The Osama Bin Laden Terrorist Network from Schmeg.com

   

Al-Qaeda, Arabic for "The Base", is the world's largest global terrorist network with organized followers and terrorist cells in at least 62 countries. Its an umbrella organization that links Islamic extremist groups and terrorist organizations from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Iraq, Somalia, Eritrea, Djibouti, West Bank and Gaza (Israel), Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo (Yugoslavia), Albania, Algeria, Tunisia, Lebanon, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, Chechnya (Russia), Kashmir and the Philippines.

The network has thousands of members and close ties to a large number of Middle East terrorist organizations, such as the Egyptian Islamic Jihad.

According to intelligence sources, al-Qaeda's goals include:

Osama bin Laden, a Saudi multimillionaire and the son of a wealthy Saudi construction magnate, is the head of al-Qaeda. He has provided basic funding, leadership, and training and is, according to western intelligence sources, the architect behind the global terrorist network.

Bin Laden's fortune is estimated at about $300 million. He has investments in property management, sea transport, aircraft rental, and other commercial activities, such as ostrich farming, forestry, diamond trading, and bridge construction. These activities are conducted in many countries, among them Sudan, Somalia, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Turkey, Kenya, and Tajikistan. His businesses in Europe are managed by Swiss lawyers.

The US has been able to freeze parts of bin Laden's assets. But al-Qaeda is believed to be financially supported by profitable front businesses, heroin smuggling, and donations from affluent Muslims and and from some states.

Since the mid-1990s, business executives in Saudi Arabia have transferred tens of millions of dollars to bank accounts linked to Osama bin Laden. The money was deposited into the accounts of Islamic charities, including Islamic Relief and Blessed Relief, that serve as fronts for bin Laden, according to senior US Government officials.

"The money comes from a lot of countries, often under pretext of helping freedom fighters in Palestine and Kashmir...and some of it goes to bin Laden," said Stephen Phillip Cohen, a South Asia expert and former State Department official. "He's sort of the Ford Foundation of terrorists," providing support for projects he considers worthy, he said.

The foundation for bin Laden's terrorist network was laid in the struggle against the Soviets in the 1980s. During the war he helped organize recruitment centers around the world for the Mujaheddin resistance movement.

At the time, the Muslim fighters received financial and logistical support from the US and other Western states. As many as 10,000 Arabs received training and combat experience in Afghanistan, and many of those are now believed to be a part of the al-Qaeda terrorist network.

"He looks at the world in very stark, black-and-white terms," said Joshua Teitelbaum, a research fellow at Tel Aviv University who has studied bin Laden. "For him, the US represents the forces of evil that are bringing corruption and domination into the Islamic world, and particularly to Saudi Arabia, the holiest land in the world for Muslims."

In 1991, bin Laden relocated to the Sudan, and in 1994 he was stripped of his Saudi citizenship after Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Algeria accused him of supporting subversive groups. In 1996 he was expelled from Sudan, under pressure from Saudi Arabia and the UN, for alleged involvement in an assassination attempt on Egyptian President Mubarak.

Bin Laden's anti-American rhetoric has escalated since 1996, when he issued his "Declaration of War" against the United States. The statement calls for worldwide attacks on the United States and its allies. In a 1999 interview, he laid the groundwork for massive attacks on US Civilians.

"If the majority of the American people support their dissolute president, this means that American people are fighting us and we have a right to target them," he said. "Any American who pays taxes to his Government is our target because he is helping the American war machine against the Muslim nation."

In another interview bin Laden said that "we do not differentiate between those dressed in military uniforms and civilians; they are all targets…"

"Master Impresario"

"He is a master impresario and manipulator of the media," said Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert for the Rand Corporation, a think tank in Washington. "There has been a consistent pattern of him making statements and issuing threats ahead of time, but not taking responsibility afterward. He alternates between the psychological campaign and acts of death and carnage."

Interviewed in August 2001 by a London-based Arab journalist, bin Laden boasted that he and his followers were planning "a very big one." Following the attacks on New York and Washington, both bin Laden himself and al-Qaeda spokesmen denied any involvement, but expressed support and congratulations to the terrorists.

A current videotape that has been circulating in the Middle East shows bin Laden appealing to his followers to join a "holy war" against the United States. He thanks Allah for the "destruction" of the USS Cole, and calls for more "blood and destruction" in the months ahead.

"He looks at the world in very stark, black-and-white terms," said Teitelbaum. "For him, the US represents the forces of evil that are bringing corruption and domination into the Islamic world, and particularly to Saudi Arabia, the holiest land in the world for Muslims."

Western law enforcement and intelligence agencies have linked Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda to:

In a recent article in Jane's Intelligence Review, Rand corporation expert Dr. Peter Chalk estimates that the capability to produce biological weapons has spread to at least 17 countries, citing indications that "sub-state terrorist organizations, including Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda, have an active interest in developing BT (bio-terrorism) capability."

US Administration officials who monitor bin Laden's activities warn that his terrorist organization is already working with weapons of mass destruction. Satellite pictures of dead animals on test ranges suggest that the terrorists have experimented with chemical or biological weapons at a training camp in eastern Afghanistan.

Testimony in a 1999 Egyptian trial of 107 suspected terrorists suggest that the al-Qaeda network might have negotiated to purchase biological weapons such as anthrax and the Ebola virus. A leading terrorist, associated with al Qaeda, said to a reporter during the trial that Osama bin Laden and his top aide, Islamic Jihad leader Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, had bought both biological and chemical agents and made a list of 100 US and Israeli targets for such attacks.

The court was told that suspected terrorists connected to bin Laden had admitted to buying germ agents by mail for $3,865. Samples of the Ebola virus and salmonella bacteria were offered for sale to the bin Laden associates by factories in Eastern Europe. Another supplier in Southeast Asia made an agreement with the terrorists to sell "samples of anthrax", while a lab in the Czech Republic agreed to sell botulism toxin for $7,500.

In the mid-1990's bin Laden tried to buy chemical weapons and nuclear components, according to testimony in the embassy bombings trial earlier this year.

Al-Qaeda terrorists based in Britain and controlled by Osama bin Laden planned a devastating attack on the European Parliament building in Strasbourg, according to a report in UK press.

An attack with sarin gas, by six Algerian members of a bin Laden funded terrorist cell, was scheduled to take place during the session of parliament from February 11-14, 2001. The goal was to kill all 625 Euro-MPs, staff and officials in an attack supposed to be the first in a series of assaults against prominent buildings across Europe. The terrorists in the UK Cooperated with counterparts in Milan and Frankfurt. The plot was prevented after German police smashed the Frankfurt operation in a series of raids.

A former Afghan fighter who was trained in a bin Laden camp told the Associated Press in 1999 that "Osama has dozens of camps. They train on antiaircraft guns, explosives, chemical and biological weapons."

Shortly after the attacks in New York and Washington DC, bin Laden was quoted in the media saying that thousands of young, devoted Muslims have been trained in chemical, biological, and nuclear warfare and are ready for martyrdom.

Ahmed Ressam, a convicted terrorist who planned to blow up the LA airport during the Millennium celebrations has testified that he spent six months in 1998 at one of bin Laden's training camps in Afghanistan. During the training he learned how to release deadly cyanide gas into the ventilation systems of large office buildings. Bin Laden was also interested in the use of "low flying aircraft for the distribution of toxic materials," said Ressam to intelligence officials.

Mohammed Atta, a suspected ringleader in the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, repeatedly visited a crop dusting airstrip in Belle Glade, Florida, prior to the hijacking attacks. He asked many questions on a variety of topics, including how many chemicals a crop dusting plane could hold, according to a witness.

Atta was "very persistent about wanting to know how much the airplane will haul, how fast it will go, what kind of range it has," said chief pilot Willie Lee, who identified Atta to the FBI. "The guy kept trying to get in the airplane and there was nobody there but the ground crew. Everybody had gone. And he said that he just had to run him away from the airplane because he kept trying to get on the wing, wanted to get inside the cockpit and so forth."

More than a dozen men including Atta repeatedly visited the Florida airfield. The first visit was in February and the most resent late as Saturday, September 8 — three days before the attacks on New York and Washington.

The FBI also found a manual about how to operate crop dusting equipment in a hideout linked to arrested suspect Zacarias Moussaoui.

Terrorism experts have warned that a crop-duster plane could be used to spray biological agents such as anthrax over populated areas.

"Things like anthrax spores are easily transported, easily put into a solution that could be dispensed out of a crop duster," said author and US Navy Commander Ward Carroll.

In a January 1999 interview bin Laden was asked if he was acquiring chemical and biological weapons:

"If I have indeed acquired these weapons, then I thank God for enabling me to do so. And if I seek to acquire these weapons, I am carrying out a duty. It would be a sin for Muslims not to try to possess the weapons that would prevent the infidels from inflicting harm on Muslims."

George J. Tenet, director of central intelligence, has confirmed that bin Laden's terrorist organization has been "trained to conduct attacks with toxic chemicals or biological toxins."

The Prime Suspects:

Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network has been described as "the prime suspect" of the September 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

"All roads lead to...Osama bin Laden and his location in Afghanistan," said US Secretary of State Colin Powell.

"We are after the al-Qaeda network," said Powell. "It's not one individual, it's lots of individuals, and it's lots of cells."

"Osama bin Laden is the chairman of the holding company, and within that holding company are terrorist cells and organizations in dozens of countries around the world, any one them capable of committing a terrorist act," he said.

After the attacks September 11 attacks President Bush signed an executive order giving the CIA mandate to capture or kill bin Laden and his associates, destroy al-Qaeda's communications, security organization and infrastructure. Bin Laden and his network are now the first target in a global war on terrorism.