TEL AVIV - Saudi billionaire fugitive Osama Bin Laden has introduced
a new kind of terrorist in the Arab-Israeli conflict - the freelancer.
Israeli security sources said the arrest and interrogation of two
suspected agents of Bin Laden have disclosed a network of terrorists who
make themselves available to the highest bidder or the most pressing issue
at the moment. They said Bin Laden's agents have used and aided a range of
Islamic militant groups from Algeria to the Philippines for insurgency
operations and terrorism.
The new arena for Bin Laden, security sources said, is Israel. After
years of focusing on battling first the Soviet Union and then the United
States, Bin Laden has decided to torpedo any chance of peace between Israel
and the Arabs by forging links with such groups as the Lebanese Shi'ite
Hizbullah and the Palestinian Islamic opposition groups Hamas and Islamic
Jihad.
"There is a connection between several groups, Hizbullah, Hamas, Islamic
Jihad and Bin Laden, which is a giant freelancer that can build by itself,"
Maj. Gen. Giora Eisland, head of operations at the Israel Defense Forces,
said. "They are all [working] in the direction of Iran. The connection of
these efforts with similar ideology has placed us [on alert]."
Unlike other terrorist groups, Bin Laden does not need the sponsorship
of states, the sources said. He can choose from a pool of thousands of
fighters based in Afghanistan and has hundreds of millions of dollars in
resources to finance attacks.
This allows the militants to train in such countries as Afghanistan,
Iran, Lebanon, Sudan and Yemen. Bin Laden forged strong links with the
ruling conservative clergy in Iran in the early 1990s and moved into
Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon earlier this year.
"It is unclear yet what brought Bin Laden and the Afghan alumni
supported by him to shift their policy towards an increase in terrorist
attacks against Israeli targets, not to mention to operate within the state
of Israel," said Yoram Schweitzer, a leading Israeli expert with the
Herzliya-based International Policy Institute for Counter Terrorism. "Bin
Laden has been criticized by other Islamists for concentrating on American
targets and neglecting the struggle for the liberation of the holy places in
Palestine. This could be the primary reason for this change, along with the
increasing involvement of Palestinians in the Islamist front."
For Bin Laden, the Arab-Israeli conflict is unknown territory. The Saudi
national had spent much of his life fighting Soviet forces in Afghanistan in
the 1980s. Then, Bin Laden encouraged the Islamic fighters to return to
their countries and overthrow the Arab regimes.
After the Cold War ended, Bin Laden targeted both Moscow and the United
States. He is believed to have played a role in the 1993 bombing of the
World Trade Center and was the alleged mastermind of the 1998 bombings of
two U.S. embassies in east Africa.
Bin Laden showed interest in the Arab-Israeli conflict months before the
U.S. embassy bombings. In February 1998, he and five Islamic militant
leaders announced that the killing of Americans and their allies is a
religious duty of all Muslims. The leaders also called for the liberation of
Palestine and Jerusalem from Israeli rule.
Israeli security sources say their investigation of 11 Palestinians
suspected of being part of a Bin Laden cell in Gaza disclosed his methods.
The sources said Bin Laden agents are often hired guns who sell their
knowledge of weapons, explosives and technology necessary for massive
attacks. Their connections to weapons suppliers and logistics are
widespread.
The agents often work for several groups at the same time. Many are
based in Lebanon and travel with forged passports. Security sources said
Iran has increased aid to terrorist groups in Lebanon as President Bashar
Assad has focused on stabilizing his regime.
Bin Laden, the sources said, can provide an answer to a terrorist group
such as Hamas or Jihad, the ranks of which have been damaged by Israeli and
Palestinian Authority crackdowns. The Saudi billionaire invites
Palestinians -- such as Nabil Okal, 27, a suspected Bin Laden agent arrested
in June -- to ostensibly study Islam in Pakistan. From there, he is whisked
into neighboring Afghanistan and trained in weapons, explosives and
guerrilla warfare.
Okal was the second suspected Bin Laden agent to be arrested. In
February, Israeli authorities arrested Said Hindawi, a Palestinian who was
trained in a Bin Laden camp in Afghanistan.
Hindawi was found with illustrations of explosives and Israeli
authorities suspected him of planning terrorist attacks. A month earlier, 28
Palestinians and other Arabs were charged in Jordan with planning to attack
Israeli and American citizens during millennium celebrations.
When the Palestinian is returned from Afghanistan, the sources said, he
forms his own cell with funds provided from abroad. Palestinians and Israeli
Arabs without an arrest record are chosen for assignments.
Israeli security sources said their concern is that other Bin Laden
agents have infiltrated Israel and continue to organize terrorist cells. So
far, the sources said, Israel does not have information of specific
terrorist plots but fears that Bin Laden might even be quietly cooperation
with the Palestinian Authority as it threatens to unilaterally declare
statehood.
"Israel must prepare for the possible need to counter another radical
Islamist terrorist adversary in the future," Schweitzer said. "The addition
of the radical Afghan alumni to this delicate equation could increase the
attempts by the rejectionist factions to harm the peace process and to
destabilize the region."
In Moscow, Russian intelligence sources said Bin Laden is still
financing Chechen separatists. The sources said separatists in Azerbaijan
received $4 million from Bin Laden, while separatists in Georgia received
$1.5 million.
In Auckland, New Zealand, officials arrested Afghan sympathizers of Bin
Laden on suspicion of planning to attack a nuclear reactor in Sydney, 25
kilometers from the Olympic stadium to be used in next month's Olympic
Games.