Egypt 'warned US of attack 12 days before September 11'
The Egyptian President says he warned the United States of an attack 12 days before the September 11 atrocity.
Hosni Mubarak has also stated that if the Israeli defence force were to kill Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, it would be a grave mistake.
He did not reveal how he learned in late August of a possible terrorist attack against the United States, and he did not mention a US response.
Mr Mubarak said he was taken aback by the scale of the attacks on New York and Washington: "We expected that something was going to happen and informed the Americans. We told them."
He went on: "But nobody expected the event would be of such enormity. We did not know that they would hit this target or that, and we were all surprised when planes with passengers on board hit the twin towers."
"The result was that the world economy was disrupted. Tourism and civil aviation were severely affected in Egypt, Europe and throughout the world," he added.
Mr Mubarak said there was no comparison between the US-led coalition against Iraq in the Gulf War of 1991 and the current US-led campaign to destroy Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida group.
"In the Gulf War there was a person (Saddam Hussein) who occupied a country (Kuwait), and the war was launched to put an end to the aggression and send him back behind his borders.
"The war in Afghanistan is against terrorism in a land that listens to nobody, that contains people of all kinds and races, and is uncontrollable," he said.
Speaking about the Middle East troubles, Mr Mubarak said that if Israel were to kill Mr Arafat, it would create a vacuum in the Palestinian leadership that none of the "six to eight contenders" would be able to fill.
Story filed: 13:47 Friday 7th December 2001
Good find, and exactly right as to their motives. Same old, same old.