AFF/TERRORISM/GENERAL

BIN LADIN’S AL QAEDA TERRORIST GROUP IS A MAJOR THREAT TO THE USA

BIN LADEN'S TERROR GROUP IS ENEMY #1 OF THE USA CIA

Mark Hosenball and Evan Thomas; February 19, 2001, Newsweek SECTION: INTERNATIONAL; Pg. 32 HEADLINE: Danger: Terror Ahead //VT2002acsln

American counterterrorism experts have been hunting Osama bin Laden for years. They have spent millions of dollars, countless man-hours and considerable diplomatic capital in order to track down the mastermind blamed, indirectly or directly, for terrorist incidents ranging from last fall's suicide attack on the USS Cole to the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in Africa. Last week CIA Director George Tenet told the Senate Intelligence Committee that bin Laden's global terror network is "the most immediate and serious threat" to U.S. national security.

BIN LADEN’S COMMUNICATION NETWORK IS DIFFICULT FOR SECURITY SERVICES TO CRACK

Mark Hosenball and Evan Thomas; February 19, 2001, Newsweek SECTION: INTERNATIONAL; Pg. 32 HEADLINE: Danger: Terror Ahead //VT2002acsln

Bin Laden's communications network is getting tougher to crack. He is using powerful encryption devices that can be bought on the open market. According to some reports, he has gone online to send coded maps and signals to his followers through Web sites that offer their regular customers pornography and sports news. He is adept at using front organizations to move and launder money. Some of those fronts may be in the United States. In Minneapolis, the FBI and Immigration and Naturalization Service are investigating a wave of large money transfers overseas by recent Somali immigrants to the area. According to a report on the investigation published last November by the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Somali immigrants have sent as much as $75 million out of the United States at a rate of roughly $2 million to $4 million a month. NEWSWEEK has learned that U.S. investigators now believe that some of that money is going to a radical Islamic movement called Al-Ittihad that has ties to bin Laden's Al Qaeda group.

BIN LADEN HAS CONSTRUCTED AN INDEPENDENT NATION OF TERROR

Peter Grier Staff writer The Christian Science Monitor February 16, 2001, SECTION: USA; Pg. 1 HEADLINE: A terrorist version of NATO? //VT2002acsln

"It has statelike aspects, but without state borders," says Richard Rosecrance, an expert on terrorism at the University of California at Berkeley.

This does not mean that bin Laden has replaced the Soviet Union - or even Iraq - on the scale of dangers to American national interests. Personifying extremist threats in one individual, as the media and some US officials are prone to do, undoubtedly exaggerates that person's influence and power.

BIN LADEN’S INTERNATIONAL GROUP IS MUCH LIKE THE ANARCHISTS OF 1900 — READY TO KILL

Peter Grier Staff writer The Christian Science Monitor February 16, 2001, SECTION: USA; Pg. 1 HEADLINE: A terrorist version of NATO? //VT2002acsln

Nor is Al Qaeda's loosely organized, ideologically motivated network unprecedented in Western history. A century ago, a dedicated transnational terrorist group - anarchists - wreaked havoc around the globe, notes Gideon Rose, deputy director of national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

Between 1894 and 1901, anarchists assassinated the president of France, the prime minister of Spain, the empress of Austria, the king of Italy, and William McKinley, president of the United States.

"We've all forgotten just how successful they were," says Mr. Rose. "Imagine how worked up we'd be if some group knocked off so many heads of state today."

BIN LADEN GROUP REPRESENTS THE MOST SERIOUS TERRORIST THREAT

THE HINDU February 9, 2001 HEADLINE: Chance of another Indo-Pak. war: CIA //VT2002acsln

In a context that has a domestic interest, one of Mr. Tenet's major focus was on Osama Bin Laden, his network of terror and the implications of Islamic militancy not only for the U.S. but globally as well including the region of South Asia. "Osama Bin Laden and his global network of lieutenants and associates remain the most immediate and serious threat. His organisation is continuing to place emphasis on developing surrogates to carry out attacks in an effort to avoid detection, blame and retaliation", Mr. Tenet noted.