Bin Ladin's activities exposed in New York
trial
By A Brownfeld
In February, US federal prosecutors opened their long-awaited terrorism case against four of Usama bin Ladin's alleged followers with a personal account by Jamal Ahmad al-Fadl, a Bin Ladin confidante turned FBI informant.
Al-Fadl was the first person called in the trial of four men charged with participating in a terrorism conspiracy led by Bin Ladin, which prosecutors say included the 1998 bombings of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The blasts killed 224 people and wounded thousands. For the last five years, al-Fadl has been under the protection of the US government in an undisclosed location after pleading guilty to a terrorism charge at a secret hearing in federal court in Manhattan.
Al-Fadl's testimony did not deal with the embassy bombings, which occurred two years after he left the group. But prosecutors are expected to use his account of the early years in Bin Ladin's group to show how the terrorism conspiracy evolved.
Turncoat reveals scale of operations
In his testimony, al-Fadl told the jury he had worked closely with Bin Laden in Khartoum, and helped manage his payroll. This gave him access to files on each member of Bin Laden's group, which showed their salaries and aliases. He also described Bin Ladin's global banking network, naming institutions in Sudan, Malaysia, Britain, Hong Kong and Dubai, where Bin Laden and his group kept money.
He also detailed Bin Ladin's agricultural, construction, transportation and investment companies in Sudan, which prosecutors have said are fronts for his terrorist activities.
After American troops went to Somalia in 1993, according to al-Fadl, Bin Ladin said at a meeting of several dozen people: "The snake is America and we have to stop what are they doing. We have to cut the head of the snake."
Al-Fadl described disputes within Bin Ladin's group, al-Qa'ida ('The Base'), about the number of Egyptians among its leaders and the group's pay scale the. He described the roots of Bin Ladin's enmity towards the US for its role in Somalia, and the group's co-operation with other terrorist organisations, like the Iranian backed Hizbullah.
Anti-state, sponsored terrorism
According to al-Fadl, Bin Ladin sent fighters to Chechnya at a cost of about US$1,500 per person, paid through a local relief organisation. Al-Fadl said he carried money on behalf of Bin Ladin to leaders of other jihad groups, including $100,000 to one in Eritrea.
His journey into a position of confidence with Bin Ladin and his group had its roots, al-Fadl noted, in Brooklyn where he worked at the Al Farooq Mosque, helping to raise money and recruit fighters for the American-backed mujahidin in the war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in 1980s.
Under questioning by the prosecutor, Patrick J Fitzgerald, al-Fadl offered a look at a network of guest houses and military training camps used by the Bin Ladin group. He said he was present at a meeting in Peshawar where Sudanese officials visited Bin Ladin and promised to help his group if it moved to Sudan. Al-Fadl was sent to Khartoum on a kind of scouting mission. After Bin Ladin moved his group to Sudan in 1991, al-Fadl testified, its activities were greatly aided by Sudanese intelligence.
Bin Ladin, reported al-Fadl, was surrounded by a group of associates who participated on a ruling council, and ran committees on military, business and other matters. He said Bin Ladin and his associates, citing the US participation in the Persian Gulf War, began to issue fatwas, or religious edicts, to his group, which sanctioned actions against US interests. "We can't let the American Army in our area," al-Fadl quoted Bin Ladin as saying. "We have to do something. We have to fight them."
He cited the religious justification for the killing of civilians of one of Bin Ladin advisers, Mahmud Salim, who offered. "If good person, they go to paradise," he quoted Salim as saying. "If bad person, they go to hell." Salim is in custody in New York and is awaiting a future trial.
While al-Fadl's testimony has given the New York federal jury a basic grasp of Bin Ladin's operations, the fact is that he left the group two years before the embassy bombings. The trial defendants, two of whom face a possible death sentence, can expect to hear more damaging accusations from Ali Mohammed, the Egyptian born, naturalised US citizen who signed on with Bin Ladin shortly after his discharge from the US Army in 1989. Once an instructor in Middle East warfare at Fort Braff, Mohammed shifted his teaching talents to the paramilitary operations of al-Qa'ida. He trained Bin Ladin's personal security guards and later helped set up the cell in Nairobi that eventually carried out the bombing. He has already pleaded guilty to terrorism conspiracy for his role.
The US hopes that the compelling evidence of al-Fadl and Mohammed will convict the four men currently on trial. But the real target is still Bin Ladin, indicated in November 1998 on 238 counts of conspiracy and still out there. Investigators know from the details piling up in New York how his organisation works. What they need know, however, is his next move.
Public enemy number 1
Early in February, CIA Director George J Tenet described Bin Ladin's "global network" as the "most immediate and serious" terrorist threat to the US. Delivering the CIA's annual assessment of worldwide threats, Tenet told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that state-sponsored terrorism appears to be declining, but "transitional" terrorist groups such as Bin Ladin's network are "becoming more operationally adept and more technically sophisticated". Bin Ladin's organisation, Tenet said, "is continuing to place emphasis on developing surrogates to carry out attacks in an effort to avoid detection, blame and retaliation."
Thomas Fingar, acting head of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, emphasised the elusive nature of al-Qa'ida. He told the Senate committee that Bin Laden was like the chief operating officer of a multinational collective that provides "guidance, funding and logistical support" to henchmen who, "like regional directors of affiliates, have broad latitude and sometimes pursue their own agendas."
Bin Ladin and other Muslim extremists, it was reported, are posting encrypted, or scrambled, phonographs and messages on popular websites and using them to plan terrorist activities against the US and its allies. "To a greater and greater degree, terrorist groups, including Hizbullah, Hamas and al-Qa'ida group, are using computerised files, e-mail and encryption to support their operations," said Tenet.
The network is growing
Since its formation in the early 1990s, Bin Ladin's al-Qa'ida group has recruited terrorist calls in countries all through the Middle East and North Africa - and possibly in East Asia, Europe and North America. One US intelligence officials says: "You break up a cell, and another one grows. There is no longer one man. If Usama bin Ladin were to fall off a cliff in Afghanistan, we would all cheer, but his organisation would still be in place. From his perspective, he's got a 100-year program. He's probably eight years into it and you can't expect to get too far in the first 10 years. But he's consolidating Afghanistan. He's fighting a war in Chechnya that has bled the Russians, and now they're making inroads in the Philippines and Indonesia."
US officials report that Bin Ladin has been trying to increase his influence and contacts not only with Lebanon's Hizbullah but with two radical Palestinian groups that operated inside Israel and the occupied territories, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Last year, it is reported, Israeli security forces broke up an al-Qa'ida cell on the Gaza Strip. US officials fear that the election of hardliner Ariel Sharon as prime minister of Israel could heighten the terrorist threat, not only against Israelis, but also against Americans.
Of particular concern is the growing availability of weapons of mass destruction. Al-Fadl alleged that Bin Ladin and his associates once tried to buy uranium from Sudanese black marketeers. US prosecutors also allege that at various times since 1992, Bin Laden and a top associate have tried to purchase components to build a nuclear weapon. While it is not clear that Bin Ladin has the technical expertise or resources to fashion the ultimate terrorist bomb, experts caution that he could fairly easily build a so-called 'dirty bomb', a conventional weapon that would shower lethal radioactive material over a wide area.
The New York trial coincides with evidence that the Middle East's most violent terrorists - al-Qa'ida, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hizbullah - have agreed to pool their resources to fight their common enemies. Israel and the US Bush administration officials call the formation of this terror conglomerate a "disturbing development," at a time when tensions in the Middle East are at boiling point.
By A Brownfeld
In February, US federal prosecutors opened their long-awaited terrorism case against four of Usama bin Ladin's alleged followers with a personal account by Jamal Ahmad al-Fadl, a Bin Ladin confidante turned FBI informant.
Al-Fadl was the first person called in the trial of four men charged with participating in a terrorism conspiracy led by Bin Ladin, which prosecutors say included the 1998 bombings of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The blasts killed 224 people and wounded thousands. For the last five years, al-Fadl has been under the protection of the US government in an undisclosed location after pleading guilty to a terrorism charge at a secret hearing in federal court in Manhattan.
Al-Fadl's testimony did not deal with the embassy bombings, which occurred two years after he left the group. But prosecutors are expected to use his account of the early years in Bin Ladin's group to show how the terrorism conspiracy evolved.
Turncoat reveals scale of operations
In his testimony, al-Fadl told the jury he had worked closely with Bin Laden in Khartoum, and helped manage his payroll. This gave him access to files on each member of Bin Laden's group, which showed their salaries and aliases. He also described Bin Ladin's global banking network, naming institutions in Sudan, Malaysia, Britain, Hong Kong and Dubai, where Bin Laden and his group kept money.
He also detailed Bin Ladin's agricultural, construction, transportation and investment companies in Sudan, which prosecutors have said are fronts for his terrorist activities.
After American troops went to Somalia in 1993, according to al-Fadl, Bin Ladin said at a meeting of several dozen people: "The snake is America and we have to stop what are they doing. We have to cut the head of the snake."
Al-Fadl described disputes within Bin Ladin's group, al-Qa'ida ('The Base'), about the number of Egyptians among its leaders and the group's pay scale the. He described the roots of Bin Ladin's enmity towards the US for its role in Somalia, and the group's co-operation with other terrorist organisations, like the Iranian backed Hizbullah.
Anti-state, sponsored terrorism
According to al-Fadl, Bin Ladin sent fighters to Chechnya at a cost of about US$1,500 per person, paid through a local relief organisation. Al-Fadl said he carried money on behalf of Bin Ladin to leaders of other jihad groups, including $100,000 to one in Eritrea.
His journey into a position of confidence with Bin Ladin and his group had its roots, al-Fadl noted, in Brooklyn where he worked at the Al Farooq Mosque, helping to raise money and recruit fighters for the American-backed mujahidin in the war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in 1980s.
Under questioning by the prosecutor, Patrick J Fitzgerald, al-Fadl offered a look at a network of guest houses and military training camps used by the Bin Ladin group. He said he was present at a meeting in Peshawar where Sudanese officials visited Bin Ladin and promised to help his group if it moved to Sudan. Al-Fadl was sent to Khartoum on a kind of scouting mission. After Bin Ladin moved his group to Sudan in 1991, al-Fadl testified, its activities were greatly aided by Sudanese intelligence.
Bin Ladin, reported al-Fadl, was surrounded by a group of associates who participated on a ruling council, and ran committees on military, business and other matters. He said Bin Ladin and his associates, citing the US participation in the Persian Gulf War, began to issue fatwas, or religious edicts, to his group, which sanctioned actions against US interests. "We can't let the American Army in our area," al-Fadl quoted Bin Ladin as saying. "We have to do something. We have to fight them."
He cited the religious justification for the killing of civilians of one of Bin Ladin advisers, Mahmud Salim, who offered. "If good person, they go to paradise," he quoted Salim as saying. "If bad person, they go to hell." Salim is in custody in New York and is awaiting a future trial.
While al-Fadl's testimony has given the New York federal jury a basic grasp of Bin Ladin's operations, the fact is that he left the group two years before the embassy bombings. The trial defendants, two of whom face a possible death sentence, can expect to hear more damaging accusations from Ali Mohammed, the Egyptian born, naturalised US citizen who signed on with Bin Ladin shortly after his discharge from the US Army in 1989. Once an instructor in Middle East warfare at Fort Braff, Mohammed shifted his teaching talents to the paramilitary operations of al-Qa'ida. He trained Bin Ladin's personal security guards and later helped set up the cell in Nairobi that eventually carried out the bombing. He has already pleaded guilty to terrorism conspiracy for his role.
The US hopes that the compelling evidence of al-Fadl and Mohammed will convict the four men currently on trial. But the real target is still Bin Ladin, indicated in November 1998 on 238 counts of conspiracy and still out there. Investigators know from the details piling up in New York how his organisation works. What they need know, however, is his next move.
Public enemy number 1
Early in February, CIA Director George J Tenet described Bin Ladin's "global network" as the "most immediate and serious" terrorist threat to the US. Delivering the CIA's annual assessment of worldwide threats, Tenet told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that state-sponsored terrorism appears to be declining, but "transitional" terrorist groups such as Bin Ladin's network are "becoming more operationally adept and more technically sophisticated". Bin Ladin's organisation, Tenet said, "is continuing to place emphasis on developing surrogates to carry out attacks in an effort to avoid detection, blame and retaliation."
Thomas Fingar, acting head of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, emphasised the elusive nature of al-Qa'ida. He told the Senate committee that Bin Laden was like the chief operating officer of a multinational collective that provides "guidance, funding and logistical support" to henchmen who, "like regional directors of affiliates, have broad latitude and sometimes pursue their own agendas."
Bin Ladin and other Muslim extremists, it was reported, are posting encrypted, or scrambled, phonographs and messages on popular websites and using them to plan terrorist activities against the US and its allies. "To a greater and greater degree, terrorist groups, including Hizbullah, Hamas and al-Qa'ida group, are using computerised files, e-mail and encryption to support their operations," said Tenet.
The network is growing
Since its formation in the early 1990s, Bin Ladin's al-Qa'ida group has recruited terrorist calls in countries all through the Middle East and North Africa - and possibly in East Asia, Europe and North America. One US intelligence officials says: "You break up a cell, and another one grows. There is no longer one man. If Usama bin Ladin were to fall off a cliff in Afghanistan, we would all cheer, but his organisation would still be in place. From his perspective, he's got a 100-year program. He's probably eight years into it and you can't expect to get too far in the first 10 years. But he's consolidating Afghanistan. He's fighting a war in Chechnya that has bled the Russians, and now they're making inroads in the Philippines and Indonesia."
US officials report that Bin Ladin has been trying to increase his influence and contacts not only with Lebanon's Hizbullah but with two radical Palestinian groups that operated inside Israel and the occupied territories, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Last year, it is reported, Israeli security forces broke up an al-Qa'ida cell on the Gaza Strip. US officials fear that the election of hardliner Ariel Sharon as prime minister of Israel could heighten the terrorist threat, not only against Israelis, but also against Americans.
Of particular concern is the growing availability of weapons of mass destruction. Al-Fadl alleged that Bin Ladin and his associates once tried to buy uranium from Sudanese black marketeers. US prosecutors also allege that at various times since 1992, Bin Laden and a top associate have tried to purchase components to build a nuclear weapon. While it is not clear that Bin Ladin has the technical expertise or resources to fashion the ultimate terrorist bomb, experts caution that he could fairly easily build a so-called 'dirty bomb', a conventional weapon that would shower lethal radioactive material over a wide area.
The New York trial coincides with evidence that the Middle East's most violent terrorists - al-Qa'ida, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hizbullah - have agreed to pool their resources to fight their common enemies. Israel and the US Bush administration officials call the formation of this terror conglomerate a "disturbing development," at a time when tensions in the Middle East are at boiling point.
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