Shocking Klinton failures to stop BinLaden
Others Who Shaped 1998: Osama bin Laden
By JAMES WALSH
"What Clinton is saying is there are two superpowers again: the U.S.
and
Osama bin Laden." The day began with no hint of the horror in store. It
was
Aug. 7, a Friday morning, and staffs at two U.S. embassies in East
Africa
were looking forward to the weekend. People came and went as usual, but
then
the routine was punctuated by gruesome double booms. Car bombs parked
near
the American compounds in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, the capitals of
Kenya
and Tanzania, exploded with immense power, killing 224 people and
wounding
4,500. For days afterward, investigators from three countries mounted
an
intense hunt for clues about the culprits behind such a shocking
attack.
Before a week was out, the face of one man appeared in newspapers
around the
world: Osama bin Laden. He looked as if he might have been Hollywood
Central
Casting's idea of an Arab terrorist, with brooding visage and upper lip
seemingly twitched in a sneer. False as such stereotypes are, however,
this
image represented an adversary all too real for U.S. intelligence
agents,
who tagged bin Laden as the likely mastermind of the bombings. Termed
by
Washington "the pre-eminent organizer and financier of international
terrorism," the millionaire son of a Saudi Arabian construction magnate
abruptly leaped off the pages of counterterrorism files to become a
household name. His reputation reached Fu Manchu-like dimensions when
the
White House ordered cruise missile strikes against his sanctuary in
Afghanistan along with a Sudanese factory suspected of chemical weapons
work
and links with bin Laden. But his Tomahawked encampment reportedly
suffered
only minor damage, and a frustrated U.S. Justice Department posted a $5
million reward for his capture. The notoriety is deserved, according to
sleuths who have tracked his movements. With a fortune estimated at
$300
million, the 41-year-old Saudi exile sits atop a loose network of
perhaps
3,000 to 5,000 allies or associates around the world. Bin Laden's hand
has
been suspected in killings of 18 American peacekeeping troops in
Somalia,
the 1993 World Trade Center bombing in Manhattan and plots to
assassinate
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Pope John Paul II and U.S. President
Bill
Clinton. In all events, this leader of jihad on many fronts has emerged
as
the most formidable Middle Eastern holy warrior. With the depth of his
pockets, the geographical span of his reach and the broad appeal of a
man
who cares more for his faith than his money, bin Laden is a kind of Abu
Nidal cubed: a terrorist who makes the Palestinian skyjackings of the
1970s
seem almost quaint in retrospect. The factors that led him down the
road to
holy war are also what make him such a danger to his foes. Born in
Riyadh,
he is the son of a building contractor from Yemen who made a fortune
from
his friendship with King Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud, the founder of Saudi
Arabia.
No sooner had Osama finished college with a business degree than the
Soviets
invaded Afghanistan. Bin Laden volunteered to aid the mujahedin cause,
at
first driving a bulldozer to construct fortifications and later taking
up a
Kalashnikov to fight. By all accounts, he acquitted himself bravely and
earned equal respect for his religious fervor. Later, after Iraq's
invasion
of Kuwait, the thousands of U.S. troops who poured into Saudi Arabia
provoked him to denounce the desecration of the Prophet's homeland by
infidels. He began agitating against the Saudi monarchy and the West.
Nowadays, he is a stateless outlaw, but his influence is all the
greater.
Having fled to Sudan in 1991, then back to Afghanistan when Khartoum
expelled him under U.S. pressure, he enjoys the tacit protection of the
Afghan Taliban leaders, ardent holy warriors as well. His far-flung
investments and business empire have remained almost entirely beyond
Washington's reach, and the sundry movements he helps sponsor,
including the
"International Islamic Front for Jihad against Jews and Crusaders,"
have
confederates in many countries. According to U.S. intelligence, his
aims are
nothing less than defeat of the West and establishment of a global
Islamic
caliphate. What comes next is anyone's guess, but suspicions are strong
that
bin Laden is planning another strike. Reputedly, some of his operatives
have
shopped around former Soviet states for an assembled nuclear warhead,
only
to buy some bogus goods. But his networks are picking up pointers all
the
time, plugged into the Internet and following events on CNN. Oddly,
Washington's campaign against him seems to be in part self-defeating,
having
enhanced the man's prestige and influence in the Muslim world. The
prominent
Saudi dissident Saad Fagih remarks, "What Clinton is saying is there
are two
superpowers again: the United States and Osama bin Laden." If the
superfoe
hits back, the West can only hope that it will not be with a
superweapon.
Reported by Scott MacLeod/Paris and Douglas Waller/Washington
.
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