- WMR has obtained a confidential "France
Only" report of the French intelligence service, Direction Generale
de la Securite Exterieure (DGSE), that states that the CIA and Britain's
MI-6 maintained effective control of an important Al Qaeda training camp
in Afghanistan as late as 1995, fully two years after the 1993 bombing
of the World Trade Center, an attack that was launched with the help of
Sudanese intelligence officers loyal to Osama Bin Laden. The CIA and MI-6
permitted control of training operations at Darunta, an "Arab Afghan"
base located near the camp of Osama Bin Laden and used to manufacture explosives
and chemical weapons and train in their use, to pass to the control of
Ibn Cheikh, a Libyan leader of Al Qaeda.
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- The DGSE report, dated January 9, 2001,
is classified "Defense Confidential" and "National (French)
Use Only" states, "Besides the Maghreb enclave, the training
at Darunta, which, for approximately 2 months, mainly involved the manufacture
and the use of the explosives by terrorists. This training, initially provided
at the camp of Khalden, in Paktia, was transferred during 1995, on the
order of Ibn Cheikh, to Darunta, in order to slide [the training] from
the control of the security services of certain countries, in particular
the United States and the United Kingdom."
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- Classified French DGSE intelligence report:
Al Qaeda training camp passed from control of CIA to Bin Laden in 1995.
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- The report continues by stating that
in 1998, the training was expanded to include the use of C-4 plastic explosives
and different types of detonators (electric, acid, etc.). Training also
included the use of homemade explosives (like improvised explosive devices
killing so many in Iraq today) and poisons such as arsenic, cyanide, gas,
diamond powder, nicotine, and ricin. After Al Qaeda took control of Darunta
from the CIA and MI-6, the camp was used to train Al Qaeda operatives to
launch a series of deadly attacks, including the November 19, 1995 attack
on the Egyptian embassy in Islamabad, the 1998 attacks on the US embassy
in Nairobi, the abortive Dec. 31, 1999 "Millennium" attack on
Los Angeles International Airport by Algerian Ahmed Ressam, and the attack
on the USS Cole.
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- In 1995, James Woolsey left as CIA Director
and was replaced by John Deutch. Deutch's deputy was George Tenet, who
previously served in Bill Clinton's National Security Council. The National
Security Adviser was Tony Lake. George Tenet The House Permanent Select
Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) was chaired by Larry Combest of Lubbock,
Texas and 1995 was the year Porter Goss joined the CIA oversight committee.
On November 12, 2002, only a week after winning his 10th term, Combest
suddenly announced his resignation from the House. Goss took over the HPSCI
gavel from Combest in 1997, after serving only two years on the committee.
In 1995, the Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence was
Arlen Specter, a person whose fingerprints, like those of Goss, have been
all over shady intelligence operations since the early 1960s. CIA intelligence
analyst Michael Scheuer formed the CIA's Bin Laden Unit in 1996.
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- Two significant items emerge from the
DGSE report. One is the fact that the CIA and MI-6 were dealing with a
Libyan Al Qaeda member at the same time Libyan leader Muammar el Qaddafi
had declared war on Al Qaeda. Unlike the United States, Libya issued an
Interpol arrest warrant for Bin Laden on March 16, 1998. With this treasure
trove of proof of U.S. (and British) support for Al Qaeda, Qaddafi had
the U.S. and the neo-cons over the barrel. It is not surprising, therefore,
that the Bush administration now considers Qaddafi (once branded as terrorist
number one) to be a good friend.
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- Interpol arrest warrant for Bin Laden.
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- The other item is the training of Ahmed
Ressam at Darunta. Bill Clinton's National Security Adviser Sandy Berger
was charged with removing classified documents from the National Archives
concerning the Ressam bombing plot. The question remains -- what were in
these documents and did they have anything to do with the CIA's fingerprints
on the Darunta camp?
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