Osama not the only suspect: Jane's
straitstimes.asia1.com.sg
OSAMA BIN LADIN, the prime suspect behind the Sept 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, may not be the only possible culprits.
According to defence publication Jane's Foreign Report, Israel's military intelligence service, Aman, suspects that the state that sponsored the suicide attacks might well be Iraq.
Some intelligence experts believe the mission bore the signature of two of the world's foremost terrorist masterminds: the Lebanese Imad Mughniyeh, head of the special overseas operations for Hizbullah, and the Egyptian, Dr Ayman Al Zawahiri, senior member of Al-Qaeda and possible successor of Osama.
Mughniyeh, 48, is considered by Western intelligence agencies as the most dangerous active terrorist today. He is wanted by several governments and the Americans have put a US$2 million (S$3.48 million) reward on his head.
Israeli sources claim that for the past two years Iraqi intelligence officers have been shuttling between Baghdad and Afghanistan, meeting with Ayman Al Zawahiri. The Iraqis are also reported to have established strong ties with Imad Mughniyeh.
'We've only got scraps of information, not the full picture,' admits one intelligence source, 'but it was good enough for us to send a warning six weeks ago to our allies that an unprecedented massive terror attack was expected.
'One of our indications suggested that Imad Mughniyeh met some of his dormant agents on secret trips to Germany.
'We believe that the operational brains behind the New-York attack were Mughniyeh and Zawahiri, who were probably financed and got some logistical support from the Iraqi Intelligence Service,' the intelligence source said.
'Osama is a schoolboy in comparison with Mughniyeh,' says an Israeli who knows Mughniyeh. 'The guy is a genius, someone who refined the art of terrorism to its utmost level.
'We studied him and reached the conclusion that he is a clinical psychopath motivated by uncontrollable psychological reasons, which we have given up trying to understand.'
On April 12, 1997, authorities were said to have thwarted an attempt by Mughniyeh's associates to blow up an Israeli El-Al airliner above Tel Aviv. |
