TranceAddict Forums (www.tranceaddict.com/forums)
- Political Discussion / Debate
-- 9/11 Osama Bin Laden
Pages (2): [1] 2 »
9/11 Osama Bin Laden
I wanted to know from anyone if Osama Bin Laden has ever confessed to the 9/11 attacks? Don't you find it odd that most people whoever they may be... for instance a car Bombing in Isreal... some terrorist organisation takes responsibility for it, and this is quite regualar... every single time something happens they take responsibility for it as if they are proud. But how come they never took responsibility for 9/11??
Appart from the obvious conclusions anyone can come up... im sure an American is going to sayy cause he(Osama) was scared of America comming after him, he has never been scared to diclare war on them. Why the constant denial of any part in 9/11.
We know the US's history of declaring people guilty without proof. If i was an American I would demand proof of someone's guilt before declaring anymore wars.
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/fiveisraelis.html
-check this out... interesting reading
d00d, that's just wrong
almost a year after the attacks Al-Jaqueera aired a video tape of osama claiming responsibility with pictures of the pentagon aftermath or something like that.
it has never been Al Queda's M.O. to claim responsibility immediately after their attacks like Al Aqsa or Hezbollah or the other hundreds of knuckleheads that pull this crap.
there is a metric buttonne of investigative evidence as well.
Sigh, this is a rather poor conspiracy theory that surfaced years ago so I'm afraid you're a little late. Proper arguments have already been made against it and I suppose I could recycle them, but I hope that I can just use this in the interest of saving time and effort:
| quote: |
Caught on Tape U.S. Officials Say Bin Laden Video Proves Sept. 11 Involvement Dec. 13 � Osama bin Laden rejoiced over the Sept. 11 hijack attacks on a translated videotape released today, saying he was surprised at the amount of damage caused and that the attacks had benefited Islam. Bin Laden describes how he and his associates knew about the timing of the attacks days in advance and made estimates about the number of deaths that would result. "[inaudible] We calculated in advance the number of casualties from the enemy, who would be killed based on the position of the tower," bin Laden said, according to a translation released by the Pentagon along with the amateur videotape. "We calculated that the floors that would be hit would be three or four floors. I was the most optimistic of them all," the Saudi-born militant is quoted as saying in apparent reference to the two hijacked jets that slammed into the World Trade Center. "Due to my experience in this field, I was thinking that the fire from the gas in the plane would melt the iron structure of the building and collapse the area where the plane hit and all the floors above it only. This is all we had hoped for," the translation reads. "We had notification since the previous Thursday that the event would take place that day," bin Laden says, according to the translation. Bin Laden, at times smiling and laughing, says the Sept. 11 attacks benefited Islam. "This event made people think [about true Islam] which benefited Islam greatly," he said. The Bush administration has called the tape, which officials said was found in a house in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, the "smoking gun" that proves bin Laden's direct responsibility for the attacks that killed more than 3,000 people. At the Pentagon this morning, a technician played the videotape for all major U.S. television networks, which carried major portions of the tape live, as did the Arabic language television station Al Jazeera. At a briefing today, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said the tape, which shows bin Laden's calm yet chilling description of the Sept. 11 attacks, justifies the U.S.-led campaign against terrorism. "It should be clear from the very matter-of-fact way that he refers to the attacks that killed thousands of innocent people, from several dozen different countries, why terrorists and terrorism must be defeated before they get their hands on weapons of mass destruction," Rumsfeld said. Bin Laden: Some Hijackers Kept in Dark The amateur video, which starts and stops, is hard to hear, and is taped over some unrelated material, shows the alleged terrorist mastermind describing a dinner meeting he held with his top associates on Sept. 11. The White House said the tape is believed to have been shot Nov. 9 in the southern Afghanistan city of Kandahar, which was the Taliban's spiritual capital. On the video, bin Laden says he and his friends turned on the radio on Sept. 11 at 5:30 p.m. local time � about 9 a.m. in New York City. Immediately, he says, they heard about the first plane hitting one of the trade towers, and his associates were "overjoyed," bin Laden is translated as saying. "So I said to them: be patient." Bin Laden says he and his friends continued listening to the radio, and soon, "they announced that another plane had hit the World Trade Center. The brothers who heard the news were overjoyed by it." According to the tape, bin Laden also told associates that some of the Sept. 11 hijackers did not know about the details of their mission until just before they boarded the planes. "The brothers, who conducted the operation, all they knew was that they have a martyrdom operation and we asked each of them to go to America but they didn't know anything about the operation, not even one letter," he said, according to the translation of bin Laden's remarks. "But they were trained and we did not reveal the operation to them until they are there and just before they boarded the planes." On the tape, bin Laden also confirms what U.S. officials have believed about Mohamed Atta, who is thought to have piloted American Airlines Flight 11 when it hit the World Trade Center � that he was the ringleader of the 19 hijackers. "Mohamed [Atta] from the Egyptian family was in charge of the group," bin Laden is quoted as saying. Sheik Claims 'Clear Victory' The conversation takes place between bin Laden and an unidentified sheik, who assures bin Laden that imams in the mosques of Saudi Arabia are praising his actions. Ayman Al-Zawahiri, the Egyptian doctor who is bin Laden's closest adviser, was also present, as was al Qaeda spokesman Sulaiman Abu Ghaith. The sheik praised bin Laden for "a great job" and may have suggested other attacks were planned. "No doubt it is a clear victory � and he [Allah] will give us blessing and more victory during this holy month of Ramadan," he said. Most American Muslims will celebrate the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan on Sunday. U.S. officials say the tape proves conclusively that bin Laden is responsible for the planning and execution of the attacks. They also believe the tape eliminates the notion that he was above planning details such as choosing targets, and that bin Laden's al Qaeda terror network is composed entirely of autonomous cells. Rather, officials say the tape shows clear evidence of bin Laden's command and direct control of al Qaeda operatives. At the White House today, spokesman Ari Fleischer said President Bush "has known all along that Osama bin Laden was behind this. It came as no surprise to the president," he said. As the U.S. bombing campaign in Afghanistan continues, bin Laden is still on the run. A $25 million reward has been posted for information leading to his capture. "We think he's in Afghanistan. We are chasing him. He is hiding. He does not want us to know where he is," Rumsfeld said. Atta's Father Claims Forgery The release of the tape is part of an administration effort to support America's pursuit of bin Laden and the U.S.-led bombing in Afghanistan that began Oct. 7, and convince bin Laden's supporters of the righteousness of the case against him. Although, administration sources said the tape may have never been released had news of its existence not been leaked to the Washington Post last weekend, forcing the hand of the White House. Senior White House officials say the real target audience for the tape was in Muslim nations around the world, where the Bush administration has been conducting intense market research on attitudes toward the United States. The former advertising executive who spearheads that effort said the tape could do some good. "I think that there will be some people who just refuse any intake at all on that subject because their whole lives are vested in not believing it," said Charlotte Beers, undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, "but we've learned that there are a very large group of people out there who will be very susceptible to such a moment of proof personally." Early reactions to the tape and its impact on skeptics of the U.S. campaign were mixed. Some analysts said it is important that the video shows bin Laden acknowledging a direct role in the Sept. 11 attacks, since many of the world's Muslims do not believe the United States proved its case that he was the plot's mastermind. "This particular piece of information puts this particular criticism to rest," said Fawaz Gerges of Sarah Lawrence College. "It will shatter Osama bin Laden's image and reputation throughout the Arab and Muslim world." But Ghida Fakhry, a journalist with Al Jazeera, said the ultimate impact of the tape on Arab and Muslim public opinion is questionable, although it could sway some skeptics. "Had it come at an earlier stage of the military campaign, it might have had a much stronger impact," Fakhry said. Many in the Arab world are thinking, she said, "The military campaign [in Afghanistan] is at such an advanced stage, that what difference does it make." Experts have said a culturally and linguistically sensitive translation of the tape was important in order to convince people, especially in the Muslim world, of its authenticity and bin Laden's responsibility for the Sept. 11 attacks. Some officials were also concerned about possible charges that the tape was a fake, so the Pentagon used voice-authentication technology to match bin Laden's vocal "fingerprint" to the voice on the tape. The tape was released with English subtitles. According to the Pentagon, the translation was prepared independently by George Michael, a translator from the Diplomatic Language Services, and Kassem M. Wahba, the Arabic language program coordinator from the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. They collaborated on their translation and compared it with translations done by the U.S. government for consistency, the Pentagon said. In Egypt, the father of Mohamed Atta dismissed the tape as a "forgery." Mohamed al-Amir al-Sayed Awad Atta, said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press that he had not seen the tape, but declared it a "farce. All this is a forgery, a fabrication!" "The whole world has been saying this name [Mohamed Atta]. Where did bin Laden get the name from? Bin Laden got it from America," Atta said. It is unclear why bin Laden's comments were videotaped. One theory is that bin Laden's associates wanted a record of an important day in his quest to create an Islamic world. Another theory holds that the tape could have been intended as a model for future actions http://abcnews.go.com/sections/worl...ease011213.html |
Re: 9/11 Osama Bin Laden
| quote: |
| Originally posted by hausmusic I wanted to know from anyone if Osama Bin Laden has ever confessed to the 9/11 attacks? Don't you find it odd that most people whoever they may be... for instance a car Bombing in Isreal... some terrorist organisation takes responsibility for it, and this is quite regualar... every single time something happens they take responsibility for it as if they are proud. But how come they never took responsibility for 9/11?? Appart from the obvious conclusions anyone can come up... im sure an American is going to sayy cause he(Osama) was scared of America comming after him, he has never been scared to diclare war on them. Why the constant denial of any part in 9/11. We know the US's history of declaring people guilty without proof. If i was an American I would demand proof of someone's guilt before declaring anymore wars. http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/fiveisraelis.html -check this out... interesting reading |
who is this Osama Bin laden you speak of?
Are you guys thick-headed or what?
Everyone knows Saddam was really behind 9/11!
um...
Osama caught on tape?
Are you serious? Your going with that?
Just like supposedly Sadaam Hussein was caught on tape claiming to have the largest arsenal of Weapons of mass destruction in the world that the US used to go to war.
Sure buddy I�m going to believe your source.
Thanks for your American(bs) input as usual. Come out of your shell see the real world.
LOL?
someone tell me why this kid is posting trash in here?
Bringing a washed up theory that has been disproven.
Maybe you didnt see the tea party video osama held after he blew up the towers.
Where the mods at? Who let the babies in here...
thank god he is not american.
Learn the facts and not read some jihad penguin website trying to brainwash tools like you.
Re: 9/11 Osama Bin Laden
| quote: |
| Originally posted by hausmusic I wanted to know from anyone if Osama Bin Laden has ever confessed to the 9/11 attacks? Don't you find it odd that most people whoever they may be... for instance a car Bombing in Isreal... some terrorist organisation takes responsibility for it, and this is quite regualar... every single time something happens they take responsibility for it as if they are proud. But how come they never took responsibility for 9/11?? Appart from the obvious conclusions anyone can come up... im sure an American is going to sayy cause he(Osama) was scared of America comming after him, he has never been scared to diclare war on them. Why the constant denial of any part in 9/11. We know the US's history of declaring people guilty without proof. If i was an American I would demand proof of someone's guilt before declaring anymore wars. http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/fiveisraelis.html -check this out... interesting reading |
Re: Re: 9/11 Osama Bin Laden
| quote: |
| Originally posted by speedracer_mec also learn to spell... on another note.... All Americans (democrats and republicans can unite on one thing: Both know osama was involved in 9/11 through the use of credible facts) Where your stupidity is coming from...read post above |
Re: um...
| quote: |
| Originally posted by hausmusic Osama caught on tape? Are you serious? Your going with that? Just like supposedly Sadaam Hussein was caught on tape claiming to have the largest arsenal of Weapons of mass destruction in the world that the US used to go to war. Sure buddy I�m going to believe your source. Thanks for your American(bs) input as usual. Come out of your shell see the real world. |
Re: Re: um...
| quote: |
| Originally posted by occrider Damn. You know for a second there I thought I was making an informed opinion on all the evidence available, but your poorly constructed ad hominems were so convincing that they've tipped me in the other direction! Alright jackass, I'll humor your argument for a second. Despite the fact that the video has been widely distributed across the world and remains relatively undisputed, much like the other Al-Qaeda tapes, and despite the fact that my source that you don't "believe" is one of the VERY SAME SOURCES being used by your conspiracy theory web site (you didn't even look at the sources on that page did you?), let's ignore logic for a second and completely disregard the tape and the fact that Al-Qaeda has long ago stopped denying responsiblity for the attacks. Despite that, we still have intelligence gathered from those with Bin Laden on the day of the attacks: http://edition.cnn.com/2002/US/09/1...sama.exclusive/ sweet nice job Or statements from Al-Qaeda operatives: http://english.pravda.ru/main/2002/09/10/36235.html etc., etc., etc. Sorry your jew theory didn't work out, but I'm sure something bigger and better will come along that you can use against them. Thanks for the amusement. |
jackass
First of all it's not my 'Jew theory' and I never said Jew's were the cause of 9/11 mofo!! That was simply there because there is a paragraph in that article stating that Osama Bin Laden denied 9/11. Secondly, tell me if any of you jackasses have fukin read the so called article presented by Al Qaeda or can speak Arabic that you know for a fact that Osama himself is responsible for 9/11. It is not a conspiracy theory a lot of people where overjoyed when 9/11 attacks happened. Just like I am sure a lot of Americans where overjoyed when the first bombs fell over Iraq killing many innocent people. I don�t back Osama bin Laden the only thing is I�m not that stupid that I would allow my government to go on a killing spree on false pretenses. And yes many of the tapes sent by al Qaeda any average Arabic speaking person could tell you the difference in dialects in the tapes sent. So one day he's Egyptian the other he�s Lebanese. If you can kindly refrain from posting anymore CNN please do I�m going to barf.
Ok you guys don�t get my point I�m not even saying he isn�t the cause of 9/11 all I�m saying is if the war on Iraq was a big eye opener for Americans you guys can clearly see now that your government cannot be trusted. So before you go on and have yourself a shit fit wouldn�t you think it�s a good idea to maybe look for a more credible source than CNN. From reading your articles you can clearly all of these methods of evidence would never hold up in court. Anyone can make a tape, anyone tamper with it.
If it�s not Osama its someone else and you have a whole lot of people who are completely innocent, who the US Army has not a fragment evidence to use against them detained in Guant�namo Bay.
And that's just wrong.
so you don't trust anyone?
kthxbye
wtf, it was Saddam and his buddies all the time, Osama was never there.. thats a theory.. it was saddam and the evil of axis, we must MUST get rid.. 
.. the WHOLE middle east is evil EVIL EVILLLL 
WE must NUKE THEM!! we MUST STAND FOR FREEDOM!!! WE LEAD THE FREE WORLD!!!
| quote: |
| Originally posted by LiquidX wtf, it was Saddam and his buddies all the time, Osama was never there.. thats a theory.. it was saddam and the evil of axis, we must MUST get rid.. .. the WHOLE middle east is evil EVIL EVILLLL WE must NUKE THEM!! we MUST STAND FOR FREEDOM!!! WE LEAD THE FREE WORLD!!! |
stupid thread|
i think the COR is sneaking in here...
| quote: |
| Originally posted by biznology stupid thread| i think the COR is sneaking in here... |
Re: jackass
| quote: |
| Originally posted by hausmusic First of all it's not my 'Jew theory' and I never said Jew's were the cause of 9/11 mofo!! That was simply there because there is a paragraph in that article stating that Osama Bin Laden denied 9/11. Secondly, tell me if any of you jackasses have fukin read the so called article presented by Al Qaeda or can speak Arabic that you know for a fact that Osama himself is responsible for 9/11. It is not a conspiracy theory a lot of people where overjoyed when 9/11 attacks happened. Just like I am sure a lot of Americans where overjoyed when the first bombs fell over Iraq killing many innocent people. I don�t back Osama bin Laden the only thing is I�m not that stupid that I would allow my government to go on a killing spree on false pretenses. And yes many of the tapes sent by al Qaeda any average Arabic speaking person could tell you the difference in dialects in the tapes sent. So one day he's Egyptian the other he�s Lebanese. If you can kindly refrain from posting anymore CNN please do I�m going to barf. Ok you guys don�t get my point I�m not even saying he isn�t the cause of 9/11 all I�m saying is if the war on Iraq was a big eye opener for Americans you guys can clearly see now that your government cannot be trusted. So before you go on and have yourself a shit fit wouldn�t you think it�s a good idea to maybe look for a more credible source than CNN. From reading your articles you can clearly all of these methods of evidence would never hold up in court. Anyone can make a tape, anyone tamper with it. If it�s not Osama its someone else and you have a whole lot of people who are completely innocent, who the US Army has not a fragment evidence to use against them detained in Guant�namo Bay. And that's just wrong. |
| quote: |
| Originally posted by Q5echo who told you that? |
Re: jackass
| quote: |
| Originally posted by hausmusic First of all it's not my 'Jew theory' and I never said Jew's were the cause of 9/11 mofo!! That was simply there because there is a paragraph in that article stating that Osama Bin Laden denied 9/11. Secondly, tell me if any of you jackasses have fukin read the so called article presented by Al Qaeda or can speak Arabic that you know for a fact that Osama himself is responsible for 9/11. It is not a conspiracy theory a lot of people where overjoyed when 9/11 attacks happened. Just like I am sure a lot of Americans where overjoyed when the first bombs fell over Iraq killing many innocent people. I don�t back Osama bin Laden the only thing is I�m not that stupid that I would allow my government to go on a killing spree on false pretenses. And yes many of the tapes sent by al Qaeda any average Arabic speaking person could tell you the difference in dialects in the tapes sent. So one day he's Egyptian the other he�s Lebanese. If you can kindly refrain from posting anymore CNN please do I�m going to barf. Ok you guys don�t get my point I�m not even saying he isn�t the cause of 9/11 all I�m saying is if the war on Iraq was a big eye opener for Americans you guys can clearly see now that your government cannot be trusted. So before you go on and have yourself a shit fit wouldn�t you think it�s a good idea to maybe look for a more credible source than CNN. From reading your articles you can clearly all of these methods of evidence would never hold up in court. Anyone can make a tape, anyone tamper with it. If it�s not Osama its someone else and you have a whole lot of people who are completely innocent, who the US Army has not a fragment evidence to use against them detained in Guant�namo Bay. And that's just wrong. |
Re: jackass
| quote: |
| Originally posted by hausmusic First of all it's not my 'Jew theory' and I never said Jew's were the cause of 9/11 mofo!! That was simply there because there is a paragraph in that article stating that Osama Bin Laden denied 9/11. Secondly, tell me if any of you jackasses have fukin read the so called article presented by Al Qaeda or can speak Arabic that you know for a fact that Osama himself is responsible for 9/11. It is not a conspiracy theory a lot of people where overjoyed when 9/11 attacks happened. Just like I am sure a lot of Americans where overjoyed when the first bombs fell over Iraq killing many innocent people. I don�t back Osama bin Laden the only thing is I�m not that stupid that I would allow my government to go on a killing spree on false pretenses. And yes many of the tapes sent by al Qaeda any average Arabic speaking person could tell you the difference in dialects in the tapes sent. So one day he's Egyptian the other he�s Lebanese. If you can kindly refrain from posting anymore CNN please do I�m going to barf. Ok you guys don�t get my point I�m not even saying he isn�t the cause of 9/11 all I�m saying is if the war on Iraq was a big eye opener for Americans you guys can clearly see now that your government cannot be trusted. So before you go on and have yourself a shit fit wouldn�t you think it�s a good idea to maybe look for a more credible source than CNN. From reading your articles you can clearly all of these methods of evidence would never hold up in court. Anyone can make a tape, anyone tamper with it. If it�s not Osama its someone else and you have a whole lot of people who are completely innocent, who the US Army has not a fragment evidence to use against them detained in Guant�namo Bay.And that's just wrong. |
Bin Laden comes home to roost His CIA ties are only the beginning of a woeful story
| quote: |
| Originally posted by MSNBC in 1998 Bin Laden comes home to roost His CIA ties are only the beginning of a woeful story By Michael Moran MSNBC NEW YORK, Aug. 24, 1998 � At the CIA, it happens often enough to have a code name: Blowback. Simply defined, this is the term that describes an agent, an operative or an operation that has turned on its creators. Osama bin Laden, our new public enemy Number 1, is the personification of blowback. And the fact that he is viewed as a hero by millions in the Islamic world proves again the old adage: Reap what you sow. BEFORE YOU CLICK on my face and call me naive, let me concede some points. Yes, the West needed Josef Stalin to defeat Hitler. Yes, there were times during the Cold War when supporting one villain (Cambodia�s Lon Nol, for instance) would have been better than the alternative (Pol Pot). So yes, there are times when any nation must hold its nose and shake hands with the devil for the long-term good of the planet. But just as surely, there are times when the United States, faced with such moral dilemmas, should have resisted the temptation to act. Arming a multi-national coalition of Islamic extremists in Afghanistan during the 1980s - well after the destruction of the Marine barracks in Beirut or the hijacking of TWA Flight 847 - was one of those times. BIN LADEN�S BEGINNINGS As anyone who has bothered to read this far certainly knows by now, bin Laden is the heir to Saudi construction fortune who, at least since the early 1990s, has used that money to finance countless attacks on U.S. interests and those of its Arab allies around the world. As his unclassified CIA biography states, bin Laden left Saudi Arabia to fight the Soviet army in Afghanistan after Moscow�s invasion in 1979. By 1984, he was running a front organization known as Maktab al-Khidamar - the MAK - which funneled money, arms and fighters from the outside world into the Afghan war. What the CIA bio conveniently fails to specify (in its unclassified form, at least) is that the MAK was nurtured by Pakistan�s state security services, the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI, the CIA�s primary conduit for conducting the covert war against Moscow�s occupation. By no means was Osama bin Laden the leader of Afghanistan�s mujahedeen. His money gave him undue prominence in the Afghan struggle, but the vast majority of those who fought and died for Afghanistan�s freedom - like the Taliban regime that now holds sway over most of that tortured nation - were Afghan nationals. Yet the CIA, concerned about the factionalism of Afghanistan made famous by Rudyard Kipling, found that Arab zealots who flocked to aid the Afghans were easier to �read� than the rivalry-ridden natives. While the Arab volunteers might well prove troublesome later, the agency reasoned, they at least were one-dimensionally anti-Soviet for now. So bin Laden, along with a small group of Islamic militants from Egypt, Pakistan, Lebanon, Syria and Palestinian refugee camps all over the Middle East, became the �reliable� partners of the CIA in its war against Moscow. WHAT�S �INTELLIGENT� ABOUT THIS? Though he has come to represent all that went wrong with the CIA�s reckless strategy there, by the end of the Afghan war in 1989, bin Laden was still viewed by the agency as something of a dilettante - a rich Saudi boy gone to war and welcomed home by the Saudi monarchy he so hated as something of a hero. In fact, while he returned to his family�s construction business, bin Laden had split from the relatively conventional MAK in 1988 and established a new group, al-Qaida, that included many of the more extreme MAK members he had met in Afghanistan. Most of these Afghan vets, or Afghanis, as the Arabs who fought there became known, turned up later behind violent Islamic movements around the world. Among them: the GIA in Algeria, thought responsible for the massacres of tens of thousands of civilians; Egypt�s Gamat Ismalia, which has massacred western tourists repeatedly in recent years; Saudi Arabia Shiite militants, responsible for the Khobar Towers and Riyadh bombings of 1996. Indeed, to this day, those involved in the decision to give the Afghan rebels access to a fortune in covert funding and top-level combat weaponry continue to defend that move in the context of the Cold War. Sen. Orrin Hatch, a senior Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee making those decisions, told my colleague Robert Windrem that he would make the same call again today even knowing what bin Laden would do subsequently. �It was worth it,� he said. �Those were very important, pivotal matters that played an important role in the downfall of the Soviet Union,� he said. HINDSIGHT OR TUNNEL VISION It should be pointed out that the evidence of bin Laden�s connection to these activities is mostly classified, though its hard to imagine the CIA rushing to take credit for a Frankenstein�s monster like this. It is also worth acknowledging that it is easier now to oppose the CIA�s Afghan adventures than it was when Hatch and company made them in the mid-1980s. After all, in 1998 we now know that far larger elements than Afghanistan were corroding the communist party�s grip on power in Moscow. Even Hatch can�t be blamed completely. The CIA, ever mindful of the need to justify its �mission,� had conclusive evidence by the mid-1980s of the deepening crisis of infrastructure within the Soviet Union. The CIA, as its deputy director Robert Gates acknowledged under congressional questioning in 1992, had decided to keep that evidence from President Reagan and his top advisors and instead continued to grossly exaggerate Soviet military and technological capabilities in its annual �Soviet Military Power� report right up to 1990. Given that context, a decision was made to provide America�s potential enemies with the arms, money - and most importantly - the knowledge of how to run a war of attrition violent and well-organized enough to humble a superpower. That decision is coming home to roost. Michael Moran is MSNBC�s International Editor |
| quote: |
| Sunday, 8 December, 2002, 01:22 GMT Israel 'faked al-Qaeda presence' Officials from the Palestinian Authority have accused the Israeli spy agency Mossad of setting up a fake al-Qaeda terrorist cell in Gaza. Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat said that Israel had set up the mock cell in order to justify attacks in Palestinian areas. Raanan Gissin, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, called the allegation "sheer nonsense". On Thursday Mr Sharon said that members of Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaeda terror network were at work in the Gaza Strip, aiming to attack Israel. Israel has named al-Qaeda as the prime suspect in a suicide bombing at a hotel in Mombasa, Kenya that killed 16 people last week and an unsuccessful missile attack on a nearby Israeli passenger jet. "It is a big, big, big lie to cover (Sharon's) attacks and his crimes against our people everywhere," Mr Arafat said at his headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Communications traced Colonel Rashid Abu-Shbak, the Palestinian head of preventative security, said eight Palestinians had been approached from outside Gaza, and had been asked by Israeli agents to work for al-Qaeda with offers of money and weapons. Colonel Abu-Shbak said the first approaches were made in March this year, and that all communications had been traced back to Israeli intelligence. He cited the case of one Palestinian militant who had been approached and had been supplied with guns, and who was killed on his way to collect a second consignment of weapons. "We are sure that Israel is behind this and that there are absolutely no groups such as al-Qaeda operating here," Colonel Abu-Shbak said. "We can't say there will never be al-Qaeda here, but at least not for now," he added. Mr Gissin said that the Palestinian accusations were propaganda and disinformation put out by officials trying "to exonerate themselves from the allegations they are collaborating and participating with terrorists". US accusations On Friday American media reported that al-Qaeda has set up a branch to help Palestinian militant groups fight Israel, according to a website US officials believe is linked to the organisation. The new group has called for an end to inter-Palestinian feuding and has vowed to launch suicide attacks against Israeli and American targets in the Middle East, it said in a statement on the website, mojahedoon.net. The Washington Post newspaper said United States officials believe the website speaks for al-Qaeda, and that it is being monitored by US intelligence agencies. The Arabic-language website said al-Qaeda took responsibility for the attacks in Kenya. The website carried a statement purportedly from the new al-Qaeda branch - the Islamic al-Qaeda in Palestine - pledging allegiance to Osama Bin Laden. The group said it rejected any peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, declaring it would accept "nothing but the full liberation of the Palestinian land". |
Powered by: vBulletin
Copyright © 2000-2021, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.