinal products. In fact, Al Shifa produced more than 50 percent of all pharmaceuticals consumed in Sudan. Indeed, on almost every important point of fact, the Clinton administration's description of the facility's operation and capabilities has been contradicted by independent research. Major news organizations, including the investigative unit of ABC News and The New York Times, have reduced to rubble the administration's claim that Al Shifa was a chemical weapons factory. US intelligence about the facility was so bad that officials did not even know that it was privately owned by a merchant banker named Saleh Idris. When they found out (from the press), they quickly switched gears and maintained that Idris was a front man or agent for bin Laden. There is no evidence that this is true... Many members of the defense intelligence community believe that the missile strikes had little to do with global terrorism and everything to do with the president's pathetic admission, on Aug. 17, of an ''inappropriate'' relationship with Monica Lewinsky. Now that the evidence clearly points to a major mistake in US antiterrorism policy, the US Senate should appoint an independent commission to investigate what happened and why.."
ABCWeb Also on ABC Nightly News 2/11/99 Sheila MacVicar ".ABCNEWS investigated the decision to attack the plant and spoke with Salal Idris, the prominent Sudanese businessman who owned it. He now lives in Saudi Arabia, where he gave his first television interview to ABCNEWS. "One can understand the legitimate right of the U.S. government to go after terrorists and to control terrorism," Idris says. "But they need to have legitimate targets. I am not the right target." .. The decision to attack the plant has been repeatedly defended by the Clinton administration. They say they have hard evidence of a chemical-weapons presence: a soil sample, obtained by the CIA just outside the plant, contained EMPTA - which is critical to producing the deadly nerve agent VX. "We have physical evidence that this facility . of the presence there of a chemical that can as far as we know, can only be used in chemical weapons," said National Security Advisor Sandy Berger on Sept. 18..ABCNEWS talked to many international arms control experts, scientists and some U.S. intelligence officials who say they now believe that the CIA soil sample, and the tests done on it, prove nothing.. ABCNEWS consulted some of the world's leading experts in detecting chemical-warfare agents. They believe the CIA's test results are questionable, at best. "The evidence is based on trace amounts of a compound in soil, and we know that compound is not stable in soil," says chemical toxicologist Dr. Hendrik Benschop. "So, this would not add up to solid scientific evidence.".. A recent investigation of the factory ruins, commissioned by Idris and his American lawyers, collected samples from 13 locations at the site. Sophisticated testing and analysis by three different laboratories showed that the samples contained no EMPTA.. ABCNEWS has learned, however, that the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency has conducted its own highly-classified review. It concludes that the decision to bomb was based on bad intelligence . and bad science.."
Boston Herald 2/14/99 Editorial ".After cruise missiles slammed into a Sudanese chemical plant in August in retaliation for the terrorist attacks on American embassies in East Africa, the Clinton administration was accused in some quarters of trying to distract attention from the president's disastrous grand-jury appearance in the Lewinsky case. We thought at the time the president acted properly. There seemed good grounds to believe that the factory, said to have been linked to Osama bin Laden's terrorist network, was involved in making or handling chemicals used to make nerve gas. We're not so sure anymore... The lab's owner has now commissioned analysis of 12 soil samples from the plant grounds. None shows any evidence of the chemical in question, according to Boston University chemistry professor Thomas Tullius, reported by The New York Times to be in charge of the sampling project. Well, the rain could have washed away the evidence, those oh-so-savvy sources said. But some of the samples were said to have been protected from rain by factory debris, and one was taken from the septic system, which would provide evidence of what went through the plant drains... And without believable evidence beyond anonymous assertions, the world is drawing the conclusion that the United States is led by a president so unprincipled that he will make a Hollywood comedy look like prophesy to save his own political skin ."
The Hindu 2/14/99 AP ".Osama Bin Laden, a suspect in the bombing of two U.S. Embassies in Africa, has "disappeared" from his base in Afghanistan, a Taliban militia spokesman said. Other Afghan sources said he left the country. The Saudi millionaire dropped out of sight two days ago, Mr. Abdul Hai Muttmayan said yesterday.."
The Independent (UK) 2/15/99 Andrew Marshall ".An independent organisation's investigation of last year's US missile attack on a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan has concluded that there was no evidence to link the facility or its owner to international terrorism. Six months after the attack, every effort to substantiate the US claims about the factory has reached similar conclusions: that some of them are wrong or out of date, and others are based on sheer speculation. The US admitted within days that some of its "evidence" was wrong. Since then it has produced many new allegations, all given anonymously to the press, but no new evidence..."
N.Y. POST 3/7/99 Niles Lathem "…Saudi millionaire terrorist Osama bin Laden is believed to be on the move and hiding in a network of high-tech mountain caves built by the CIA during the Afghan war, The Post has learned.
U.S. intelligence agencies assigned to track the world's most dangerous terrorist believe bin Laden and his entourage have been moving around in remote regions of Afghanistan since the Taliban, the Islamic militia that controls most of that country, reported his alleged "disappearance" three weeks ago…."
The Hindustan Times 3/22/99 Vijay Dutt Freeper Jai "…The intensive combing of Afghanistan by the Western surveillance and intelligence teams has led to the spotting of Osama bin Laden in the Taliban territory, adjoining Pakistan. Last month, Osama, who has developed a massive network to export terrorism anywhere he wishes, had reportedly disappeared from his usual hide-outs in Afghanistan. . . . "
USA Today 11/29/98 AP "...The man accused of orchestrating the U.S. Embassy bombings in Africa operates a terrorist network out of Albania that has infiltrated other parts of Europe, The Sunday Times reported. The newspaper quoted Fatos Klosi, the head of the Albanian intelligence service, as saying a network run by Saudi exile Osama Bin Laden sent units to fight in the Serbian province of Kosovo. Bin Laden is believed to have established an Albanian operation in 1994 after telling the government he headed a wealthy Saudi humanitarian agency wanting to help Albania, the newspaper reported. Klosi said he believed terrorists had already infiltrated other parts of Europe from bases in Albania. Interpol believes more than 100,000 blank Albanian passports were stolen in riots last year, providing ample opportunity for terrorists to acquire false papers, the newspaper said...."
Serbian Unity Congress 10/8/98 The European Stella Jatras "...The Jerusalem Post said it best when it reported on Sept 14, 1998 regarding Kosovo, "Diplomats in the region say Bosnia was the first bastion of Islamic power. The autonomous Yugoslav region of Kosovo promises to be the second. During the current rebellion against the Yugoslav army, the ethnic Albanians in the province, most of whom are Moslem, have been provided with financial and military support from Islamic countries. They are being bolstered by hundreds of Iranian fighters, or Mujahedeen, who infiltrated from nearly Albania and call themselves the Kosovo Liberation Army." What we are seeing in Kosovo is an Islamic army that has been trained in Osama bin Laden's terrorists camps in Afghanistan. Although we cannot rule out that the recent massacres were perpetrated by the forces of Slobodan Milosevic, we must ask ourselves the question, who has the most to gain from these horrendous massacres (or however many it may take to get NATO to bomb) considering the KLA is losing on the battlefield? Furthermore, the method of the killings are exactly the same methods that are used in Algeria by Algerian fundamentalists who have thus far literally butchered over 80,000 by slitting of throats. Oddly enough, there have not been any calls to bomb the Algerian government on a humanitarian basis...."
http://www.mg.co.za/mg/news/99mar1/8mar-sudan.html 3/8/99 Judith Achieng Freeper DonMorgan "…HEAVY fighting is raging in southern Sudan's Bahr el Ghazal region, threatening a three-month ceasefire signed in January to facilitate the delivery of relief aid to thousands of families who suffered last year's famine in the region. The rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) said this week a gang of marauding pro-government militia groups have been ''killing civilians, burning villages, looting cattle and abducting women and children.'' The latest attack occurred on Feb. 26 when the militia forces rampaged through Akoch Payam, Bahr el Ghazal, killing at least 30 persons. The militias, who rode on horses, also attacked an airstrip where relief food was being distributed. ''By the time the attack was taking place, a relief plane was taking off,'' said an SPLA statement made available to IPS this week. ''The whereabouts of some 60 persons who were present at the scene of the attack are unknown, but we presume they have been taken slaves by the attackers or have been killed…"
AP 4/1/99 Freeper briant "...Afghanistan's ruling Taliban condemned President Clinton on Thursday for criticizing its treatment of the country's women. In a videotaped message to a Hollywood fund-raiser held Monday, Clinton denounced the Taliban's treatment of women and warned the religious militia that the United States wouldn't recognize the Taliban while the repression against women continued. The fund-raiser was sponsored by the Feminist Majority Foundation. The Taliban statement, issued from the foreign ministry and broadcast on Radio Shariat, accused Clinton of interfering in Afghanistan's internal affairs. ``The Taliban are following Islamic law and international law does not allow any country to criticize Afghanistan's Islamic culture,'' the statement said. It accused Clinton of ``engaging in propaganda against an Islamic country which has been devastated by war.'' ..."
Newsday 3/29/99 The Raven "…OSAMA BIN LADEN, the world's most wanted terrorist, is buying child slaves from Ugandan rebels and using them as forced labour on marijuana farms in Sudan to fund his international terrorism network…."
CNS 4/12/99 Lawrence Morahan "...More people have been killed in the southern region of Sudan by the scorched-earth, forced-starvation tactics of their Muslim government than all the victims of Kosovo, Bosnia and Rwanda combined, one of the world's leading authorities on religious persecution told the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva. Paul Marshall, a senior fellow at Freedom House's Center for Religious Freedom and an award-winning author of studies of religious persecution, is urging the U.N. Human Rights Commission to summon the Khartoum regime before the U.N. Security Council to answer charges of gross civil rights abuses and possible genocide. "Sudan has demonstrated it is probably the worst human rights violator in the world," Kristina Robb of the Washington-based Freedom House, an organization that tracks religious abuses around the world, told CNS. "The Khartoum government practices the most blatant form of what we believe is religious genocide by a radical regime. It uses Islam very cynically to justify its policy of genocide against its own population in southern Sudan, which is mainly Christian and animist," Robb said. "Many people in the [Clinton] administration use the term genocide, or its definition of ethnic cleansing or systematic attempt to eliminate a population, to describe the situation in Kosovo, when there's been no effort to use the same terminology for a situation that is much, much more severe in Sudan," Robb said. "To a certain extent you have to ask if this is a case of racism, or a case of national interest playing as the most important factor in our foreign policy," Robb said. Up to 2 million people have been killed and 5 million displaced in south Sudan and the Nuba Mountains by the Sudanese Popular Defense Forces, a radical Islamic force that targets a Christian and animist population, Freedom House estimates. These forces are bombing, burning and raiding villages, enslaving women and children, kidnapping and forcibly converting young men and sending them to the front as cannon fodder, and precipitating genocide by preventing food from reaching starving villages...."
New York Times (with "Frontline") 4/13/99 Tim Weiner "...Capturing bin Laden alive could deepen the complications. American officials say that so far, firsthand evidence that could be used in court to prove that he commanded the bombings has proven difficult to obtain. According to the public record, none of the informants involved in the case have direct knowledge of bin Laden's involvement. For now, officials say, Federal prosecutors appear to be building a case that his violent words and ideas, broadcast from an Afghan cave, incited terrorist acts thousands of miles away.... The interviews also raise questions about key assertions that have been made by the Government about bin Laden. Senior intelligence officials concede that their knowledge of him is sketchy. "We can't say for sure what was going on" with him from 1991 to 1996 -- most of the years covered in the indictment -- one senior official said.... Present and former American officials and former business associates of bin Laden say he appears to control only a fraction of the $250 million fortune that the American Government says he possesses. "Clearly, his money's running out," said Frank Anderson, a former senior Central Intelligence Agency official who maintains close Middle Eastern contacts..... Milton Bearden, a retired senior C.I.A. official who ran the agency's war in Afghanistan and retired in 1995, said the Government had "created a North Star" in bin Laden. "He is public enemy No. 1," Bearden said. "We've got a $5 million reward out for his head. And now we have, with I'm not sure what evidence, linked him to all of the terrorist acts of this year -- of this decade, perhaps." Political leaders in Sudan and Pakistan who have met bin Laden describe him as intelligent, soft-spoken, polite. They also say he is deadly serious about his violent brand of radical politics and capable of killing in God's name...."
The Nando Times - AP 4/17/99 Amir Shah "...The Taliban religious militia on Saturday warned President Clinton that criticizing Afghanistan's human rights record damages the countries' relations. "This criticism will only be bad for relations between Afghanistan and the United States," said a Foreign Ministry statement. Clinton has been a strong critic of the Taliban's treatment of women and last month said the United States wouldn't recognize the Taliban while the repression against women continued. "Any criticism regarding Afghanistan's Muslims and women's rights should come from a Muslim," the statement said. "This Clinton is not a Muslim and does not know anything about Islam and Muslims."..."
Washington Post 4/30/99 Francis Deng Freeper Stand Watch Listen "...The scenes of hundreds of thousands refugees fleeing Kosovo recall tragedies the world over. One is the Sudan, where a brutal conflict between the Arab-Muslim north and the more indigenous African-Christian south has raged intermittently for four decades. Of course, all necessary measures need to be taken to restore security and dignity for the people of Kosovo. But the universality of human dignity should not permit a glaring disparity in the way the international community responds to human tragedy in different parts of the world. The Sudan is clearly a case in point. Government troops and paramilitary forces, operating jointly with Arab tribal militias, have devastated southern tribes, razed their villages, looted their cattle, destroyed their crops, killed at random, and even enslaved children and women. War-generated famine in which the government has impeded and sometimes blocked access to international humanitarian agencies accounts for at least a half-million of the lives lost in the conflict..."
BBC 5/3/99 "...A new epidemic of the deadly Ebola virus has appeared in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and is threatening to enter Sudan. World Health Organisation figures say 50 people have died in the latest outbreak of the disease, which is fatal in up to 90% of cases...."
The Independent(U.K.) 5/4/99 Andrew Marshall "...In an admission that last year's missile attack on a factory in Sudan was a mistake, the US has cleared the man who owned the plant of any links to terrorism. The embarrassing reversal means that the US has virtually no evidence to support its claim that the missile attack was a strike against terrorism. Most of those who have investigated the case have concluded that the US acted on faulty intelligence and that key procedures were overriden by officials in the White House. The affair is already the subject of congressional inquiries and may result in the departure of some senior White House officials. America launched cruise missiles against targets in Afghanistan and Sudan in August last year after bomb attacks on its embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. It blamed the bombings on Osama bin Laden, the former Saudi who it accuses of backing many attacks on US targets. It said that the pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum was linked to Mr bin Laden and was used to produce chemical weapons. The US was forced to admit within hours that the plant was not a Sudanese government facility, but a private factory belonging to Salah Idris, a Saudi businessman. But it then said that Mr Idris was himself linked to terrorism and to Mr bin Laden. It froze all of his bank accounts, including money held at Bank of America in London. Yesterday, with no public announcement or fanfare, it unfroze the accounts, admitting that no evidence existed to accuse Mr Idris....."
The Independent 5/5/99 Andrew Marshall "...In an admission that last year's missile attack on a factory in Sudan was a mistake, the US has cleared the man who owned the plant of any links to terrorism. The embarrassing reversal means that the US has virtually no evidence to support its claim that the missile attack was a strike against terrorism. Most of those who have investigated the case have concluded that the US acted on faulty intelligence and that key procedures were overriden by officials in the White House. The affair is already the subject of congressional inquiries and may result in the departure of some senior White House officials. .... Spokesmen for Mr Idris said they were "jubilant" but that there could still be a law suit to recover compensation. "I am grateful that the United States has taken the honourable course and has corrected, in part, the serious harm that has been done to my family and our good name," said Mr Idris yesterday from Sudan. "While I understand that the United States must wage a vigorous fight against terrorism, in this case a grave error has been made." Britain never supported the idea that Mr Idris had links to Mr bin Laden, and he was permitted to enter and leave London (where he maintains a flat) freely. The widespread view outside the US was that the White House had insufficient evidence for the attack...."
Iran-daily.com 5/1/99 "...Fugitive Saudi Islamist Osama bin Laden is seek-ing asylum in Somalia because of a falling-out with his present hosts, Afghanistan's Taliban Militia, the Arab daily Al-Sharq al-Awsat said Saturday. Citing London-based "informed sources," it said bin Laden was aiming to establish a base in Somalia "which would be used a starting point for his activities." The newspaper said bin Laden had disappeared from his base in Afghanistan in February and had visited Somalia, Yemen and Sudan following "serious disagreements with the Taliban." ...."
The Washington Times 5/4/99 Jerry Seper "...Some members of the Kosovo Liberation Army, which has financed its war effort through the sale of heroin, were trained in terrorist camps run by international fugitive Osama bin Laden -- who is wanted in the 1998 bombing of two U.S. embassies in Africa that killed 224 persons, including 12 Americans. The KLA members, embraced by the Clinton administration in NATO's 41-day bombing campaign to bring Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to the bargaining table, were trained in secret camps in Afghanistan, Bosnia-Herzegovina and elsewhere, according to newly obtained intelligence reports. The reports also show that the KLA has enlisted Islamic terrorists -- members of the Mujahideen --as soldiers in its ongoing conflict against Serbia, and that many already have been smuggled into Kosovo to join the fight.....Jane's International Defense Review, a highly respected British Journal, reported in February that documents found last year on the body of a KLA member showed that he had escorted several volunteers into Kosovo, including more than a dozen Saudi Arabians. Each volunteer carried a passport identifying him as a Macedonian Albanian.....Last year, while State Department officials labeled the KLA a terrorist organization, saying it bankrolled its operations with proceeds from the heroin trade and from loans from known terrorists like bin Laden, the department listed the group as an "insurgency" organization in its official reports. The officials charged that the KLA used terrorist tactics to assault Serbian and ethnic Albanian civilians in a campaign to achieve independence....."
Boston Globe 5/13/99 John Ellis "...On the night of Aug. 20, 1998, Saleh Idris went to bed as a member in good standing of the international business community. He had friends on every continent and held ownership stakes in business enterprises in the Middle East, Europe, and Africa. One of those enterprises was the al-Shifa pharmaceutical packaging plant in the Sudan. On the morning of Aug. 21, al-Shifa was demolished by American cruise missiles. Later that day, President Clinton justified the attack by saying that al-Shifa was, in fact, a chemical weapons factory linked to Osama bin Laden, the Saudi exile who allegedly masterminded the bombing of Americas embassies in Kenya and Tanzania earlier that month. And so it was that on the night of Aug. 21, Saleh Idris, member in good standing of the international business community, went to bed branded as an international terrorist. The campaign to defame his good name continues to this day, orchestrated from the offices of President Clinton's National Security Council. It is a despicable campaign, made more so by the fact that everyone involved in it knows that the charges against Idris are false....."
Zenit News Service 5/26/99 "...As if the 30-year civil war and the oppression of constant hunger was not enough, the indifference of the international community could condemn to death 2.3 million Sudanese in the southern part of the country, who are about to be stricken by another tragedy: famine. The latter is the bitter fruit of the conflict itself, which takes food from the people to give it to the soldiers and guerrillas; and the virtual cyclical draught which impedes cultivation of the land. Concern for the conflict in Yugoslavia, is relegating this drama, being played out in silence, to the realm of the forgotten....."
5/29/99 RAHUL BEDI in New Delhi "...India is battling well-armed Pakistan-backed Islamic militants who have taken control of Kashmir's civil war for an independent homeland because local recruits can no longer be attracted. Military and intelligence officials say the militants entrenched in the Kargil-Dras region were mostly Afghans and Pakistanis. Some of the militants are believed to be associated with Osama bin Laden, the Saudi millionaire who is allegedly one of the key financiers of global Islamic terrorism and blamed by the United States as being behind last year's bombing of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania...."
Reuters 6/7/99 "... The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation will announce Monday it is adding Islamic militant Osama bin Laden and abortion foe James Kopp to its list of 10 most wanted fugitives, an official said. Saudi-born bin Laden has been indicted in the United States for allegedly masterminding the August 1998 bombing of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed more than 200 people..... After the African embassy bombings the United States launched cruise missile attacks against camps used by bin Laden's group in eastern Afghanistan. The United States also bombed a chemical factory in Sudan, saying it supplied bin Laden with ingredients for nerve gas. It has also offered a $5 million reward for bin Laden's capture....."
sudan.net 6/7/99 Kieran Murray Reuters "...Three U.S. Congressmen· visiting war zones in southern Sudan said on Sunday they would· push for financial assistance to rebels fighting the Islamic· government in Khartoum.· The three -- two Republicans and a Democrat -- said the· United States needed to help the rebel Sudan People's Liberation· Army (SPLA) and demanded an end to government bombing raids· against civilians in the south.· "Khartoum has to be made to stop bombing civilian* targets," Republican senator and delegation leader Sam* Brownback said at the end of a two-day visit to SPLA-controlled* territory..... The Congressmen said Sudan's government was guilty of· state-sponsored terrorism abroad and human rights atrocities· against its black population in the south, which is mainly· Christian or animist.· "I can see no reason to be timid with the Sudanese· government. It is a terrorist regime and this is the worst· humanitarian situation in the world," Brownback said.* ...."
Associated Press 6/10/99 Faiza Saleh Ambah "...Millions of Arabs were able to watch Osama bin Laden for the first time on Thursday as he called for a holy war against his No. 1 enemy - the United States. In a 90-minute program aired by the Qatar-based al-Jazeera satellite channel, bin Laden expressed his admiration for the people who bombed American forces in Saudi Arabia in 1995 and 1996 and said that all Americans are targets. "They violate our land and occupy it and steal the Muslims' possessions, and when faced by resistance they call it terrorism,'' bin Laden said in an interview the Arab world's most popular television channel, watched by millions in the Middle East, North Africa and Europe..... "They have never seen bin Laden speak in Arabic before. This is the first time an Arabic station has given him a platform,'' said Atwan, who was one of the commentators on the program. Washington accuses bin Laden, a Saudi millionaire stripped of his citizenship by Riyadh, of masterminding the deadly Aug. 7, 1998, bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed 224 people and injured thousands....."
ERRI 6/7/99 Steve Macko "...The Sunday Times has reported that terrorist Osama bin Laden, may be preparing to launch an attack. The newspaper said that bin Laden has rebuilt his "terrorist universities" and is constructing a bomb-proof headquarters in a cave beyond the reach of spy satellites in the Pamir mountains in the northern part of Afghanistan. If true, it would seem that the recent rumors of bin Laden being sent to another country may be inaccurate....The new camps are part of a sophisticated network established by bin Laden in northern and eastern Afghanistan. Two other al Qaida training camps have opened in recent weeks. The Tora Bora base, near the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad, has been rebuilt on the site of a camp first constructed by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency in the early 1980s. The second is understood to have been built from scratch at Galrez, a town 30 miles west of Kabul. However, Bin Laden's most startling new asset is reportedly a command and control center for al Qaida. It is said to be still under construction in a natural cave system in Kunduz province, near the border with Tajikistan. One U.S. diplomat told the Sunday Times, "The cave facilities are impervious to missile attacks and satellite observation." ..."
6/16/99 AP John Diamond "...A U.S. official who spoke today on condition of anonymity said bin Laden, who the United States blames as ordering last year's bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, is clearly planning another attack. Last week, he was placed on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted List of fugitives. Because of the difficulty of launching an operation at targets in the United States, bin Laden is expected to focus on targets in poorer countries where security is weaker, intelligence officials have concluded....CIA Director George Tenet said in February ``there is not the slightest doubt'' that bid Laden, ``his worldwide allies, and his sympathizers are planning further attacks against'' the United States ``at any time.'' ``We are anticipating bombing attempts ... but his operatives are also capable of kidnappings and assassinations,'' Tenet said.,,,:
AP 6/16/1999 "...Ayman Al-Zawahiri was charged with conspiracy in the bombings of embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, as was a second alleged terrorist, Khaled Al-Fawwaz. The indictments raises to 15 the number of people charged in the Aug. 7 bombings that killed 213 people. The indictment, which supersedes a previous indictment, claims that three days before the embassy bombings, Al-Zawahiri threatened to retaliate against America for its capture of members of his group, Al-Jihad. It also alleges that Osama bin Laden, accused of orchestrating the embassy bombings, issued a May 1998, statement titled, ``The Nuclear Bomb of Islam.'' The statement said ``it is the duty of the Muslims to prepare as much force as possible to terrorize the enemies of God,'' according to the indictment. Al-Zawahiri, believed to be with bin Laden in Afghanistan, allegedly leads Al-Jihad, an outlawed group that had claimed responsibility for the 1981 assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. It has been waging a bloody campaign since 1992 to topple Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's government and install strict Islamic rule...."
USA Today/AP 11/29/98 "…The man accused of orchestrating the U.S. Embassy bombings in Africa operates a terrorist network out of Albania that has infiltrated other parts of Europe, The Sunday Times reported. The newspaper quoted Fatos Klosi, the head of the Albanian intelligence service, as saying a network run by Saudi exile Osama Bin Laden sent units to fight in the Serbian province of Kosovo. Bin Laden is believed to have established an Albanian operation in 1994 after telling the government he headed a wealthy Saudi humanitarian agency wanting to help Albania, the newspaper reported. Klosi said he believed terrorists had already infiltrated other parts of Europe from bases in Albania. Interpol believes more than 100,000 blank Albanian passports were stolen in riots last year, providing ample opportunity for terrorists to acquire false papers, the newspaper said…."
World Tribune.com 6/25/99 "...FBI director Louis Freeh that the United States has recruited numerous countries to locate and capture Bin Laden, regarded as the leading financier of Islamic terrorists around the world. He said Bin Laden has been placed on the Top 10 list of fugitives and continues to pose a threat. "The efforts to apprehend him are continuing and are extensive, not just by our government, but many other governments," Freeh said on Wednesday. "There is an international initiative to find him, arrest him, bring him to justice." ..."
London-Associated Press AP 7/12/99 "…Police arrested two men yesterday accused of conspiring with Osama bin Laden in last summer's deadly bombings of two U.S. Embassies in Africa, authorities said. The men were arrested in London on warrants after a request from the United States. They are charged with conspiring with bin Laden and his network to kill Americans on or before August 8, 1998, police said...."
AP 7/16/99 "…The State Department said Friday it has received a growing body of information strongly suggesting that extremists based in Afghanistan are preparing to attack U.S. interests in Pakistan in the near future. In a travel warning, the department noted that reputed international terrorist Osama bin Laden, who is on the FBI's 10 most wanted list, lives in Afghanistan and has supporters in Pakistan. Bin Laden is wanted for bombings of American embassies last August in Kenya and Tanzania…."
London Telegraph 7/17/99 Ben Fenton "....The United States defence secretary had to cancel a trip to Albania earlier this week because of fears that supporters of Osama bin Laden, the Saudi millionaire terrorist, would try to kill him. William Cohen was due to stop in Albania for only five hours to visit American troops still stationed there and meet local politicians as he inspected the remaining refugee camps close to the border with Kosovo.... Albania is known to have attracted a number of extremist Islamic fighters to the cause of Kosovo's liberation and therefore could already be unwittingly playing host to bin Laden sympathisers...."
The Hindustan Times 7/19/99 "...A top leader of Pakistan's leading religious party Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) has accused Premier Nawaz Sharif of taking Rupees one billion from Saudi dissident Osama Bin Laden for election fund by promising to enforce Islamic laws in the country while assuring President Clinton of his government's help in arresting Osama. ..."
AP 7/23/99 Michael Sniffen "…The FBI halted the popular public tours of its headquarters building Friday for an indefinite period in response to an unconfirmed, nonspecific threat against bureau facilities in this city, a spokesman said. NBC News reported that the threat concerned possible terrorist attacks by followers of Osama bin Laden, the wealthy Islamic radical who is charged in this country with masterminding last August's bombings of U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224 people, including 12 Americans. Law enforcement officials, requesting anonymity, would say only that ``recent events suggest it's fairly evident Bin Laden's followers would be the prime suspects.''…"
The Washington Post 7/25/99 Vernon Loeb "…Because of a cupful of soil, the U.S. flattened this Sudanese factory. Now oneof the world's most respected labs, and some of Washington's most expensive lawyers,say Salah Idris wasn't making nerve gas for terrorists, just ibuprofen for headaches….. "Never before," former CIA official Milt Bearden would say months later, "has a single soil sample prompted an act of war against a sovereign state." …."He went to bed a major businessman--a millionaire hundreds of times over--and woke up a major terrorist," said his attorney, George R. Salem, a partner at the powerhouse Washington law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld. "He figured all the administration needed to be told was--'This is Salah Idris, a prominent Saudi businessman who owns the plant. You've made a serious mistake. Let's deal with this quietly.' But it became immediately clear that wasn't going to happen." ….Over at the White House, Clinton's national security adviser, Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger, was referring to the "so-called pharmaceutical factory in Khartoum, which we know with great certainty produces essentially the penultimate chemical to manufacture VX nerve gas." U.S. officials did not know at the time--by their own subsequent admissions--who owned the plant. They literally did not know whom they were dealing with….. "
MSNBC 7/29/99 Michael Moran "...The United States passed up an opportunity to apprehend two of the men thought to be directly involved in the bombings of its embassy in Kenya last year because of a dispute between the FBI and the State Department, senior law enforcement officials and diplomatic sources said Thursday. The twin bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, killed over 250 people, including 12 Americans. Terrorist listing has varied effects THE DAY after the Aug. 7, 1998, attacks, two of the suspected bombers were arrested in Sudan, which then offered to turn them over to the FBI, according to accounts from two senior U.S. law enforcement officials and diplomatic sources. Those accounts were also confirmed by documents obtained by MSNBC. The law enforcement officials said that evidence suggested that the men held in Sudan were directly linked to the Nairobi bombing and that they had intimate knowledge of the operations of the alleged guerrilla chief Osama bin Laden. Nonetheless, these officials said, the State Department refused to allow an FBI team to travel to the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, to discuss apprehending the suspects. One senior law enforcement official said the State Department, in blocking the FBI from pursuing the lead, noted that Sudan has been listed for over a decade as a state sponsor of terrorism. Yet Sudan, the official said, had asked only for a "dialogue" with the United States toward restoring a more normal diplomatic relationship...."
CNSNews.com 7/30/99 Patrick Goodenough "...Reports out of Pakistan Friday say the Saudi-born Islamist terror suspect, Osama bin Laden, plans to leave his hideout in Afghanistan for an as-yet undisclosed Muslim country, because he fears an imminent American military strike against him. The Afghan Islamic Press, based in northwestern Pakistan, cited sources close to Bin Laden as confirming the decision was taken "because of expected attacks from the United States."....According to various reports disseminated by the Pakistan News Service, monitored by CNSNews.com Friday, anti-Western and pro-Bin Laden sentiment is on the rise in Pakistan. Last week two Islamic groups held a large demonstration in Karachi in support of the Taliban and Bin Laden, and warned that "the religious forces of Pakistan" would respond if the U.S. bombed Afghanistan...."
The Pioneer 8/4/99 Agencies "...The United States on Tuesday protested to a Pakistani Islamic leader's threats to a "war against Americans" if Washington launched another attack on the suspected Afghan hideouts of Osama Bin Laden. The protest was made in a 90-minute meeting between a US embassy officer and Maulana Fazlur Rehman, leader of the Jamiat Ulema-I-Islam party, which has staged a series of anti-American rallies amid speculation of a fresh US strike against Bin Laden...."
AFP 8/5/99 "...Afghan opposition commander Ahmad Shah Masood played down the sweeping gains made by the Taliban in recent days blaming outside intervention alongside the Islamic militia in comments published here Tuesday. The Taliban's capture of the strategic Bagram airbase after heavy fighting Sunday and Monday "does not constitute a major loss ... since we stopped using it a long time ago," Masood insisted in an overnight satellite telephone interview with a Beirut Arabic daily. The airbase "could easily be targetted with heavy weapons by the Taliban" so the opposition had long relied on the "safer" option of reinforcing its positions by land, the opposition commander told Al-Mustaqbal....Masood blamed intervention by Pakistani and Arab forces for the new advances by the Taliban which already controlled more than 80 percent of the country before its latest gains. "A large number of Pakistani regular forces and hundreds of Arab elements are fighting with the Taliban," he said. On Friday, Taliban chief Mulla Mohammad Omar denied that Pakistani soldiers were involved in the militia's offensive and Islamabad also denied the charges. Masood said the irregular forces fighting alongside the Taliban included supporters of Afghanistan-based Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden, who is on Washington's most wanted list for his suspected role in two deadly bomb attacks on US embassies in east Africa last year...."
Far Eastern Economic Review 8/5/99 Ahmed Rashid in Kabul and Faizabad "...As the Taliban launch a new offensive against opposition forces, the threat which this Islamic regime poses to regional stability has gone unnoticed. Terrorists fighting the governments of virtually every Central Asian power find shelter with the Taliban. An equally dangerous by-product is the criminal economy supported by the Taliban, which spreads weapons and drugs throughout the region....."
New York Post 8/5/99 Niles Lathem "... Eight months after landing on the FBI's Most Wanted list, terror kingpin Osama bin Laden has become one of the most popular figures in the Middle East - with thousands of fanatics now ready to do his bidding. And U.S. officials fear that the millionaire Saudi expatriate - bunkered down with his four wives and 15 children in a remote mountain region in Afghanistan - is set to activate his followers for a series of new attacks on U.S. interests - including financial centers in New York. "He's bigger than life because of all the focus on him. He's got followers he doesn't even know about ready to die for him," said terrorism expert Harvey Kushner of Long Island University. ...Law-enforcement agencies are said to be particularly concerned about some kind of attack on New York and have recommended stepped-up security at the New York Stock Exchange and the Federal Reserve Bank. "I believe he is operating under the assumption that if the United States is going to go after his money, then he's going to go after America's money," said Kenneth Katzman, a former CIA analyst now at the Congressional Research Service. More chilling still is the possibility that bin Laden has acquired chemical weapons. Experts say there is evidence that there have been meetings between al-Qaeda operatives and Iraqi chemical scientists, and that bin Laden has constructed crude laboratories for chemical-weapons development in Afghanistan...."
International Herald Tribune 8/7/99 Rupert Colville "...A year ago this weekend, between 5,000 and 8,000 people were killed over three or four days because of their ethnic identity. Most of them were men. Some were shot on the streets. Many were executed in their own homes, after areas of the town known to be inhabited by their ethnic group had been systematically sealed off and searched. Some were boiled or asphyxiated to death after being left crammed inside sealed metal containers under a hot August sun. In at least one hospital, as many as 30 patients were shot as they lay helplessly in their beds. The bodies of many of the victims were left on the streets or in their houses as a stark warning to the city's remaining inhabitants. Horrified witnesses saw dogs tearing at the corpses, but were instructed over loudspeakers and by radio announcements not to remove or bury them..... It happened in Afghanistan, which is in many ways the Kosovo of the 1980s but is no longer considered important. For a while, it looked as though the massacre committed by the Taleban in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif might slip through the floorboards of history altogether..."
U.S. News & World Report 8/16/99 Kevin Whitelaw Warren Strobel "... On August 20 last year, 13 American cruise missiles slammed into a dusty pharmaceutical plant in Sudan. The strike, the White House said, was in retaliation for the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania two weeks earlier. But many of the U.S. intelligence analysts who keep tabs on African affairs were kept out of the loop, and they were skeptical that the plant, known as El Shifa, was a chemical weapons facility connected to the alleged terrorist Osama bin Laden.... It's still down today. The administration's evidence against El Shifa remains secret-even to most American officials. What is known isn't encouraging. In the strike's immediate aftermath, an informal review conducted by the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research failed to turn up a single piece of evidence linking El Shifa to chemical weapons or bin Laden. The bureau was discouraged from even reporting its findings. Says one U.S. intelligence official, "To this day, I don't know" why they chose El Shifa. ..... The decision to bomb El Shifa was made by fewer than a dozen top U.S. officials. This meant that experts on both Sudan and chemical weapons were not consulted about the government's evidence. Over the past year, White House officials, including National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, have backed away from their charge that El Shifa was actually producing chemicals for weapons as opposed to being a storage or transshipment point. But Clinton advisers insist they have seen no new evidence to undercut their conclusion that the plant was linked to bin Laden and the Iraqi chemical weapons program. Another factor, says one official, "tipped the scales": It could be struck with little risk of civilian casualties...."
NATIONAL PRESS CLUB 8/6/99 "...PRESS CONFERENCE NATIONAL PRESS CLUB MORNING NEWSMAKER WITH YOSSEF BODANSKY, AUTHOR; SUBJECT: INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM NATIONAL PRESS CLUB WASHINGTON, D.C. 10:00 A.M. EDT FRIDAY, AUGUST 6, 1999 "...MR. BODANSKY:... Essentially, if one is to sum up the situation today as far as international terrorism, Islamic terrorism is concerned, we're sitting on a volcano. We feel the earth rumbling, with perhaps the smoke coming from a variety of cracks. Everybody knows that eruption is essentially inevitable, probably imminent, but nobody knows where it's going to erupt, how soon, and exactly where.... The first key event took place in the first days of December last year, in that when bin Laden received the fatwah, a religious decree from the high court of Afghanistan, the leading Ulama -- religious court -- permitting, among other things, the use of weapons of mass destruction against innocents -- against American civilians. Terrorists in the past have had weapons of mass destruction -- never in the quantity and quality of bin Laden's -- and we'll go into that in a few minutes. The important thing is never have they had any authorization to use them. And this is the first time, considering the fact that bin Laden is the guest of the Taliban, he is seeking permission, justification or legitimization to use these weapons from the same group of learned individuals that also guide the Taliban is of extreme importance. Then, on July 15, Sheik Omar Bakri Muhammad, an individual that sits in London and defines himself as the "eyes and ear" of bin Laden, issued an open letter to bin Laden that was read in the mosque the next day, Friday the 16th, in which he urged him to come and strike out now. The letter itself is of extreme importance because of bin Laden's agreement with the Taliban. In accordance with that agreement, bin Laden is not to initiate anything, but as an emir, he is obliged by Islamic law to answer the demand of his disciples to lead them in a jihad if they so wish. So there is this greater justification for him to do something without violating his agreement with the Taliban....."
NATIONAL PRESS CLUB 8/6/99 "... Bin Laden does have chemical, biological -- a diverse collection of chemical, biological weapons, as well as nuclear weapons. This is a few of the ex-Soviet suitcase bombs acquired through the Chechens. Far more important than the possession of items of one kind or another, including production capacity, is the fact that his organization has been able to recruit a large number of experts, including experts in weaponization and experts in delivery. Most of them are what we call "lily white," i.e., they have never been in any trouble with security services in any country, so we don't have anything about their faces, fingerprints and the like. And they can operate wherever they want to...."
Associated Press 8/8/99 William Mann "...Sen. Orrin Hatch predicted Sunday the United States eventually will make an example of Osama bin Laden but refused to say whether that might include killing the accused terrorist leader. Hatch, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the CIA and FBI know where bin Laden is, generally know what he is doing and are aware that top Arabs are funneling money to him, Hatch said. ``Ultimately, we're going to get him,'' predicted Hatch, a Utah Republican seeking the GOP presidential nomination. ``And ultimately, we're going to make an example of a person who literally is causing death all over the world, or at least trying to cause death all over the world.'' ..."
NATIONAL PRESS CLUB 8/6/99 "...We have high hopes that they will indeed be able to deliver bin Laden or any of his assistants. But beyond what we know or don't know about the inner dynamics of the Pakistani government, there is a very, very simple objective logic to it. Bin Laden is the hottest commodity. The moment they hand him over to the United States, alive or dead, they're not going to have it any more. They will not be able to dangle it and to trade it for support, understanding or anything else from the West. So it does not serve their national purpose to hand him over. Furthermore, as Pakistan is getting more and more into a variety of rogue-state behavior in the nuclear field and vis-a-vis India, they need greater and greater, quote "understanding," unquote, from the United States. Therefore, they need to heighten and to increase the value of the bin Laden commodity. And the only way to increase the value of the bin Laden commodity is to make the United States want him even more. And why should we want him even more? After he strikes again...."
BBC 8/8/99 "...India's Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, has called on the United States to declare Pakistan a terrorist state. He was speaking at a rally in the northern state of Punjab - bordering Pakistan - at the start of his campaign for September's general election. Delhi accuses Islamabad of supporting insurgents in Indian-administered Kashmir. Addressing large crowds, Mr. Vajpayee accused Pakistan of renewed cross-border attacks in Kashmir, and said it was trying to open up new fronts with India. "Peace with Pakistan is not possible until Pakistan withdraws the terrorists. I assure the countrymen that the neighbours will not be allowed to succeed in their attempts," Mr. Vajpayee told supporters in the industrial town of Ludhiana. Pakistan has denied involvement in the 10-week military conflict in the Kargil sector of Kashmir...."
WORLD TRIBUNE.COM 8/9/99 "...Saudi fugitive Osama Bin Laden is believed to have up to 20 nuclear bombs and is seeking to launch a massive terrorist strike against the United States, a congressional investigator and author says. Yosef Bodansky, a researcher of the House Task Force for Counterterrorism and author of a new book on Bin Laden, told a news conference on Friday that Bin Laden has been seeking to follow up on his bombings of two U.S. embassies in east Africa one year ago. Echoing U.S. officials, Bodansky said Bin Laden was thwarted in plans to blow up the U.S. embassy and two consulates in India in last December and January. Bin Laden has biological, chemical and nuclear weapons, Bodansky said. The nuclear weapons include suitcase bombs acquired through Chechniyan rebels and received technical help from Iraq..... Bodansky said Bin Laden remains in Afghanistan. He said the Saudi is located in Islam Darva, about 80 kilometers northwest of Kandahar. When he wants to communicate with the outside world, he travels to Jalalabad...."
U.S. News & World Report 8/16/99 Kevin Whitelaw and Warren P. Strobel "... Unlike the mistaken bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade in May, the El Shifa bombing stems from more than an intelligence failure. A staunch anti-Sudan policy left some senior State Department and National Security Council aides inclined to believe the worst about the Islamic government in Khartoum, government officials say. There's plenty of bad news, to be sure. Sudan has been accused of repeated human-rights violations in its long-running civil war. It has been blamed for sparking a deadly famine by cutting off aid flights. It allegedly harbors terrorists..... In Washington, House and Senate intelligence committees are continuing to investigate the decisions leading to the attack. The strike represents "a real lowering of the threshold for military action against countries with whom we have a disagreement," says one congressional aide with access to intelligence reports. But if anything, Congress is even more anti-Sudan than the administration. Both houses have overwhelmingly condemned Sudan within the past two months and called for U.S. support to the rebels. For now, any comprehensive scrutiny of the missile strike remains unlikely. ..."
Time 8/16/99 Sally B. Donnelly and Adam Zagorin "....Saudi multimillionaire Salah Idris is preparing to sue the U.S. government in an effort to win back his good name--plus the $30 million or so he lost when the U.S. bombed his pharmaceutical factory last year. According to U.S. officials, Idris' plant in Khartoum stored chemical weapons material and had links to Osama Bin Laden, the alleged mastermind of attacks on two American embassies in Africa one year ago...."
Hot Daily News - ISLAMABAD, Pakistan 8/9/99 AP "...One year after terrorist bombs ravaged its embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and killed 224 people, the United States is no closer to arresting the man it believes masterminded the attacks. Washington has put suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden on its 10 Most Wanted List, offered a $5 million reward for his arrest and tried to make international pariahs of his hosts, Afghanistan's Taliban rulers. The efforts have largely failed. Because of fresh but unspecified terrorist threats, the United States is closing embassies and halting its popular public tours of FBI headquarters in Washington......The Taliban, who control 90 percent of the country and preach probably the harshest brand of Islam operating in the world today, seem unlikely to give up a man extolled as a hero by radical Islamic groups. In July, however, the Taliban did end their pretense of not knowing where bin Laden was, acknowledging he still lived in Afghanistan and still was a guest to be protected. They also denied reports he was planning to seek sanctuary in another Islamic country....``Bin laden is training his own people for terrorist activities around the world,'' said an Afghan who once trained with bin Laden at Tora Bora, also in eastern Afghanistan. ``They include Sudanese, Algerians, Tajiks, Iranians and Egyptians,'' he said. ``Osama has dozens of camps. They train on anti-aircraft guns, explosives, chemical and biological weapons.'' The same Afghan warrior, who didn't want to be identified because he feared for his life, said he had been trained to use chemical and biological weapons. The training was conducted by a North Korean.
UPI 8/10/99 "...The Clinton administration warns Americans (Tuesday) that they should avoid travel in the tribal areas of northwest Pakistan along the frontier with Afghanistan, where indicted bomber Osama Bin Laden has found safe haven. The State Department says there is a "growing body of information" suggesting Bin Laden, who has been indicted for masterminding the bombing last year of American embassies in east Africa, is planning an attack against U.S. interests in the Northwest Frontier Provinces of Pakistan. .."
SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM 8/11/99 "...U.S. military planes carrying commandos have landed in Pakistan in what appears to be the start of an offensive against Saudi fugitive bomber Osama Bin Laden, Arab reports said. The reports said the U.S. warplanes landed in Islamabad on Monday. The United States has denied the report.
Bin Laden is believed to be hiding in Afghanistan and the ruling Taliban faction have called on Muslims to stop the incursion by Washington. Al-Jazeerah television, monitored by the BBC in Jordan, said the two planes landed at two airports around Islamabad. It said dozens of U.S. military commandos took up combat positions near the planes and barred anyone from approaching the area. Al-Jazeerah reported that the operation was in apparent preparation for a military strike against Bin Laden. Bin Laden has been accused by the United States of having responsibility for the bombing of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania a year ago that killed at least 226 people, including 12 Americans. Earlier, the Afghani opposition on Monday accused the ruling Taliban of massacring hundreds of villagers in territory north of Kabul captured and occupied for three days last week...."
http://www.timesofindia.com/120899/12worl6.htm PTI 8/12/99 "...DUBAI: The privately-owned Qatari television Al Jazeera has stood by its report that US military planes had landed in Pakistan with commandos to strike at terrorist mastermind and Saudi dissident Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan. The television's correspondent in Islamabad in a late night telecast on Tuesday said his information came both from well-informed Pakistani sources and the Pakistan-backed Taliban, which is fighting to extend its control over the remaining 10 per cent of territory in Afghanistan. The correspondent said the US embassy in Islamabad had been secretly evacuating its diplomatic staff fearing retaliation from the Taliban backers. Already about 75 Americans had left Pakistan....."
WorldNet Daily 8/12/99 J R Nyquist "... According to Yosef Bodansky, a researcher attached to the House counter-terrorism task force, a Middle East terrorist is now believed to have as many as 20 suitcase nuclear bombs. In addition, this same terrorist is alleged to possess biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction. Supposedly, Chechnyan rebels managed to steal nuclear suitcase bombs from the Russian military. These bombs were then smuggled out of Russia and sold to Osama bin Laden, an international fugitive and terrorist hiding in Afghanistan..... More recently, Clinton Administration officials have accused Osama bin Laden of plotting bomb attacks against the United States Embassy and two consulates in India. The U.S. government has offered five million dollars to anyone who provides information leading to bin Laden's arrest or conviction. In Afghanistan bin Laden is considered a war hero for risking his life in the struggle against Moscow's client armies. Therefore, it is not surprising that many Afghans were dismayed at the idea that bin Laden was a threat to America....Bodansky's sources, however, are suspect. One must always treat the claims of Russian officials with near-total skepticism. Can we really believe that the anti-Soviet bin Laden would work closely with former Soviet commandos who were his deadly enemies in the past? And what sort of Russian special forces soldier would assist an anti-Russian terrorist? It is doubtful that any such person has ever existed in the ranks of Soviet or Russian special forces. In the last analysis, it is more likely that Bodansky has been fed false information. The same goes for the Saudis, who have probably been duped by Russian intelligence agents.... The most alarming thing about the bin Laden story is the way it helps the nuclear war strategy of the Kremlin. According to the highest ranking defector from the Russian General Staff, Colonel Stanislav Lunev, a surprise Russian nuclear strike would begin with the deployment of 7,000 Spetsnaz commandos to the United States.....The United States early warning network consists of three DSP launch detection satellites and six radars. The satellites are presently in geosynchronous orbit over the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans. These satellites are able to detect Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) and Submarine Launch Ballistic Missiles (SLBMs) once their engines are ignited during a launch sequence. Each of the three DSP satellites has a ground station with uplinks. If these ground stations are destroyed by suitcase nukes, and if the early warning radars are damaged, the United States would be blinded....Now that we've been told that any Spetsnaz commandos caught on American soil are probably working for bin Laden, we will be looking the wrong way...."
FoxNews Reuters 8/15/99 "...Afghanistan's ruling Islamic Taliban movement is holding talks with the United States about Saudi-born terrorism suspect Osama bin Laden, an independent Afghan news agency with good Taliban contacts said Sunday. Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) quoted informed sources as saying New York was the venue for the first talks since Washington ordered a cruise missile strike on bin Laden's suspected Afghan hideouts on August 20 last year. The Pakistan-based agency said the Taliban had made it clear to the United States that bin Laden, accused of masterminding U.S. embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam a year ago, remained their "guest'' and they would not ask him to leave...."
CNN 8/18/99 AP Reuters "…Sudan has renewed its call for the U.N. Security Council to investigate U.S. allegations that led to the bombing of a pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum one year ago. The United States bombed the factory on August 20, 1998, claiming the plant produced chemical weapons. It also claimed the plant was linked to Saudi exile Osama bin Laden, the alleged mastermind of the bombing of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania on August 7, 1998. In a recent letter to the Security Council, Sudan's foreign minister said the U.S. allegations were based on "faulty intelligence" and that the factory was an "important source" for human and veterinary medicines. Sudan has accused the United States of avoiding discussion on the issue, despite promises to work toward a bilateral resolution….."