Heres an article from my local newapaper. Scary stuff on bin Laden. I highlighted some points in bold.
09/14/01
Star-Ledger News
© New Jersey Online. All rights reserved.
THE CEO OF MURDER
BY DAVID GIBSON
STAR-LEDGER STAFF
Osama bin Laden, the man the Bush administration has fingered as the mastermind behind the devastating attacks on World Trade Center, is himself something of a multinational corporation, and one with an impressive, if ugly, business plan.
Born the son of a Saudi construction magnate, [BOLD]bin Laden has assets estimated at $300 million[/BOLD] -- more than enough start-up capital to achieve his goals -- and an extensive fund-raising system. He has a secure base in Afghanistan and he has a global network that extends to 34 countries. He has a devoted, even fanatical, following of 3,000, and he plots his campaigns using military precision and the latest high-tech gadgetry.
And he focuses on one product, which he exports to perfection: terror. "Bin Laden has shown he has the capability to conduct coordinated attacks on an international level," said Kenneth Katzman, a congressional researcher who wrote a new government report on terrorism. "In building this network, bin Laden has assembled a coalition of disparate radical Islamic groups of varying nationalities to work toward common goals."
The organization presents a "global threat to U.S. citizens and national security interests," said Katzman's report.
The report was dated Monday -- a day before the corrdinated terror attacks on the United States -- and released yesterday just as Secretary of State Colin Powell became the first administration official publicly to name bin Laden as the prime suspect.
"We are looking at those terrorist organizations who have the kind of capacity that would have been necessary to conduct the kind of attack that we saw," Powell said. "When you look at the list of candidates, one resides in the region."
Asked whether he was referring to bin Laden, Powell replied: "Yes." The State Department lists 19 Near Eastern terrorist organizations, and ranks bin Laden's group, Al-Qaeda, or "the Base," as the only one with an "extremely high" terrorist activity level. It also said Al-Qaeda cells have been identified or suspected in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Yemen, Jordan, Egypt, Libya, Lebanon, Algeria, Tunisia, Mauritania, Sudan, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Chechnya, Somalia, Eritrea, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Uruguay, Ecuador, Bosnia, Kosovo, Albania, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States itself.
Terror experts say bin Laden's extensive web will severely test President Bush's avowed aim to destroy the terrorist network. "He is really -- and unfortunately -- a very intelligent and very charismatic leader," said Edith Flynn, a terrorism expert at Northeastern University. "He is erudite and eloquent." Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert for the Rand Corp., agreed. "He is a master impresario and manipulator of the media," Hoffman told the Washington Post. "There has been a consistent pattern of him making statements and issuing threats ahead of time, but not taking responsibility afterward. He alternates between the psychological campaign and acts of death and carnage." The carnage is his most familiar calling card. The State Department reckons that bin Laden and Al-Qaeda are responsible for at least six major attacks, exlcuding this week's. They range from the first bombing of the World Trade Center, in 1993, to the 1998 bombing of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and last year's attack on the destroyer USS Cole in Yemen harbor. Born in 1957, bin Laden is the 17th of 52 children of a wealthy Saudi family that Flynn describes as "a clan of phenomenal ability and wealth."
But bin Laden turned against his family and his nation's rulers. He spent years fighting the Soviet Union with Muslim guerillas in Afghanistan -- receiving aid from the United States -- and decided that the Saudi ruling dynasty was corrupt and must be overthrown. The United States' alliance with the House of Saud is actually bin Laden's primary grievance against America, and the reason he was exiled from his country and his family. "He is by any definition the black sheep of the bin Laden family," said Flynn. And he is as successful, in his chosen vocation, as any of his relatives in big business.
"That is what he has created -- a global corporation," said Flynn. "He has operations in Africa, in the Middle East, and the United States." And despite a $5 million price on his head and the collective might of the U.S. military training its sights on him, there is no guarantee that even bin Laden's death with assure America's future security. "The history of terrorist movements is that if you take out one or two of their charismatic leaders out, there will always be a successor," said Flynn.
© 2001 The Star-Ledger. Used by NJ.com with permission.
Interestingly, in the USA's attempt to see the USSR weaken its militar stregnth tru an extended war with Afghanistan, we supplied bin Laden wih weapons and know-how to help accomplish his future terroristic goals.
Boozy