Threat of US strikes passed to Taliban weeks before NY attack

Osama bin Laden and the Taliban received threats of possible American military strikes against them two months before the terrorist assaults on New York and Washington, which were allegedly masterminded by the Saudi-born fundamentalist, a Guardian investigation has established.

The threats of war unless the Taliban surrendered Osama bin Laden were passed to the regime in Afghanistan by the Pakistani government, senior diplomatic sources revealed yesterday.

The Taliban refused to comply but the serious nature of what they were told raises the possibility that Bin Laden, far from launching the attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon out of the blue 10 days ago, was launching a pre-emptive strike in response to what he saw as US threats.

The warning to the Taliban originated at a four-day meeting of senior Americans, Russians, Iranians and Pakistanis at a hotel in Berlin in mid-July. The conference, the third in a series dubbed "brainstorming on Afghanistan", was part of a classic diplomatic device known as "track two".

It was designed to offer a free and open-ended forum for governments to pass messages and sound out each other's thinking. Participants were experts with long diplomatic experience of the region who were no longer government officials but had close links with their governments.

"The Americans indicated to us that in case the Taliban does not behave and in case Pakistan also doesn't help us to influence the Taliban, then the United States would be left with no option but to take an overt action against Afghanistan," said Niaz Naik, a former foreign minister of Pakistan, who was at the meeting.

According to Mr Naik, the Americans raised the issue of an attack on Afghanistan at one of the full sessions of the conference, convened by Francesc Vendrell, a Spanish diplomat who serves as the UN secretary general's special representative on Afghanistan. In the break afterwards, Mr Naik told the Guardian yesterday, he asked Mr Simons why the attack should be more successful than Bill Clinton's missile strikes on Afghanistan in 1998, which caused 20 deaths but missed Bin Laden.

Asked whether he could be sure that the Americans were passing ideas from the Bush administration rather than their own views, Mr Naik said yesterday: "What the Americans indicated to us was perhaps based on official instructions. They were very senior people. Even in 'track two' people are very careful about what they say and don't say."

In the room at the time were not only the Americans, Russians and Pakistanis but also a team from Iran headed by Saeed Rajai Khorassani, a former Iranian envoy to the UN. Three Pakistani generals, one still on active service, attended the conference. Giving further evidence of the fact that the Berlin meeting was designed to influence governments, the UN invited official representatives of both the Taliban government in Kabul and the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance. Dr Abdullah Abdullah, the Northern Alliance's foreign minister, attended. The Taliban declined to send a representative.

The Pakistani government took the US talk of possible strikes seriously enough to pass it on to the Taliban. Pakistan is one of only three governments to recognise the Taliban.

Nikolai Kozyrev, Moscow's former special envoy on Afghanistan and one of the Russians in Berlin, would not confirm the contents of the US conversations, but said: "Maybe they had some discussions in the corridor. I don't exclude such a possibility."

Mr Naik's recollection is that "we had the impression Russians were trying to tell the Americans that the threat of the use of force is sometimes more effective than force itself".

The Berlin conference was the third convened since November last year by Mr Vendrell. As a UN meeting, its official agenda was confined to trying to find a negotiated solution to the civil war in Afghanistan, ending terrorism and heroin trafficking, and discussing humanitarian aid.

Mr Simons denied having said anything about detailed operations. "I've known Niaz Naik and considered him a friend for years. He's an honourable diplomat. I didn't say anything like that and didn't hear anyone else say anything like that. We were clear that feeling in Washington was strong, and that military action was one of the options down the road. But details, I don't know where they came from."

The US was reassessing its Afghan policy under the new Bush administration at the time of the July meeting, according to Mr Simons. "It was clear that the trend of US government policy was widening. People should worry, Taliban, Bin Laden ought to worry - but the drift of US policy was to get away from single issue, from concentrating on Bin Laden as under Clinton, and get broader."

The Foreign Office confirmed the significance of the Berlin discussions. "The meeting was a bringing together of Afghan factions and some interested states and we received reports from several participants, including the UN," it said.

Asked if he was surprised that the American participants were denying the details they mentioned in Berlin, Mr Naik said last night: "I'm a little surprised but maybe they feel they shouldn't have told us anything in advance now we have had these tragic events".

Russia's president Vladimir Putin said in an interview released yesterday that he had warned the Clinton administration about the dangers posed by Bin Laden. "Washington's reaction at the time really amazed me. They shrugged their shoulders and said matter-of-factly: 'We can't do anything because the Taliban does not want to turn him over'."

Vladimir Putin said in an interview released yesterday that he had warned the Clinton administration about the dangers posed by Bin Laden. "Washington's reaction at the time really amazed me. They shrugged their shoulders and said matter-of-factly: 'We can't do anything because the Taliban does not want to turn him over'."

Interesting. WTC could have been a "first strike" response, despite all the twaddle for the Arab Street. but also linked up with Osama's imperial plans. Or the "threat" was just one of many, why they would think this one special, who knows.

Actually, this is kind of "old" news that went under the radar, and should be examined more closely.

Officials Reveal Bin Laden Plan: Terror leader hoped to create Islamic

Interesting new combination of old news and old news. Anyone who isn't brain damaged of suffering from a condition which affects short term memory remembers that GW told the Taliban to hand over bin Laden or die [paraphrasing mine] within "weeks" of the NY AND PENTAGON attacks, and Putin complained bitterly, within a about three months of the attack that Clinton was unresponsive to arnings of terrorism.

Slow news day in the UK, I guess.

"The Taliban refused to comply but the serious nature of what they were told raises the possibility that Bin Laden, far from launching the attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon out of the blue 10 days ago, was launching a pre-emptive strike in response to what he saw as US threats."

"The warning to the Taliban originated at a four-day meeting of senior Americans, Russians, Iranians and Pakistanis at a hotel in Berlin in mid-July."

Pure, unadulterated horse-hockey. The terrorists were already in the US planning their attacks months before this conference. Amazing the lengths some will go to in order to justify their anti-american rhetoric.

Actually, this is kind of "old" news that went under the radar, and should be examined more closely.

So should intelligence reports from the summer of 2000 to Congress. They were warned--repeatedly, and did very little. They certainly share culpability in 9-11.

What did Congress know? and Why didn't they tell us? Intelligence Hearings from YR2000

We already knew about the Berlin negotiations and the threats delivered in them from the book Ben Laden: La Vérité Interdite. Seems to me we were quite within our rights delivering those threats in view of the fact that Afghanistan continued to harbor bin Laden and his people after their involvement in the East Africa embassy bombings and the attack on the Cole.

Conspiracy theorists will say that we first provoked the 9/11 attack, and then allowed it to proceed. I suppose that's possible, but I think strong evidence would be required to prove it. Not only would such plotting appear to be out of character for George W. Bush and other leading figures in the administration, but the need for such a plot is not at all clear. The embassy bombings and the Cole were already sufficient reason for an attack on Afghanistan and al Qaeda, and I believe would only have required a bit of presidential speechmaking.

The alternate explanation is much more plausible. We made these threats, hoping the Taliban would accede and hand over bin Laden. We recognized the possibility that an attack would occur as a response. But we did not act out of an intention to provoke it, and did not consciously permit the attack to occur.

Well said -- the only consequence of the threats may have been to accelerate the time frame of the attacks, perhaps by a few weeks, according to news stories that suggested the 9/11 conspirators had moved up their plans. Given the inability of intelligence agencies to fit the "pieces" of intelligence together, I doubt that those few weeks would have made any difference in thwarting the attacks.

"Interesting. WTC could have been a "first strike" response"

Yeah, one that took several years to plan and execute.

Please.

--Boris

Recallng Meyssan, here is an article in a similar vein. Myeyssan, IMO, puts too much centrality on America, omits analyses to motives of others, and mistakes the import of oil resources.

Another good article, IMO, is this one:

Officials Reveal Bin Laden Plan: Terror leader hoped to create Islamic empire

It lays out plans of Osama that predated 9/11 and the 6+2 threats. I wish we would see more of this kind of research.

There are several odd things about this story, according to how you choose to see it, or spin it.

The first is that, if we choose to believe the remarks at a "brainstorming session" represent official policy, and were understood as such, is that it would be a rebuke to those who said Bush was not doing anything about Bin Ladin prior to 9/11. The Clintonists are fond of saying that they had designed a plan to take Bin Ladin, but that Bush had failed to act on it. This would indicate the opposite, that Bush was indeed prepared to act.

The other, if you believe it, is that it assumes that at least one of the countries represented at the meeting would pass the information gathered directly to Al Qaeda. Which, of course, is entirely possible

But we know first that Bin Ladin (and Saddam to boot) was involved in the first World Trade Center strike, and we know that he had his people in the US for months preparing for the second strike. This is in no way a response to remarks made at the meetings. They would have sounded to Bin Ladin, and everyone else there, like American bluster that we would never have acted on.

You remember that up until we actually took down the Taliban, everyone assumed that such an attack would be impossible. Everyone assumed that the Talibs and Al Qaeda were perfectly safe in their redoubts.

Saturday September 22, 2001

Osama bin Laden and the Taliban received threats of possible American military strikes against them two months before the terrorist assaults on New York and Washington,

Well well well...I think this deserves a big ol' bump.

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