Published Saturday, January 23,
1999, in the San Jose Mercury News
Terror threats trigger Clinton's call to action
Billions sought for nuclear, biological, cyber defense
AND JOHN WALCOTT
``We must be ready'' for terrorist attacks using advanced technology, the president said in a speech Friday at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C., in which he called for $2.8 billion more in spending to safeguard the nation from computer terrorism and chemical, biological or nuclear attack.
Clinton said his fiscal 2000 budget proposal includes $1.4 billion to enhance domestic readiness in the event of a chemical or biological terrorist attack, an increase of more than 50 percent since fiscal 1998, and $1.46 billion to protect the nation's computer systems.
Clinton proposed an array of initiatives in both areas, from new vaccine research to creation of a ``cyber corps'' of government computer experts. He said those programs are in addition to $7 billion in counterterrorism spending on intelligence, diplomatic security, military readiness and law enforcement, including a tripling of FBI resources since 1993.
``We are doing everything we can, in ways I can and ways that I cannot discuss, to try to stop people who would misuse chemical and biological capacity from getting that capacity,'' Clinton said. ``This is not a cause for a panic. It is a cause for serious, deliberate, disciplined long-term concern.''
U.S. intelligence officials who spoke only on the condition of anonymity said they believe that bin Laden's scattered operatives are turning their attention from American embassies and other official outposts, which are heavily guarded and on a high state of alert, to U.S. tourists and businesses overseas.
Bounty on Americans
Bin Laden, who U.S. officials
charge was behind the August bombings of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, has
vowed to attack other U.S. government targets. But he also has promised his supporters a
$10,000 reward for each American they kill and told them American civilians are legitimate
targets in his campaign to force U.S. troops out of Saudi Arabia and other parts of the
Middle East.
``If you are bombarding our people, then don't cry out for your people,'' Imam Abu Hamza, leader of the London-based Supporters of Shariah (Islamic law), told the Mercury News Washington Bureau, referring to U.S. bombing raids on Iraq.
``American citizens are not targets in themselves, but they are in the target area. . . . This is why I'm trying to educate the (Western) people to where they stand Islamically and politically,'' said Abu Hamza, who was awaiting another communique from bin Laden, believed to be somewhere in the mountains of Afghanistan. ``The message is ugly, but they ought to understand.''
More than five months after the United States retaliated for the African embassy bombings by launching a cruise-missile attack on bin Laden's camps in Afghanistan and on a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan, the fugitive Saudi's operatives appear to be on the move again.
U.S. officials suspect that the kidnapping of 16 American and British Commonwealth tourists Dec. 28 in Yemen was directed at least partly by bin Laden. Four of the hostages died in a shootout between the kidnappers and a Yemeni rescue force.
In Malaysia, seven Afghanis, all suspected members of bin Laden's organization, were arrested Jan. 7 trying to board a plane for London with fake Italian passports. The seven had entered Malaysia, a Muslim nation where U.S. intelligence officials believe bin Laden has maintained operatives and bank accounts, a month earlier using Afghan passports.
Philippines and India
The officials said they received reports in December that bin Laden operatives were active in the Philippines, and FBI officials were sent to India earlier this week after authorities there arrested a group of men who allegedly were planning to attack the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi.
U.S. intelligence officials, however, are skeptical that there is a strong bin Laden link to the suspected Indian plot. Instead, said one official, the group may have received some money from bin Laden but more likely was trying to attack Indian targets in the ongoing struggle between India and Pakistan over the disputed territory of Kashmir.
Both Abu Hamza and Anjem Choudary, a representative of Al-Muhajiroon, an Islamic activist organization based in London, said Muslim groups are being subjected to unjustified suspicion and that bin Laden is being falsely blamed for much of the world's evil. However, Al-Muhajiroon's leaders, who once claimed to be representatives of bin Laden, now say they represent only his ideological voice.
It is true, Choudary and Abu Hamza conceded, that bin Laden has provided money for several groups and that many ``Muslim fighters,'' as they called them, train in Afghanistan.
``But Afghanistan is a big place,'' said Abu Hamza, who was recently arrested in London for questioning about the kidnappings in Yemen. ``There are training camps everywhere. If one of them just passes by bin Laden you want to say he's working for bin Laden.''
Organizations that once openly flaunted their connections to bin Laden have taken a lower profile, disavowing any direct contact in the wake of anti-terrorism legislation passed by the British government after the embassy bombings. Yet authorities in the United States and Europe are concerned that such groups may provide financial and other support for their more militant colleagues.
Several grand juries in the United States are investigating suspected terrorist fundraising and networks. In Tampa, for instance, an investigation centers on whether an Islamic Jihad terrorist cell operated under an academic center at the University of South Florida in Tampa from 1990 through 1995.
The greatest fear, however, is the one cited by Clinton in his speech Friday: that terrorists may someday obtain chemical, biological or even nuclear weapons.
Nuclear black market
On Nov. 4, bin Laden and members of his group Al-Qaida (the Base) were indicted in federal court in New York on suspicion of trying to obtain nuclear weapons components. In London, Abu Hamza said his sources within activist groups also claim that bin Laden has been trying to purchase nuclear weapons, and the leader of a major Muslim organization in the United States told a recent gathering at the State Department that bin Laden had already purchased nuclear warheads from the former Soviet Union.
Sheik Muhammad Hisham Kabbani, chair of the Islamic Supreme Council of America, alleged that bin Laden ``has used two tons of opium and $30 million to purchase over 20 nuclear warheads.'' Kabbani said bin Laden also ``had hired an international team of rogue nuclear scientists working in a secret underground base to convert warheads stolen from former Soviet republics into miniature portable nuclear devices capable of striking targets around the globe.''
Nuclear weapons experts say it is unlikely that bin Laden's terror network would be able to develop nuclear weapons small enough to be easily transported around the world.
``There were reports in the London Times last year that bin Laden had purchased two nuclear weapons from Kazakhstan and Ukraine,'' said Scott Parrish, senior research associate with the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. ``These are similar to reports that have circulated for years . . . mainly about Iran . . . having purchased weapons from Central Asia.''
But Parrish said getting nuclear warheads out of Russia ``would require facilities as well as people. I'm not saying it's impossible, but it would be a pretty sophisticated operation.''
And so far, said one U.S. intelligence official, ``bin Laden's operations have not been very sophisticated. That's good news, but it's not a reason to relax.''
Mercury News wire services contributed to this report. 