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April 14, 2000 UPI - This website has linked Osama bin Laden to: the Egyptian wing of Islamic Jihad, funding by Iran, to the TWA 800 missile attack, the World Trade Center bombing, and EgyptAir 990. The announcement of bin Laden's successor confirms this pattern. U.S. intelligence has identified the designated successor of ailing terrorist leader Osama bin Ladin, according to U.S. government sources. United Press International has learned that the CIA believes Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of the Egyptian terror group al-Jihad, will assume control of bin Ladin's terrorist finances, operations, plans and resources. Bin Ladin is said to be suffering from a bone marrow disease, in addition to kidney failure. Ayman Al-Zawahiri is already closely associated with bin Ladin, serving as his sometime - spokesman and identified by the U.S. State Department as a key leader in bin Ladin's new World Islamic Front, an alliance of various terrorist groups formed to carry out a holy war against America and its allies. Al-Zawahiri is the operational and military leader of al-Jihad, also known as Islamic Jihad, an extremist group active since the late 1970s whose goal is to overthrow the Egyptian government. He is believed to be in Afghanistan, where bin Ladin has resided for at least a year. Al-Zawahiri was the second signer on a "fatwa," or declaration of holy war issued by bin Ladin in February 1998, that called for the killing of all Americans and their allies, civilian or military. "We -- with God's help -- call on every Muslim who believes in God and wishes to be rewarded to comply with God's order to kill the Americans and plunder their money wherever and whenever they find it. We also call on Muslim ulema, leaders, youths, and soldiers to launch the raid on Satan's U.S. troops and the devil's supporters allying with them, and to displace those who are behind them so that they may learn a lesson," states the "fatwa." In its original incarnation al-Jihad was believed to be responsible for the 1981 assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. Al-Jihad has split into two factions, one of them controlled by al-Zawahiri. The group has not conducted an attack inside Egypt since 1993, according to the State Department. Al-Zawahiri, 49, was born in Giza, Egypt, according to a White House declaration in 1995 that identified him as a terrorist. He was reported to have participated in a planning meeting of Hezzbollah, a pro-Iranian group in Lebanon, to set up attacks on U.S. interests on all continents. He is also reported to be behind "Islamic terrorist operations" in Bosnia with U.S. and international peacekeepers his primary target. Al-Hayat, a London-based Arabic newspaper reported last year that al-Zawahiri had vowed to take revenge on the United States for its support of Israel, its ongoing war with Iraq and its military presence in the Middle East. According to intelligence sources, Bin Ladin's failing health makes it impossible for him to continue overseeing his organization, the Islamic Salvation Foundation or al-Qaida. Dubbed by President Clinton "the pre-eminent organizer and financier of international terrorism in the world today," and on the FBI's "Ten Most Wanted List," bin Ladin has been variously linked to the World Trade Center bombing in New York, bomb attacks against U.S troops in Saudi Arabia, and the bombing of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania on Aug. 7, 1998 that killed 257 people and injured 5,500 more. At the time of the embassy bombings, a reporter in Pakistan, Rahimullah Yusufzai, said he received a call from Ayman al-Zawahiri, who identified himself as a spokesman for bin Laden. "I have nothing to do with the bombing of American embassies in Africa, but I urge the Muslims all over the world to continue their jihad against the Americans and Jews," al-Zawahiri, told the reporter on bin Ladin's behalf. Bin Ladin hasn't been seen in more than a year, and the last event he was associated with publicly was the embassy bombings. Bin Ladin controls about $300 million of his Saudi Arabian family's estimated $5 billion fortune, and he uses it almost exclusively to fund his international operations. He is said to be behind terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and building roads, tunnels, and hospitals in Afghanistan and Sudan. The position of this website is that Osama Bin Laden, while funded by Iran, brought down TWA 800 using three missiles shot off while the the US Navy (and the US Coast Guard?) were on a classified (anti-terrorism) mission off the shores of Long Island. Thus it is interesting that President Clinton chose the following topic to discuss at the Coast Guard graduation ceremonies ... May 17, 2000 The Associated Press - President Clinton today accused the terror network allegedly operated by Saudi fugitive Osama bin Laden of plotting to harm Americans gathered for millennium celebrations. "Last December, working with Jordan, we shut down a plan to place large bombs at locations where Americans might gather for New Year's Eve," Clinton said in commencement remarks to 184 cadets at the Coast Guard Academy. "We learned the plot was linked to terrorist camps in Afghanistan and the organization created by Osama bin Laden, the man responsible for the 1998 bombings at our embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, which cost the lives of Americans and hundreds of Africans," Clinton said. Shortly after the plan was uncovered, a Customs agent in Seattle discovered bombmaking materials being smuggled into the United States, Clinton said, "the same material used by bin Laden in other places." It was the president's most extensive discussion of bin Laden's activities. Clinton was making the point that the new Coast Guard graduates will face a range of threats to America's security, from terrorism to smuggling to the spread of disease. "Today and for the forseeable tomorrows we and especially you will face a fateful struggle between forces of integration and harmony and the forces of disintegration and chaos," Clinton said. After Clinton spoke, each cadet was presented with a bachelor of science degree and a commission as an ensign. Ensigns begin their a five-year service obligation with a tour of duty aboard a Coast Guard cutter. May 31, 2000 The Associated Press - Government investigators fired Stinger missiles into the air from a Florida beach last month to help determine if the 1996 explosion and crash of Trans World Airlines Flight 800 was caused by a missile, The Washington Post reported. Investigators said it will take several weeks to analyze data from the unannounced tests, but initial observations turned up nothing to challenge the National Transportation Safety Board's preliminary conclusion that no missile hit the plane, the Post said on their Web site late Wednesday, quoting unidentified sources familiar with the tests. NTSB spokesman Keith Holloway said he could not confirm the report. Board investigators wanted to cover all possibilities by making a scientific comparison between what witnesses said they saw and the appearance of a missile in the same atmospheric conditions and lighting as the evening of the crash, the Post said. June 4, 2000 CBS - An Iranian defector claiming to have run Iran's terrorism program told CBS News 60 Minutes that Iran planned and financed the 1988 bombing of Pan Am 103, in which 270 people died. The CIA began debriefing the man, who claims to be Ahmad Behbahani, the coordinator of Iran's overseas acts of terrorism for at least the past decade, after 60 Minutes interviewed him and checked his story with administration officials in Washington. He is now in protective custody in Turkey. Intelligence officers who have debriefed the man tell 60 Minutes he is "in intelligence," but say nothing more. Stahl told CBS Radio News that Behbahani claims to have orchestrated all Iran's overseas assassinations and major acts of terrorism over the past ten years, until about four months ago. "He told us about several different acts of terrorism that he says the Government of Iran was not only involved in but directed, planned, financed," Stahl said. One of those acts was the bombing of Flight 103. "Obviously, it's an interesting report," Secretary of State Albright said Sunday on CNN's Late Edition. "We'll have to see it. "The Pan Am 103 trial is going on now. I think it's inappropriate to comment on the specifics of it," she said, adding that "I'm sure that [the prosecutors] will consider all the facts." Behbahani claims he has documents that can prove Iran orchestrated the bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, for which Libyan agents Abdel Basset al-Megrahi and Al-Amin Khalifa Fahima are being tried by Scottish judges in a Netherlands courtroom. "He says that Iran hired the Libyans, brought them to Libya, trained them, the bomb was built in Libya and then they were sent off to perpetrate the crime," Stahl said. Defense lawyers for the two Libyans have made clear they intend to cast suspicion on a Palestinian group as the party responsible for the bombing, which killed 259 passengers an 11 people on the ground. Under questioning by the defense, Scottish detective Gordon Ferrie confirmed in court that a Syrian-backed Palestinian terrorist group was initially suspected in the bombing, but was later dropped as a suspect, for lack of evidence.
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