Posted on 11/03/2001 11:31:08 AM PST by kattracks
RIYADH, Nov 3 (AFP) - Saudi Arabia's former intelligence chief, Prince Turki al-Faisal, said in a televised interview Saturday that Saudi-born Osama bin Laden was behind the September 11 terror attacks on the United States.
"I have no doubt that it was him (bin Laden) who did it, and he has no justification for that," Prince Turki, who was relieved of his post "at his request" just a few days before the attacks, told the Saudi-owned Middle East Broadcasting Center (MBC) TV.
He is the first Saudi figure to state publicly that bin Laden stands behind the terror attacks.
Officially Saudi Arabia has strongly criticized the terror attacks, but insisted it got nothing official from Washington over the involvement of Saudi citizens.
Prince Turki said bin Laden had given many indications before and after September 11 that it was him who plotted the attacks.
He publicly threatened to attack Americans both military and civilians, and said that every American taxpayer is a target. One of bin Laden's aides has confessed to the attacks on the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998.
"If this is not (considered) sufficient evidence, then we would be closing our eyes to the truth, or ignoring it, in an attempt to find justifications for bin Laden's deeds," the prince said in the pre-recorded interview.
Judging from his leaflets and fatwas -- religious edicts -- in the past seven years, bin Laden aims to fight the whole world, the ex-intelligence chief said.
"His ambition is to fight the whole world, because he believes it is corrupt and infidel. He will not abandon this objective before he is finished, " Turki said.
Prince Turki also said that Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar accepted in June 1998 an official Saudi request to extradite bin Laden to the kingdom, but he changed his mind three months later following the twin attacks on the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
He said he visited the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar twice in June and September 1998 on instructions from Saudi Arabia's King Fahd and Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz.
"Mullah Omar agreed to extradite bin Laden and said it was our duty to be with you, but asked for a joint committee to be formed to arrange for the handover ... A Taliban advisor visited Riyadh in July to inform King Fahd and Prince Abdullah of the Taliban's consent.
"In August, the attacks on the two US embassies in Africa occurred ... I visited Kandahar again in September and I wish I didn't go. I found that Mullah Omar had changed his mind. He even verbally abused the kingdom," Prince Turki said.
He said he does not know who controls who, Mullah Omar or bin Laden. "I never attended any joint meetings with them both."
The interview will be broadcast in installments throughout the week.
Prince Turki was tasked to follow up on the issue of Afghanistan after the Soviet invasion.
He said he met bin Laden several times when the latter was assisting the Afghan Mujahedin -- holy warriors -- against Soviet troops, but added that the chief of Al-Qaeda organization had changed.
Washington accuses bin Laden, who was stripped of his Saudi citizenship in 1994, of masterminding the September 11 terror attacks on the United States. It launched an air campaign against Afghanistan on October 7 after the Taliban refused to hand him over.
Prince Turki was succeeded at the end of August by Prince Nawaf bin Abdul Aziz, a veteran of the kingdom's arcane politics and a confidante of Crown Prince Abdullah.
The flag reads: "There is no God but God and Mohammed is the messenger of God."
Muhammad said: "If you see the black flags coming from Khurasan (Afghanistan),
join that army, even if you have to crawl over ice,
for that is the army of the Imam al-Mahdi
and no one can stop that army until it reaches Jerusalem."
Black Flags of Islam
..Prince Turki, who was relieved of his post "at his request"...
What sort of half-baked, cretinous theology is that? There is no ice-cream but ice-cream. There is no ketchup but ketchup.
This is pure banality dreamed up by a charlatan.
I think it is supposed to be translated this way,"There is no god but Allah"
That banal charlatan took down the Twin Towers and killed more people in the Pentagon than we lost during the entire Gulf War.
There may be one or two renegades in Saudi who are actually capable of stating the truth.
This guy sounds like one of them.
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