A Congressional Research Service report released one day before serial terrorist attacks in New York City and against the Pentagon noted a “rise in the scope of threat” posed by Saudi multimillionaire Osama bin Laden, WorldNetDaily.com has learned.
“Signs continue to point to a decline in state sponsorship of terrorism, as well as a rise in the scope of threat posed by the independent network of exiled Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden,” said the report, entitled, “Terrorism: Near Eastern Groups and State Sponsors.”
The report, dated Sept. 10, was authored by Kenneth Katzman, a specialist in Middle Eastern affairs. The recent terrorist hijackings and attacks took place Sept. 11.
“During the 1980s and 1990s, Iran and terrorist groups it sponsors were responsible for the most politically significant acts of Middle Eastern terrorism,” said a report summary. “Although Iran continues to actively sponsor terrorist groups, since 1997 some major factions within Iran have sought to change Iran’s image to that of a more constructive force in the region.”
Also, the report said, Sudan and Libya, “pressured by international sanctions and isolation … appear to have sharply reduced their support for international terrorist groups, and Sudan has told the United States it wants to work to achieve removal from [the State Department’s] ‘terrorism list.'”
Iran, Sudan and Libya – as well as Iraq, Pakistan and Syria – have been mentioned as possible terrorism sponsors in the wake of the attacks against the twin towers of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Bin Laden, U.S. officials believe, is hiding out in Afghanistan; he was exiled from Saudi Arabia in 1994.
“Osama bin Laden’s network, which is independently financed and enjoys safe haven in Afghanistan, poses an increasingly significant threat to U.S. interests in the Near East and perhaps elsewhere,” the report said. “The primary goals of bin Laden and his cohort[s] are to oust pro-U.S. regimes in the Middle East and gain removal of U.S. troops from the region.”
The report says that, based on U.S. allegations, past plotting “by the bin Laden network” suggests “that the network wants to strike within the United States itself.”
Katzman also noted in his report that “the Clinton administration rejected several outside recommendations … to place Afghanistan on the terrorism list.” He said the most recent recommendation came from the congressionally mandated National Commission on Terrorism in June 2000.
That same commission also recommended placing Greece and Pakistan on a list of countries “not fully cooperating” with U.S. officials in the fight against terrorism and terrorist sponsors. “The Clinton administration rejected those recommendations as well,” Katzman said.
The report also lists current terrorist organizations being tracked by the U.S. The activity level of the Al-Qaida organization – bin Laden’s network – is listed as “extremely high.” Others listed as “very high” include the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Iranian-supported Hamas.
“Over the past six years,” the report said, “Al-Qaida [Arabic for “the base”] … has evolved from a regional threat to U.S. troops in the Persian Gulf to a global threat to U.S. citizens and national security interests. In building this network, bin Laden has assembled a coalition of disparate radical Islamic groups of varying nationalities to work toward common goals – the expulsion of non-Muslim control or influence from Muslim-inhabited lands.”
Regarding Afghanistan’s harboring of bin Laden, the report said that although the Taliban government provided safe haven, “bin Laden did not appear to be acting on behalf of the Taliban, or vice versa.”
Following U.S. reprisals for a pair of U.S. embassy bombings in Africa in 1998 – both believed to have been orchestrated by bin Laden – the “Taliban leadership has tried to dissociate itself from” the Saudi-born terrorist, the report stated, “asserting that he is no longer its guest.”
But, Katzman’s report continued, “Taliban officials have rebuffed U.S. requests to extradite him” following his conviction in the U.S. for involvement in several terrorist incidents, including alleged involvement in bombing the World Trade Center in 1993.
“Adding to U.S. concerns, several hundred U.S. shoulder-held anti-aircraft weapons (‘Stingers’) are still at large in Afghanistan,” said the report, “and – because of bin Laden’s financial resources – it is highly likely he has acquired some of them.”
U.S. officials have also said “bin Laden’s fighters have experimented with chemical weapons and might be trying to purchase nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction materials.”
“From those comments, it is reasonable to assume that bin Laden’s organization has at least a rudimentary chemical weapons capability,” Katzman added.
Al-Qaida cells, according to the State Department and other sources, have been identified in the following countries: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Yemen, Chechnya, Jordan, Egypt, Libya, Lebanon, Algeria, Tunisia, Mauritania, Sudan, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Somalia, Eritrea, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Uruguay, Ecuador, Bosnia, Kosovo, Albania, Britain, Canada and, allegedly, in the U.S.
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