Bosnia: Hub of terrorist axis? (Insider Report).In a series of reports beginning in 1996, THE NEW AMERICAN warned that Bosnia, the UN-administered former Yugoslav province, had become a staging area staging area n. A place where troops or equipment in transit are assembled and processed, as before a military operation. Noun 1. for Muslim terrorist groups. Following the Black Tuesday Black Tuesday day of stock market crash (1929). [Am. Hist.: Allen, 238] See : Bankruptcy attacks, we reviewed those prior warnings and pointed out that both Bosnia and Kosovo had become UN-protected "safe havens Safe Havens is a comic strip drawn by cartoonist Bill Holbrook and syndicated by King Features Syndicate. Started in 1988, the strip is currently published in more than 50 newspapers. " for Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network (see "Behind the Terror Network" in our November 5, 2001 issue). A February 21stAP report from Sarajevo confirms those warnings. Last October, NATO NATO: see North Atlantic Treaty Organization. NATO in full North Atlantic Treaty Organization International military alliance created to defend western Europe against a possible Soviet invasion. troops raided the offices of the Saudi High Commissioner for Aid to Bosnia, a "charity" created by Saudi Prince Selman bin Abdul-Aziz allegedly to aid Bosnian Muslim war orphans. Among the materials seized during the raid were "photos of targets of past terror attacks -- the World Trade Center, the Pentagon,... the U.S.S. Cole,... and the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.... The pictures showed the targets both before and after the attacks." NATO troops captured six suspected collaborators in the Black Tuesday attack, including Bensayah Belkacem Bensayah Belkacem was born in Algeria, and arrested in his home in Bosnia, on October 8 2001, shortly after the attacks of September 11, 2001.[1] Belkacem and five other men, charity workers, who were colleagues of his, who were also born in Algeria, were under , "who U.S. officials allege served as Osama bin Laden's top lieutenant in Europe." Also netted in the raid were items suggesting terrorist attacks yet to come: Street maps of Washington, D.C., on which government buildings had been marked; a computer program explaining how to use crop duster aircrafts to spread pesticide; and "materials used to make fake State Department identification badges and credit cards.... "The raid of the agency coincided with the arrests last October of six Algerian-born men, including one, Sabir Lamar, who had worked for the Saudi organization," continued the AP report. "All six were handed over last month to U.S. authorities, who have said they had evidence implicating im·pli·cate tr.v. im·pli·cat·ed, im·pli·cat·ing, im·pli·cates 1. To involve or connect intimately or incriminatingly: evidence that implicates others in the plot. 2. the suspects in planned post-Sept. 11 attacks on Western targets. Lamar was the son-in-law of a local employee of the U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo who had the keys to the building...." NATO's intervention made it possible for the radical Muslim terrorist network to gain its European beachhead beach·head n. 1. A position on an enemy shoreline captured by troops in advance of an invading force. 2. A first achievement that opens the way for further developments; a foothold: in the Balkans. NATO is a regional affiliate of the UN, which supposedly provides the authority for the war against terrorism. |
|
||||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion