MOSCOW Ñ Al Qaida employed at least 500 people for
up to two years in planning and conducting the suicide attacks on New York and Washington a year ago, a Russian strategist told a news conference here.
Alexander Konovalov, president of the Moscow-based Strategic Studies Institute, said the assessment was
obtained from Israeli intelligence, Middle East Newsline reported. He said the large-scale Al
Qaida effort succeeded in preventing any leaks of its plot.
"I have talked with Mossad officers and they say that this terrorist act
was prepared by at least 500 people for 18-24 months," Alexander Konovalov,
president of the Moscow-based Strategic Studies Institute, said.
"That means that for 24 months 500 people moved between the continents, studied to fly,
did the planning, chose the planes to be hijacked . . . . [T]hey needed planes
that took off not far from the target but flew to a remote destination, they
needed planes filled with kerosene to the top."
Konovalov told a news conference on Thursday that the Al Qaida agents
thoroughly researched airlines and their schedules to ensure the exact time
of the strike. He cited the hijackings of two airliners from Boston to Los
Angeles.
"And no leaks," Konovalov said. "No one ever dropped a hint, no words
were intercepted. The [U.S.] Echelon System constantly scanned the air and
taps
communication, fax and e-mail messages by key words. Usually the key words
are like revolution, uprising, strike and so on."
The Russian strategist said U.S. intelligence sought the wrong key words
in Al Qaida communications. He said this would require international
cooperation on terrorism.
"Intelligence services do not like to coordinate their activities even
with their allies," Konovalov said. "But the world in which we live has
changed."
[Western intelligence sources said the United States is examining
Pakistan's claim that Osama Bin Laden was killed in the U.S. air strike on
the Tora Bora caves late last year. The sources told the official Kuwait
news agency that Pakistan has found evidence of Bin Laden's death in a
graveyard in the Khost province near the Afghan-Pakistani border. A senior
intelligence official told KUNA that in early September U.S. intelligence
agents took photographs and might have conducted DNA tests of two graves,
one of which might contain Bin Laden's remains.]
The center has focused on counterterrorism and the lessons of the Sept.
11, 2001 attacks. Konovalov said the center will soon publish a book on the
subject.
Konovalov said Russia will not support any U.S. attack on Iraq, saying
Moscow does not see any connection between Baghdad and Al Qaida. But he
added that Russia would continue to cooperate with the United States
regardless of its effort to topple the Saddam regime.
"We shouldn't declare that we are withdrawing from the anti-terrorist
coalition," he said. "Saddam is not worth ruining the anti-terrorist
coalition. I am sure that it won't come to the collapse of the
anti-terrorist coalition and a new rollback in relations. Yes, there will be
some cooling, some distancing. But at the end of the day friends tend to
make mistakes, they need not necessarily be separated if one of them cannot
explain to the other that a certain course of action would be a mistake."
