* US Embassy Bombings in E Africa :
1996 : (TELEPHONE IS PURCHASED WHICH WOULD BE USED BY BIN LADEN AND WOULD LATER BE USED IN 1998 US EMBASSIES PLOT) The [bin Laden sat phone] telephone records have come to light following the trial last year of four Al-Qaeda terrorists who planned and carried out the bombing of the two American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. According to trial documents, the telephone [the one bin Laden used] was bought in 1996 with the help of Dr Saad al Fagih, 45, a bearded surgeon who heads the London-based Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia. This fundamentalist Muslim group is dedicated to the overthrow of the Saudi Arabian government but is not part of Al-Qaeda. ------ "Bin Laden called UK 260 times," by Nick Fielding and Dipesh Gadhery, The Sunday Times (U.K.), 03/24/2002
Lorenzo Vidino of the Washington, D.C.-based The Investigative Project, a counter-terrorism research agency, said the Islamic American Relief Agency has been “used by the Sudanese government” to spread radical Islam, and “still is.” The agency also has provided employment and financial support to Somali fundamentalists, he said. Vidino said members of the agency’s board are involved with other charities whose assets have been frozen, and some are under investigation themselves. “We’ve been watching this charity for a long time, but we never had a smoking gun,” said Vidino. “I suppose [the government] did.” ------- "Federal agents raid local Islamic relief group," Jennifer Meyers, Columbia Missourian, 10/14/04