Page 50 - Encyclopedia Of Terrorism

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Al Qaeda———23

detailed information of Al Qaeda’s international Jordan, the United States, Canada, England, Spain,
network, his specific activities in the dual African emb- Germany, Italy, and Syria in connection to this plot.
assy bombings, as well as bin Laden’s role in the net- Al Qaeda had become truly global.
work. Odeh’s testimony provided U.S. intelligence with It was also in 1999 that the Saudi regime uncovered
enough information to better monitor Al Qaeda. an operation that was funneling approximately $50 mil-
Having now linked Al Qaeda to the two embassy lion dollars to Al Qaeda, given in the form of zakat,or
bombings, America opted to retaliate. On August 20, alms. Sources also report that Al Qaeda received
1998, the United States launched a barrage of cruise monies funneled from the United Arab Emirates.
missiles at Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Sudan. The By early 2000, U.S. officials revealed they pos-
targets in Afghanistan included six training camps, sessed documents outlining the operational structure
while the Sudanese target was a pharmaceutical fac- of Al Qaeda, including weapons purchases, fundrais-
tory that American intelligence believed was produc- ing, and the falsification of documents. Indeed, U.S.
ing the chemical agent EMPTA, a key ingredient for intelligence finally appeared to be gaining ground on
the nerve gas VX. The United States killed at least six Al Qaeda. On June 30, 2000, eight alleged Al Qaeda
Al Qaeda members in the attacks on Afghanistan, but members were convicted in a Lebanese military court,
later admitted that the attack on the Sudanese factory with charges ranging from conspiracy to commit ter-
was a mistake. rorism to forgery. In the fall of that year, Jordan con-
On September 28, 1998, Egyptian national Ali victed several suspects for their role in the millennium
Mohamed was arrested in the United States on suspi- plot. In December, America indicted five for their
cions that he was part of Al Qaeda. Mohamed had connection to the East African embassy bombings.
risen to the position of instructor at a sensitive military Still, Al Qaeda attacks continued. In April 2000,
training site at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. During his the Abu Sayyaf Group, an Al Qaeda affiliate in the
time there, he gleaned a great deal of intelligence Philippines, kidnapped 50 people, demanding the
about the American armed forces and served as an release of Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, the Al Qaeda opera-
example of how Al Qaeda “sleepers,” or dormant tive behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing,
operatives, could be successful. Despite the fact that currently serving a 240-year sentence in a U.S. prison.
he had fought in Afghanistan, and that he regularly The Abu Sayyaf Group has made tens of millions of
returned to the Middle East for Al Qaeda activities, dollars in kidnapping operations since its inception
Mohamed had managed to infiltrate the higher eche- in 1991.
lons of the U.S. Army. On October 12, 2000, an American naval warship,
the U.S.S. Cole, was attacked by suicide bombers
while the vessel was refueling in the Yemeni port of
INVESTIGATING AL QAEDA
Aden. Seventeen American sailors were killed and 39
In June 1999, the FBI added bin Laden to its “most were injured in an attack that caused an estimated
wanted” list. In July, U.S. president Bill Clinton quarter-billion dollars in damage. While no group has
imposed sanctions on Afghanistan’s Taliban regime claimed responsibility for the attack, it is suspected
for harboring bin Laden. Later in that year, two that Al Qaeda was behind it. American investigators,
members of an Al Qaeda commando team were including the FBI, are investigating the attack.
arrested in Turkey after crossing the border from Al Qaeda carried out its most heinous and
Iran. One suspect admitted his links to bin Laden and successful operation on American soil on September
warned of an Al Qaeda plot to attack a conference on 11, 2001. On that day, a crew of 19 hijackers, with
European Cooperation and Security. the support of an untold number of “sleepers” in
In December 1999, the American government America, hijacked four aircraft. Two of the aircraft
obtained a six-volume terror manual from the Hashe- were flown into the World Trade Center towers in
mite Kingdom of Jordan. The volume was said to be New York, bringing them both to the ground. A third
a training manual for Al Qaeda operatives, and it airplane was flown into the Pentagon, just outside of
belonged to a group of men arrested in Jordan for their Washington, D.C. And a fourth, also headed for met-
plans to participate in an Al Qaeda terrorist plot during ropolitan Washington, D.C., was overtaken by pas-
the forthcoming millennium festivities. Indeed, a ring sengers and crashed in western Pennsylvania. In the
of Al Qaeda operatives would eventually be arrested in end, approximately 3,000 Americans were killed,