Posted on 09/02/2003 1:34:33 PM PDT by Bayou City
| Tuesday, September 02, 2003 | ||||
|
||||
| Why America slept bares Saudi-Pak-Osama triangle | ||||
| ASIAN NEWS INTERNATIONAL | ||||
| WASHINGTON, SEPTEMBER 1: Startling revelations about connections linking Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Osama bin Laden has been made by a commander of the Al Qaeda, Abu Zubaydah, claims a new book by Gerald Posner. The book, Why America slept, reviewed in the current issue of Time, goes on sale on September 2. According to the review, the book is ‘‘a lean, lucid retelling of how CIA, FBI and US leaders missed a decade of clues and opportunities that might have forestalled the 9/11 terrorist attacks’’. Posner details how US interrogators used drugs — an unnamed ‘‘quick-on, quick-off’’ painkiller and Sodium Pentothal to make Zubaydah talk. When the questioning stalled, CIA men flew Zubaydah to an Afghan complex fitted out as a fake Saudi jail chamber, where ‘‘two Arab-Americans, now with Special Forces,’’ pretending to be Saudi inquisitors, used drugs and threats to scare him into more confessions. When accused of lying, Zubaydah responded with a 10-minute monologue laying out the Saudi-Pakistani-Osama triangle. He reeled off telephone numbers of a senior member of the royal family, that of Prince Ahmed bin Salman bin Abdul Aziz, a Westernised nephew of King Fahd and a publisher better known as a racehorse owner. The Saudi connection was through Prince Turki Al-Faisal bin Abdul Aziz, the kingdom’s long-time intelligence chief. Bin Laden had personally told him of a 1991 meeting at which Turki agreed to let Laden leave Saudi and provide him with funds to keep Qaeda away from the kingdom. The Pakistani contact, Air Force chief Mushaf Ali Mir, entered the equation at a 1996 meeting in Pakistan. Laden struck a deal with Mir, who was tied closely to Islamists in Pakistan’s ISI to get protection, arms and supplies for Al Qaeda. The last eight paragraphs of the book reveals how three of them perished one after the other. On July 22, 2002, Prince Ahmed died of a heart attack at 43; a day later Prince Turki, 41, was killed in “a high-speed car accident”. The last member, Prince Fahd bin Turki bin Saud al-Kabir, died of thirst while travelling east of Riyadh a week after. And seven months later, Mir perished in a plane crash. Posner notes that these deaths occurred after CIA officials passed along Zubaydah’s accusations to Riyadh and Islamabad. Zubaydah claimed 9/11 changed nothing about the marriage of Saudi and Pakistani interests, as both Prince Ahmed and Mir knew an attack was scheduled in America on that day, but didn’t know where. |
||||
|
URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=30721
Expressindia | The Indian Express | The Financial Express | Screen | Kashmir Live About Us | Advertise With Us | Privacy Policy | | Labelled with ICRA |
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.