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To: stockman_scott who wrote (4262)	10/22/2001 2:47:07 AM
From: T L Comiskey	Respond to of 13815

China 'bought unexploded US missiles off bin Laden' Mr Jiang and Mr Bush at the forum yesterday. Photo: AFP/Stephen Jaffe By John Hooper in Milan China paid Osama bin Laden several million dollars for access to unexploded United States cruise missiles left over from the US attack on his bases three years ago, a senior alleged al-Qaeda agent in Europe has claimed. The alleged agent's account is in the transcript of a secretly taped conversation between supporters of Osama bin Laden obtained by The Guardian. His revelation emerged as President George Bush announced at the APEC forum in Shanghai that he had won China's support for the war on terrorism. After his first face-to-face meeting with China's President Jiang Zemin, Mr Bush said: "President Jiang and the government stand side by side with the American people as we fight this evil force". China has denied it obtained US missiles after the 1998 raid, which was in reprisal for the bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Beijing is said to have made a deal with al-Qaeda to acquire the missiles despite the fact that it was facing a growing threat from Muslim separatists in the Xinjiang region. In 1999 China accused bin Laden's organisation of training members of the independence movement in guerilla warfare. The US fired 75 missiles into Afghanistan during the attack on bin Laden's camps on August 20, 1998. A report four months later in the Pakistani newspaper Ausaf cited Taliban sources as saying that 40 were found unexploded. advertisement advertisement The story of what happened next was taken up by Lased ben Heni in a conversation with associates this year. Ben Heni, a 32-year-old Libyan arrested in Munich last week, is accused by Italian prosecutors of being the liaison officer between two terrorist cells owing allegiance to al-Qaeda in Frankfurt and Milan. On March 9, in a rundown flat in Milan, he met the leader of the Italian cell, Sami ben Khemais Essid (alias Saber) and told him of his experiences in Afghanistan visiting bin Laden's camps. Unknown to the two men, the flat was bugged by Italian anti-terrorist police. "Perhaps the Americans are convinced by the bombardment of the sheikh's [bin Laden's] training centres," ben Heni is quoted as saying. "For them it was a victory. But, in fact, it was a defeat, because the majority of the missiles didn't even explode." After a digression, the transcript continues: "With these weapons he [bin Laden] has boosted his financial resources. From every part of the world businessmen who hate Americans have come to study American missile strategy ... businessmen have come from China. He works a great deal with China. He's got good relations with them. Thanks to the money that comes from these studies from outside, he created the army of mujahideen headed by Omar Zayan (or Zaghan) in Chechnya.'' The transcript is the first supporting evidence from inside al-Qaeda of sporadic reports after the 1998 attack that China had acquired two unexploded Tomahawk missiles. In March 1999 a Chinese spokesman described the reports as groundless. The Guardian '