-Caveat Lector-
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43988-2001Sep29.html
Bin Laden Seeks Instability In Mideast, Ex-Agent Says
Organization Promotes Islamic Fundamentalism in Regimes
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, September 30, 2001; Page A31
A key reason that the U.S. drive for a coalition against terrorism has
attracted so many Middle East governments can be glimpsed in three days of
court testimony that emerged earlier this year in New York.
Jamal Ahmed Fadl, a former mid-level operative in Osama bin Laden's al
Qaeda network, said that the organization has bolstered a destabilizing
brand of Islamic fundamentalism in a long list of existing Middle East and
Central Asia regimes at the same time it has declared holy war on the
United States.
The 38-year-old Fadl, who spent over five years working inside bin Laden's
business operations in Sudan, served at the same time as an al Qaeda
courier, weapons dealer and general fixer. Fadl's testimony was an
important piece of the case against bin Laden and 21 other defendants in
the August 1998 bombing of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. His
words offer the best public window into al Qaeda's goals and methods.
Fadl helped smuggle four crates of rifles and explosives by boat to Yemeni
rebels.He delivered $100,000 in $100 bills to an opponent of King Hussein
at the Jordan airport. He went with a caravan of 50 camels carrying
Kalashnikov rifles from Sudan to Egypt for jihad members there. And he gave
a message and money to a Saudi opponent of that country's royal family
during a meeting in Budapest.
He also described al Qaeda's assistance to groups working against
governments in Algeria, Syria, Chechnya, Turkey, Jordan, Eritrea,
Tajikistan, the Philippines and Lebanon during his testimony in federal
court last February.
"They have only done pinpricks around the edges to keep those regimes off
balance," said Robert Oakley, former U.S. ambassador to Pakistan and head
of counterterrorism at the State Department in the 1980s. Oakley, who is
helping the Bush administration in its new approaches to Sudan, said he
believes the limited operations also help bin Laden raise money. The big
operations against the United States, Oakley said, are designed to force
Washington out of the area.
"If we go, they [the current Muslim regimes] will drop and bin Laden and
his crowd think they will be able turn them into Islamic states," he said.
Although Fadl mentioned working with Iraqis who were members of al Qaeda,
he did not identify any group within that country that opposes Iraqi
President Saddam Hussein. However, he testified repeatedly on bin Laden's
criticisms of the Iraqi dictator, sometimes for attacking Muslims and
killing women and children, but most importantly for not believing "most of
Islam" and setting up his own political-religious group, the Baath party.
Fadl was told al Qaeda was supporting a group in Tajikistan called Hezbe
Nahda, whose aim was "to change the government." To that end, bin Laden's
best weapons instruction team, the Azmarai group, was sent to the border of
Afghanistan and Tajikistan, where, Fadl said, "they help the mujahadeen
from Tajikistan. . . . They train them and they help them fight."
On Tuesday, Tajikistan was said to be willing to have U.S. forces use its
military facilities to strike targets in Afghanistan "if the need arises,"
according to Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov.
Russia has its own reasons for joining the coalition. Muslims in Chechnya
were aided in their bloody fight against Moscow by Islamic fundamentalist
groups from throughout the al Qaeda network, Fadl said. He was told, "We
try to help Chechnya people against Russia . . . and buy some weapons for
them."
Recruits for Chechnya followed an established route, starting first in
Turkey, where a bin Laden operative maintained a guesthouse, and then
moving across the Black Sea to Baku in Azerbaijan to another safe house.
There, a relief organization, which he said also raised money to buy
weapons and supplies, guided the recruits from Baku to Dagestan to
Chechnya.
The cost to send a person with a Kalashnikov rifle to Chechnya was $1,500,
Fadl said.
Egypt also has a strong motivation to help the United States against al
Qaeda.
Abdel Moez Ayman al Zawahiri, head of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, is one of al
Qaeda's top leaders. He joined bin Laden in Afghanistan, moved with him to
the Sudan in 1991 and then returned with him to Afghanistan in 1996, where
both men are said to remain today.
Egyptians in Zawahiri's group played a major role in the training, both
military and religious, of fighters in Afghanistan and Sudan, according to
Fadl.
Another anti-government terrorist group in Egypt, al gamaa al Islamiya, was
also an active partner with al Qaeda. That group's goal is to overthrow
President Hosni Mubarak and "try to make Islamic government in Egypt," Fadl
said.
On two occasions, Fadl participated in smuggling Kalashnikov rifles into
Egypt using 50 camels that were bought in a village near Khartoum in the
Sudan.
King Hussein of Jordan often complained to U.S. intelligence that bin Laden
money was flowing into his country. In his testimony, Fadl confirmed that
the al Qaeda members worked "inside Palestine and Jordan."
In 1993, Fadl was sent to Jordan to give $100,000 in $100 bills to a man
named Abu Akram Urdani, an apparent pseudonym, since Urdani meant Jordan.
The money was hidden in Fadl's bag with clothes. When he arrived at the
international airport in Jordan, Fadl was met at the customs counter by Abu
Akram Urdani, who arranged with the inspector not to search Fadl's bag.
Fadl also participated in sending arms and explosives to Yemen, to support
the Jannubi group, "to fight the communists."
Fadl said the weapons moved with Sudanese government complicity. Four
crates of weapons and explosives were taken from a hangar maintained at an
al Qaeda farm in Sudan and carried by truck to Port Sudan on the Red Sea.
There, a Sudanese army intelligence officer helped transfer the crates to
an army truck. At midnight, the truck was taken to an al Qaeda boat docked
in the Sudanese army section of the port.
Saudi Arabia was a main target of bin Laden. According to Fadl, bin Laden
established a London office "only for al Qaeda members from Saudi Arabia."
Fadl also testified that he believed that part of the shipment sent to
Yemen was for use "against foreign army and American army in east Saudi
Arabia."
Fadl described a planned meeting with a Saudi member of al Qaeda in
Budapest at an al Qaeda guesthouse run by Abdallah Izzeldine. Fadl was
carrying $7,000 in cash and a message, but was jailed before the meeting
because he lacked a visa.
Libya, whose leader, Moammar Gaddafi, has supported terrorist groups, is at
the same time a target of al Qaeda-supported groups, according to Fadl.
Members of al Qaeda were also part of the Libyan Fighting Group, which
aimed to install a pure Islamic government. One of the Libyans with al
Qaeda, according to Fadl, worked in Pakistan obtaining passports and travel
documents for the group.
The son of a Sudanese businessman, Fadl originally came to the United
States in 1986, where he became involved with Islamic fundamentalism at a
mosque in Brooklyn. He went to Afghanistan in 1988 to fight Soviet forces.
A year later, he was one of the founding members of al Qaeda, and worked
his way up the business side, running several companies. In 1994, he
embezzled $100,000 and was forced out of the organization. Two years later,
he told his story to U.S. agents.
Fadl has pleaded guilty to providing arms that were to be used against U.S.
forces, a crime that could get him 15 years in prison. But his sentence
could be reduced depending on his cooperation. He is in the witness
protection program, at a cost to the government of more than $725,000
through February.
© 2001 The Washington Post Company
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