Bin Laden said to warn Clinton of more attacks
LONDON (Reuters) - Islamic militant Osama Bin Laden has threatened to carry out more attacks against American targets in retaliation for U.S. missile strikes against his base, the editor of an Arabic newspaper said on Friday.
Abdel-Bari Atwan, editor of the London-based al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper, said the statement was made by Bin Laden's spokesman in a telephone call he believed came from Afghanistan.
Atwan said Bin Laden, a Saudi millionaire, directly addressed his warning message to President Clinton, pledging more attacks against U.S. targets.
''The battle has not started yet. The response will be with action and not words,'' Atwan quoted the spokesman as saying on Bin Laden's behalf.
Atwan made his account of the conversation available to Reuters in advance of its publication in Saturday's edition.
He said the spokesman wanted to assure Muslims that Bin Laden was safe following the attack, which the militant leader expected after non-essential staff were withdrawn from the American embassy in neighboring Pakistan.
The spokesman said the Taleban leadership in Afghanistan would not hand over Bin Laden to the United States despite ''all the intensive pressure exerted by the U.S. in this respect.''
Clinton said he ordered the cruise missile strikes because he had ''convincing evidence'' that Bin Laden's group had played a key role in bomb attacks earlier this month on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 263 people and wounded more than 5,000.
Bin Laden, born to a wealthy Saudi family but stripped of his citizenship, had lived in exile first in Yemen, then Sudan and now Afghanistan. He has also been linked to two previous attacks on Americans in Saudi Arabia.
Atwan's conversation with the spokesman is believed to be the first response from Bin Laden since the U.S. strikes on his bases in Afghanistan and Sudan on Thursday.
Atwan interviewed Bin Laden in Afghanistan in November 1996 and is known to have close contacts with him and his aides.
The spokesman, identified by Atwan as Abdul-Haq, said 28 people, including six Arab militants, were killed in the attack in Afghanistan. Fifteen Pakistanis and seven Afghans were also among the dead, he said.
The dead Arab militants were two Egyptians, three Yemenis and one Saudi, he said. ''These losses among our Arab brothers are a normal thing. Their main aim is to become martyrs and to meet the creator as soon as possible,'' Bin Laden's spokesman said.
At least 20 people were wounded, he added.
The spokesman said 20 cruise missiles were fired at the main headquarters of Bin Laden and 10 others fell on various bases of his followers in the area.
Bin Laden has vowed to wage Jihad (holy struggle) against U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia because of American support for Israel and U.S. ''occupation'' of the land of Islam's two most sacred shrines in the cities of Mecca and Medina.
He calls American forces in the Gulf -- usually up to 20,000 at any one time following a huge arms build-up begun prior to the 1991 Gulf War - a ''crusader'' army.
The fugitive multi-millionaire told the U.S. ABC News in June that all Americans, whether military or civilians, would be targets for guerrilla attacks.
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