World Tribune.com

Bin Laden's terror innovation: Freelancers

By Steve Rodan, Middle East Newsline
SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Tuesday, August 29, 2000

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.

Tuesday, August 29, 2000

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