Osama still commanding attacks, says Saudi diplomat
Monday, August 01, 2005
LONDON: Osama Bin Laden is still giving direct orders for Al Qaeda attacks, Saudi Arabia’s next ambassador to the United States said on Sunday.
Outgoing Saudi ambassador to Britain Prince Turki al-Faisal said some of the most recent attacks attributed to Al Qaeda in the oil-rich kingdom had been directly ordered by the mastermind of the Sept 11, 2001, attacks in the United States. “Some of the events (attacks) that occurred in the kingdom over the past 2-1/2 years were under the immediate directions of the leadership of Al Qaeda, particularly bin Laden,” Turki said in comments broadcast by Reuters Television on Sunday.
Saudi Arabia has been battling a two-year wave of violence by supporters of Saudi-born bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network, who are trying to drive Westerners out of the world’s biggest oil exporter and destabilise the pro-Western ruling family. Many top militants have been killed or captured and the pace of attacks has slowed, but Western diplomats say the threat remains.
There has been an ongoing debate over how much direct control bin Laden exercises over Al Qaeda since a US-led international effort to capture him and his top lieutenants began in 2001 after the attacks on the United States.
Turki said some Al Qaeda groups operated autonomously because they were in places where it was difficult to communicate with Al Qaeda’s central command.
“In such cases, it is left to those in charge of those networks to decide when, how and where to take their measures,” Turki said.
Turki’s former role as Saudi foreign intelligence chief brought him into contact with bin Laden when both the United States and Saudi Arabia were supporting Arab mujahideen (freedom fighters) fighting Soviet occupation forces in Afghanistan.
The prince later tried but failed to persuade Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers to hand bin Laden back to Saudi Arabia, a failure diplomats believe led him to leave his job just 10 days before the Sept 11 attacks.
Turki is due to take over as Saudi ambassador to the United States from Prince Bandar bin Sultan, who enjoyed unrivalled access to the very top of US political power. Bandar, who resigned in mid-July, is a friend of the Bush family and used his close White House contacts to weather the storm after the 2001 strikes on New York and Washington by mainly Saudi hijackers.
Saudi officials say Turki is no stranger to Washington, is equally influential back in Riyadh, and will follow the same agenda as Bandar — with only minor differences.
Turki said bin Laden and his followers have violated the teachings of Islam, but that anger in the Muslim community over the war in Iraq and the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict made it easy for him to attract people to Al Qaeda. The Saudi prince said bin Laden deliberately chose 15 Saudis to take part in the Sept 11 attacks in the United States in order to damage US-Saudi ties. (reuters)
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_1-8-2005_pg7_43
Mon, Aug 01, 2005, Philippines
SYDNEY -- A man accused of involvement in last year's bombing of the Australian embassy in Jakarta told police that Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden funded the attack with Australian cash, reports said Monday.
A package containing some 10,000 dollars (7,500 US) was delivered by courier to Malaysian master bombmaker Azahari Husin ahead of the bombing, which killed 10 people, The Australian newspaper said.
The paper said it had gained access to the transcript of an Indonesian police interrogation of a man named Rois, also known as Iwan Dharmawan, who is facing terrorism charges in connection with the attack.
"According to Dr. Azahari's explanation to me at the time, the funds came from Osama bin Laden, and they were sent by a courier," Rois, a 30-year-old trader from West Java, was quoted as saying.
Azahari and another Malaysian, Noordin Mohammed Top, are among the most wanted men in Asia, accused of leading roles in several terror attacks, including the Bali bombing in 2002 which killed 202 people.
Rois said Australia was attacked because it was an ally of the United States and had sent troops to support the US-led invasion of Iraq.
"The intention to bomb the Australian embassy was because the Australian government is the American lackey most active in supporting American policies to slaughter Muslims in Iraq," he was quoted as saying.
Australian Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said he was not surprised at the news that Bin Laden had funded the attack, saying there were strong links between Al-Qaeda and the Jemaah Islamiyah group accused of carrying out the bombing.
But he told national ABC radio, which also obtained the transcript of the interrogation, that he rejected the suggestion that Australia's involvement in Iraq had made it a target.
"We know that they were targeting us well before, and to assume if we had not been involved in Iraq, if we hadn't been involved in Afghanistan, that these wouldn't be happening, I think would be a very unsafe assumption," he told ABC radio.
"The claims that these tragic events are related to our efforts to contain terrorism around the world need of course to be significantly discounted."