'War on all Americans'
Islamic world inflamed by air strikes but Clinton gets big home support
By Martin Kettle, Gary Younge in Washington, Suzanne Goldenberg in Peshawar, and David Hirst in Khartoum
Saturday August 22, 1998
The United States last night threatened fresh missile attacks against terrorist bases in Sudan and Afghanistan, further inflaming the Islamic world and setting the West on heightened alert for retaliatory strikes.
As American public opinion and most nations rallied behind the Clinton administration's actions, the US defence secretary, William Cohen, pledged: "We have contingency plans that we are developing, and there may be more in the future."
But in the first indication that Washington's chief target had survived Thursday's cruise missile attacks, Osama Bin Laden - believed to have instigated the bombing of two US embassies in east Africa a fortnight ago - was yesterday reported to have called an intermediary in Pakistan to declare: "The battle has not started yet."
According to the London-based newspaper al-Quds al-Araby, the intermediary relayed Mr Bin Laden's message to Abdel-Bari Atwan, the paper's editor, saying: "The response will be with action and not words."
Washington was forced to admit it did not know whether it had succeeded in hitting a meeting in an Afghan training camp between Mr Bin Laden and his lieutenants.
Mr Bin Laden said he was near the training camp when it was hit, and that several of his associates had been killed.
President Clinton's national security adviser, Sandy Berger, reported the raids caused "moderate to severe damage" and had "significantly disrupted" the terrorist operations.
The Pentagon, however, said its assessment was impaired by poor satellite pictures due to clouds and haze.
But US attacks on Sudan, military sources said, had "almost completely eliminated the chemical weapons factory" in Khartoum.
Security forces across the US moved to heightened alert against retaliatory attacks. The Foreign Office advised Britons to exercise extra vigilance in Muslim countries.
International aid agencies were also braced for retaliation from Islamist militants yesterday, after two UN workers came under fire in Afghanistan, and amid confused reports - later retracted by Islamabad - that a stray missile hurt Pakistani villagers.
At least 21 people were killed in the US strikes on the Afghan bases of Mr Bin Laden around the south-eastern Afghan town of Khost, including eight of his Arab devotees, a spokesman for the puritanical Taliban militia said. At least 53 others were injured, including 15 Arabs.
A Pakistani reporter who returned from Khost last night described the camps as being "in ruins... nearly destroyed and all rubble and debris with big craters all round". But he added that big barracks nearby had escaped.
"If any missiles had hit any of those big barracks, the casualties would have been much higher," he said.
Pakistan's foreign minister, Sartaz Aziz, said his country took "a serious view of this unilateral action of the US involving the use of force against sovereign countries". But in Islamabad, the maulana of the Red Mosque went much further, decreeing "war" on all Americans and their allies.
Islamists in other cities burned American flags, and issued religious edicts, or fatwas, against foreigners.
In Khartoum, hospital officials said 10 people were injured in the missile attack that levelled the Shifa chemical plant, which the US said was making a chemical precursor to VX nerve gas.
Sudan, backed by more than 20 Arab countries, wants the United Nations Security Council to send a mission to look at the factory, which it insists was used for the manufacture of medicines.
The Sudanese embassy in Kenya called Mr Clinton "a sexual pervert and maniac", while Iraq and Libya accused Washington of committing "international terrorism".
Washington officials made clear more strikes are likely as the US continues its offensive against the network, which is accused of complicity in the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing, and other attacks on Americans, as well as the embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam on August 7, which killed 257 people - most of them Africans.
"We do not expect that these strikes will in themselves end the threat, but they are important because they clearly show that we are in this for the long haul," the under-secretary of state, Thomas Pickering, said "There may be more such strikes."
The US secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, said: "This is, unfortunately, the war of the future" and "the importance of sustained operations" had to be understood.
Initial surveys of American public opinion were strongly in favour. Two-thirds of Americans approved the military strike, a CNN-Gallup survey found.
President Clinton spent much of yesterday canvassing international support for his action, having earlier said that the Bin Laden network was planning more attacks.
The US leader spoke for the second day running to the Prime Minister, Tony Blair - who has given strong support - as well as to the leaders of Egypt, Pakistan and Israel.
But there was no winning over President Yeltsin of Russia, who said: "I am outraged and I denounce this." ÿ
c Copyright Guardian Media Group plc.1998
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