John Hooper in Milan
Saturday October 20, 2001
The Guardian
China paid Osama bin Laden several million dollars for access to unexploded American cruise missiles left over from the US attack on his bases three years ago, a senior alleged al-Qaida agent in Europe has claimed. The alleged agent's account is contained in the transcript of a secretly taped conversation between supporters of Osama bin Laden obtained by the Guardian. His revelation emerged as President Bush yesterday announced that he had won Beijing's support for the war on terrorism. After his first face-to-face meeting with China's President Jiang Zemin in Shanghai, Mr Bush said: "President Jiang and the government stand side by side with the American people as we fight this evil force". The Chinese government has denied it obtained US missiles after the 1998 raid, which was carried out in reprisal for the bombings of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Beijing is said to have made a deal with al-Qaida to acquire the missiles despite the fact that it was facing a growing threat from Muslim separatists in the Xinjiang region. In 1999, China accused Bin Laden's organisation of training members of the independence movement in guerrilla warfare. The US fired 75 missiles into Afghanistan during the attack on Bin Laden's camps on August 20, 1998. A report four months later in the Pakistani newspaper Ausaf, cited Taliban sources as saying that 40 were found unexploded. The story of what happened next was taken up by Lased Ben Heni in a conversation with associates this year. Ben Heni, a 32-year-old Libyan arrested in Munich last week, is accused by Italian prosecutors of being the liaison officer between two terrorist cells owing allegiance to al-Qaida in Frankfurt and Milan. On March 9, in a rundown flat in the Milan suburb of Gallarate, he met the leader of the Italian cell, Sami Ben Khemais Essid (alias "Saber") and told him of his experiences in Afghanistan visiting Osama bin Laden's camps. Unknown to the two men, the flat had been bugged by officers of the Italian anti-terrorist police. "Perhaps the Americans are convinced by the bombardment of the sheikh's [Bin Laden's] training centres," Ben Heni is quoted as saying. "For them, it was a victory. But, in fact, it was a defeat because the majority of the missiles didn't even explode." After a digression, the transcript continues: "With these weapons, he [Bin Laden] has boosted his financial resources. From every part of the world businessmen who hate Americans have come to study American missile strategy. "In particular, businessmen have come from China. He works a great deal with China. He's got good relations with them. "You see them and you ask 'But what are they doing here?' In the end, you understand that they work for the sheikh and that they came to study these missiles. "Thanks to the money that comes from these studies from outside, he created the army of mohajedin headed by Omar Zayan (or Zaghan) in Chechnya". Later, in a passage the meaning of which is not entirely clear, Ben Heni is heard to say: "When [Bin Laden] saw that the Afghan people, who were dying of hunger, passed missiles to sheikh Messaoud, he bargained with the Chinese and sold them to them for an enormous sum - I think $10m dollars - but only after the sheikh had studied them". The transcript is the first supporting evidence from inside al-Qaida of sporadic reports in the months following the 1998 attack that China had acquired two unexploded Tomahawk missiles. In March 1999, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman described the reports as "groundless". President Jiang told a joint press conference after his meeting with Mr Bush yesterday that they had reached a "consensus" on terrorism, although he urged that the anti-terrorist action should "hit accurately and also avoid innocent casualties".
