- ISLAMABAD (AFP) - As the
United States reeled on Tuesday from the worst terror attack in history,
suspicion immediately fell on Islamic fundamentalist and accused terrorist
Osama bin Laden.
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- Bin Laden, who lives in hiding in Afghanistan as a "guest"
of the ruling Taliban, is already wanted in the United States for the 1998
bomb attacks on US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that left more than
200 people dead.
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- No group has claimed responsibility for Tuesday's devastating
attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, but a US senator said
the carnage bore the "signature" of the millionaire Saudi dissident
bin Laden.
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- Republican Senator Orrin Hatch told CNN television he
had high level information from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI) that bin Laden was behind the unprecedented attacks.
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- "I do have some information," Hatch said in
reference to his FBI briefing. "They've come to the conclusion that
this looks like it may be the signature of Osama bin Laden, that he may
be the one behind this."
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- Before the attacks in New York and Washington which killed
hundreds, possibly thousands, of people, bin Laden figured prominently
on the FBI's 10 most wanted list.
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- He has been indicted in the United States for masterminding
the bomb attacks against the two US embassies in Africa that claimed 224
lives.
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- Bin Laden is also suspected of plotting last year's bombing
of a US warship, the USS Cole, in Yemen. Seventeen US sailors died when
a dinghy packed with explosives rammed the ship in Aden harbour.
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- According to US officials, bin Laden's terrorist organisation,
Al-Qaeda, or "The Base," is extensive and has the capability
to inflict large-scale destruction.
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- He has escaped US arrest because he enjoys the protection
of one of the world's most radical regimes, Afghanistan's Taliban militia.
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- The editor-in-chief of the Arab daily Al-Quds said Tuesday
in London that bin Laden had been planning a "big attack" against
US interests.
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- "Very good sources told me three weeks ago that
he's planning for a big attack against American personnel and interests,
and maybe this is the outcome of it," Abdel-Bari Atwan told AFP.
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- But the Taliban denied bin Laden, a hero to many in the
Islamic world, played any role in the US attacks, which included two hijacked
passenger planes crashing into and destroying the World Trade Center's
twin towers.
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- "Osama is only a person -- he does not have the
facilities to carry out such activities," the Taliban's ambassador
to Pakistan, Abdul Salam Zaeef, said.
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- Bin Laden, 44, was born in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, the
12th child of a billionaire construction tycoon.
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- During his early years, bin Laden worked for his father's
company before joining the US-backed jihad, or "holy war," against
the Soviet Union after it invaded Afghanistan in 1979.
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- Stripped of his Saudi citizenship, bin Laden has been
sheltering in Afghanistan and the Taliban have refused repeated US requests
for his extradition.
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- The US launched cruise missiles against bin Laden's base
in eastern Afghanistan's Khost province in August 1998 after the bombings
of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
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- The Taliban claims Washington has no evidence against
bin Laden and describes him as a "guest" who cannot be delivered
to his enemies according to Afghan tradition.
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- Bin Laden is still believed to operate several terrorist
training camps in Afghanistan, where Islamic extremists prepare for jihad
in places like central Asia, Kashmir, the Middle East and southeast Asia.
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- In March, the Arabic daily Al-Hayat quoted a poem bin
Laden wrote for his son's wedding held in Afghanistan, in which he described
the USS Cole on her ill-fated voyage to Yemen.
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- "She sails into the waves flanked by arrogance,
haughtiness and false power. To her doom she moves slowly," the daily
quoted him a saying.
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- "A dinghy awaits her, riding the waves," the
poem went on, referring to the small craft which two Islamic extremists
are thought to have brought alongside the Cole and blown up.
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- "Your brothers in the East readied their mounts
... and the battle camels are prepared to go."
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