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Posted on 09/11/2001 12:21:15 PM PDT by Alamo-Girl

From the Downside Legacy, what happened during the Clinton administration concerning:

OSAMA BIN LADEN
TERROR
INTELLIGENCE UNSUPPORTED
PIERCING SECURITY

Agence France Presse 8/27/00 “…..Exiled Saudi millionaire Osama bin Laden is still financing Chechen rebels in Russia's breakaway southern republic, according to the Russian army headquarters, quoted by the Interfax news agency Saturday...”

Associated Press 8/21/00 Ron Kampeas “……Israeli and Palestinian security forces have arrested 23 Arabs who planned major attacks to disrupt the peace process, including at least one suspect reportedly linked to Osama bin Laden, the United States' most wanted terror suspect, a senior Israeli security official said Monday. The suspects, who include 20 Palestinians and three Israeli Arabs, all belong to militant Islamic groups, said the official. Israel's Shin Bet arrested 10 Palestinians and the three Israelis. ”

Newsday.com 8/22/00 AP Barry Schweid “…..The terror network headed by multimillionaire Saudi-born fugitive Osama bin Laden is steadily eclipsing Iran and other Middle East countries in sponsoring terrorist attacks, Congress' research arm reports. Major factions in Iran are trying to change the country's image, and Sudan and Libya appear to have reduced sharply their support of international terrorism, the report said. Also, it said, Syria may be ready to expel such groups once peace is established with Israel. No major terror attacks have been linked to Iran since Mohammad Khatami became president two years ago, but he and hard-line Iranian leaders have helped terrorist groups opposed to peace between Israel and the Arabs, according to the report prepared by Kenneth Katzman, a Middle East specialist for the Congressional Research Service. ….. Meanwhile, bin Laden's Al-Qaida network, believed based in Afghanistan, has evolved in the last five years from a regional threat to U.S. troops in the Persian Gulf to a global threat to Americans and U.S. security interests, the report said. ……”

Yahoo News via AFP 8/26/00 “…..Osama bin Laden, the man alleged Saturday to be behind a terrorist plot against a Sydney nuclear reactor, is a wanted terrorist in the United States but a hero to many in the Islamic world. The US imposed unilateral sanctions blocking Taliban assets last year after the Taliban refused to hand over bin Laden, and in November the UN followed with aviation and financial restrictions. Bin Laden, who is on the FBI's ten-most-wanted list for the bombing of two US embassies in 1998 which killed more than 200 people, has been living as a "welcomed guest" in Afghanistan since 1996. …… The ruling Taliban militia earlier this month stood by its "Islamic" vow to protect bin Laden despite a renewed US threat of more United Nations sanctions including an arms embargo. ...... In neighbouring Pakistan, where bin Laden is regarded as a hero by many, several parents have named their children after him and scores of small businesses use his name. ...... “

Afghan Online Press 8/20/00 Reuters "......Afghanistan said on Saturday it would not extradite Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden despite U.S. demands that he stand trial on charges he masterminded the bombing of two of its embassies in 1998. Information and Culture Minister Qudratullah Jamal accused the United States of trying to wipe out Afghanistan's ruling Taleban movement, which is striving to set up a pure Islamic state. ``We will not expel him. American hostility is with our government. The Clinton administration wants to annihilate the Afghans,'' Jamal told Reuters....">{? New York Times 10/21/00 Benjamin Weiser “…. A former sergeant in the United States Army has directly linked Osama bin Laden for the first time to the bombing of the American Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, in 1998. The link came as the former sergeant, Ali A. Mohamed, pleaded guilty yesterday to participating in a terrorist conspiracy against Americans…….. Mr. Mohamed said that in 1993, Mr. bin Laden asked him to conduct surveillance of American, British, French and Israeli targets in Nairobi…….. Among those targets, which Mr. Mohamed said were chosen to retaliate against the United States for its intervention in the civil war in Somalia, was the American Embassy in Nairobi. "I took pictures, drew diagrams and wrote a report," he said……He took the materials to Khartoum, Sudan, where he said they were "reviewed by Osama bin Laden." "Bin Laden looked at the picture of the American embassy and pointed to where a truck could go as a suicide bomber," Mr. Mohamed told Judge Leonard B. Sand of Federal District Court in Manhattan. ……”

The Guardian 10/19/00 Julian Borger in Washington “…..Investigators in Yemen yesterday uncovered evidence suggesting the bomb attack on the warship USS Cole had been a meticulously organised conspiracy, which a leading US terrorism expert said may have been the first joint operation between Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. “

Associated Press via Newsday.com 12/19/00 Nicole Winfield "....The Security Council voted Tuesday to impose broad new sanctions on Afghanistan's Taliban rulers unless they close ''terrorist'' training camps and surrender U.S. embassy bombing suspect Osama bin Laden. A resolution sponsored by the United States and Russia in a rare show of cooperation was approved, with China and Malaysia abstaining....."

vny.com/UPI 1/26/01 Richard Sale "......Osama bin Laden, the Saudi-born Islamicterrorist suspect sought by the United States in connection with the August 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, had months earlier been linked to the 1993 deaths of 18 U.S. Rangers in Somalia. A Justice Department indictment of those responsible, however, was suppressed and no action taken, U.S. intelligence sources revealed Friday..... [he was later indicted ]”

Reuters 1/18/01 Tabassum Zakaria “….. Afghanistan is the ``center of terrorism'' and it is critical for the United States that the ruling Taliban stop allowing guerrilla movements to set up in that country, a State Department official said on Wednesday. The United States has led efforts to impose sanctions on the Taliban to pressure them into handing over Saudi-exile Osama bin Laden (news - web sites), who lives in Afghanistan and is on the FBI (news - web sites)'s most-wanted list. ……. ``We must find a way to end the use of Afghanistan as the center of terrorism around the world,'' said Steven Monblatt, deputy coordinator for counterterrorism at the State Department. …… ``The suspects in the Cole bombing retreated to Afghanistan,'' he said, later adding that there had not been a definitive link made between the Cole attack and bin Laden. …..``The leaders of some of the most dangerous terrorist groups in the world find headquarters and support ... in Afghanistan,'' Monblatt said at a forum on terrorism sponsored by the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies. ……”

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