Dear friends: where old Jerusalem was called “the City of the Covenant” in ancient days, ‘Abdu’l-Baha designated NYC USA as the City of the Covenant upon his arrival in 1912 on April 11th (4-11). The Times Square Attack coming in the wake of official Trump announcement of Jerusalem as Capital City for the US Embassy for Israel (thus signaling Palestinian State Issues) motivates me to share this important letter from more recent days. I remain yours, your servant, Neal.
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“And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.” (Rev. 22:19 KJV).
Dear All,
When we predicted the attacks on NYC, we explained that the prophecy is not the cause of the attacks. The cause is the double standard that the US has against the Muslim peoples. In 1991 Saddam Hussein made the key issue of this double standard the Palestine State Issue. When Saddam focused on the Palestinian State issue then Usama b. Laden joined up with him (see Newsweek, January 1999 attached below).
As the Palestinians were denied their statehood on 9-11 of the year 2000 — a year later to the day is the 9-11 event. The current issue of the Palestine State is extremely relevant and important to both what is about to happen next and when. Thus the scriptures state: “I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb and he spake like a dragon” (Rev. 13:11 KJV).
Dr. Jensen explains that the dragon is Islam, and therefore this second beast is the Islamic power that is left in the world today. It has two horns, which are the two divisions of Islam into Sunni and Shi’ite. It is like a lamb because it is weak. However it states that this Islamic power: “doeth great wonders, so that it maketh fire come down from heaven in the sight of men” (Rev. 13:13 KJV).
Another way to say sight is “vision” — This refers to the television where all the people saw the attacks by Jihadist Muslims against NYC and the 9-11 on live television in the sight of men. We gave these predictions based on these infallible prophecies many years before these events came to pass. We stated who would do it, why they would do it, where they would do it, and when then would do it. These are the words of the prophecy of the book of Revelation:
“And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.” (Rev. 22:19 KJV).
Dr. Jensen explains:
“The “fire” which comes “down from heaven” is the thermonuclear war which the Arab nations will trigger by THEIR ACTIONS, in response to the big bully. ” http://entrybytroops.uhj.net/revelation13.html
In order to win our stations as active Baha’i guides and teachers, it is essential that we ALL become educated to the FACTS and to the TRUTH as one voice in the NEW SONG, the song of the Lamb on these teaching points which are spoken of in the Book of Revelation, lest “God shall take away his part” as Jesus said, “if thy eye offend thee, pluck it out,” etc.
Now the reason many are suspicious that the US government had foreknowledge of the 9-11 before it happened is because they did: FROM US!! We sent them all the data and facts they needed to prevent these things. They did not heed our warnings; and the events happened just as we foretold. Now more is yet to come, in aggression between the East and West, between Muslim, Jew and Christian, as they remain stubborn, and fail to implement our guidance for the amicable solutions to these root problems.
For this reason, at the request of many of the friends, I am re-posting, some important facts of the connection of the Palestine State issue to the motive of the East against the West in the current war, and how these Middle Eastern issues pertain not only to the problem which is the cause of the Islamic attacks again the west, but also to the ultimate solution which is issuing forth from the Covenant of Baha’u’llah and the sacred Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-Baha.
Your servant,
Neal,
Guardian.
Attachments:
I.
UN Israel-Palestine Sept 2011
| This September 2011, the Palestinian State issue is scheduled to come before the UN.
The last time this was set and thwarted was Sept 11, 2000. A year later on that very day was the 9-11. This is the underlying reason for that day as we have said previously.
The following is a significant article form the NY Times about this: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/03/world/middleeast/03mideast.html “We are facing a diplomatic-political tsunami that the majority of the public is unaware of and that will peak in September,” said Ehud Barak, Israel’s defense minister”
To further deepen on this issue quickly is “Israel’s Story in Maps”. Looking at the history through these maps with brief explanations will orient anyone quickly to easily understand the key points of this issue since Baha’u’llah’s arrival in the Holy Land to the present day. Four pdf documents at this link: http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Facts+About+Israel/Israel+in+Maps/ Lastly, it should be pointed out that when we calculated the dates of 9-11 2000-2001, we were looking to see what was to occur at that time.
It was September, 13, 2000 that Palestine was to face their crucial deadline. http://www.jcpa.org/art/becker2.htm
However, the UN meeting Millennium Summit Sept. 8, 2000 crushed these hopes forcing the Palestinian National Council (PNC) to cancel declaring its independent statehood on September 11, 2000 two days before the deadline.
This was thus all thwarted at that pivotal date (9-11-2000) and then gas thrown on the fire when Arial Sharon went up on the temple mount, in September 2000 setting off the second Intifada also called the al-Aqsa Intifada. One year later to the day was the 9-11, 2001. Simultaneous with the failure of the Palestine State on September 11, 2000 was this official announcement from Al-Sabah, the official publication of the Palestinian Authority, dated September 11, 2000 which declared: “We will advance and declare a general intifada for Jerusalem. The time for the intifada has arrived, the time for intifada has arrived, the time for Jihad has arrived.” http://www.jcpa.org/jl/vp470.htm In Israel, Time for Peace Offer May Run Out Published: April 2, 2011 JERUSALEM: With revolutionary fervor sweeping the Middle East, Israel is under mounting pressure to make a far-reaching offer to the Palestinians or face a United Nations vote welcoming the State of Palestine as a member whose territory includes all of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.
The Palestinian Authority has been steadily building support for such a resolution in September, a move that could place Israel into a diplomatic vise. Israel would be occupying land belonging to a fellow United Nations member, land it has controlled and settled for more than four decades and some of which it expects to keep in any two-state solution.
“We are facing a diplomatic-political tsunami that the majority of the public is unaware of and that will peak in September”, said Ehud Barak, Israel’s defense minister, at a conference in Tel Aviv last month. “It is a very dangerous situation, one that requires action”. He added, “Paralysis, rhetoric, inaction will deepen the isolation of Israel.” With aides to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thrashing out proposals to the Palestinians, President Shimon Peres is due at the White House on Tuesday to meet with President Obama and explore ways out of the bind. The United States is still uncertain how to move the process forward, according to diplomats here.
Israel’s offer is expected to include transfer of some West Bank territory outside its settlements to Palestinian control and may suggest a regional component, an international conference to serve as a response to the Arab League peace initiatives.
But Palestinian leaders, emboldened by support for their statehood bid, dismiss the expected offer as insufficient and continue to demand an end to settlement building before talks can begin.
“We want to generate pressure on Israel to make it feel isolated and help it understand that there can be no talks without a stop to settlements.” said Nabil Shaath, who leads the foreign affairs department of Fatah, the main party of the Palestinian Authority. “Without that, our goal is membership in the United Nations General Assembly in September.”
Israeli, Palestinian and Western officials interviewed on the current impasse, most of them requesting anonymity, expressed an unusual degree of pessimism about a peaceful resolution. All agreed that the turmoil across the Middle East had prompted opposing responses from Israel and much of the world.
Israel, seeing the prospect of even more hostile governments as its neighbors, is insisting on caution and time before taking any significant steps. It also wants to build in extensive long-term security guarantees in any two-state solution, but those inevitably infringe the sovereignty of a Palestinian state.
The international community tends to draw the opposite conclusion. Foreign Secretary William Hague of Britain, for example, said last week that one of the most important lessons to be learned from the Arab Spring was that “legitimate aspirations cannot be ignored and must be addressed.” He added, referring to Israeli-Palestinian talks, “It cannot be in anyone’s interests if the new order of the region is determined at a time of minimum hope in the peace process.”
The Palestinian focus on September stems not only from the fact that the General Assembly holds its annual meeting then. It is also because Prime Minister Salam Fayyad announced in September 2009 that his government would be ready for independent statehood in two years and that Mr. Obama said last September that he expected the framework for an independent Palestinian state to be declared in a year.
Mr. Obama did not indicate what the borders of that state would be, assuming they would be determined through direct negotiations. But with Israeli-Palestinian talks broken off months ago and the Middle East in the process of profound change, many argue that outside pressure is needed.
Germany, France and Britain say negotiations should be based on the 1967 lines with equivalent land swaps, exactly what the Netanyahu government rejects because it says it predetermines the outcome.
“Does the world think it is going to force Israel to declare the 1967 lines and giving up Jerusalem as a basis for negotiation?” asked a top Israeli official who spoke on condition of anonymity. ”That will never happen.”
While the Obama administration has referred in the past to the 1967 lines as a basis for talks, it has not decided whether to back the European Union, the United Nations and Russia “the other members of the so-called quartet” in declaring them the starting point, diplomats said. The quartet meets on April 15 in Berlin.
Israel, which has settled hundreds of thousands of Jews inside the West Bank and East Jerusalem, acknowledges that it will have to withdraw from much of the land it now occupies there. But it hopes to hold onto the largest settlement blocs and much of East Jerusalem as well as the border to the east with Jordan and does not want to enter into talks with the other side’s position as the starting point.
That was true even before its closest ally in the Arab world, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, was driven from power, helping fuel protest movements that now roil other countries, including Jordan, which has its own peace agreement with Israel.
“Whatever we put forward has to be grounded in security arrangements because of what is going on regionally,” said Zalman Shoval, one of a handful of Netanyahu aides drawing up the Israeli proposal that may be delivered as a speech to the United States Congress in May. “We are facing the rebirth of the eastern front as Iran grows strong. We have to secure the Jordan Valley. And no Israeli government is going to move tens of thousands of Israelis from their homes quickly.”
Those Israelis live in West Bank settlements, the source of much of the disagreement not only with the Palestinians but with the world. Not a single government supports Israel’s settlements. The Palestinians say the settlements are proof that the Israelis do not really want a Palestinian state to arise since they are built on land that should go to that state.
“All these years, the main obstacle to peace has been the settlements”, Nimer Hammad, a political adviser to President Abbas, said. “They always say, ”but you never made it a condition of negotiations before.” And we say, “that was a mistake.” ”
The Israelis counter that the real problem is Palestinian refusal to accept openly a Jewish state here and ongoing anti-Israeli incitement and praise of violence on Palestinian airwaves.
Another central obstacle to the establishment of a State of Palestine has been the division between the West Bank and Gaza, the first run by the Palestinian Authority and the second by Hamas. Lately, President Abbas has sought to bridge the gap, asking to go to Gaza to seek reconciliation through an agreed interim government that would set up parliamentary and presidential elections.
But Hamas, worried it would lose such elections and hopeful that the regional turmoil could work in its favor “that Egypt, for example, might be taken over by its ally, the Muslim Brotherhood “ has reacted coolly.
Efforts are still under way to restart peace talks but if, as expected, negotiations do not resume, come September the Palestinian Authority seems set to go ahead with plans to ask the General Assembly to accept it as a member. Diplomats involved in the issue say most countries “more than 100” are expected to vote yes, meaning it will pass. What happens then?
Some Palestinian leaders say relations with Israel would change.
“We will re-examine our commitments toward Israel, especially our security commitments”, suggested Hanna Amireh, who is on the 18-member ruling board of the Palestine Liberation Organization, referring to cooperation between Palestinian and Israeli troops. “The main sense about Israel is that we are fed up.”
Mr. Shaath said Israel would then be in daily violation of the rights of a fellow member state and diplomatic and legal consequences could follow, all of which would be painful for Israel. In the Haaretz newspaper on Thursday, Ari Shavit, who is a political centrist, drew a comparison between 2011 and the biggest military setback Israel ever faced, the 1973 war.
He wrote that “2011 is going to be a diplomatic 1973” because a Palestinian state will be recognized internationally. “Every military base in the West Bank will be contravening the sovereignty of an independent U.N. member state.” He added, “A diplomatic siege from without and a civil uprising from within will grip Israel in a stranglehold.”
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction: Correction: April 10, 2011
A Diplomatic Memo article last Sunday, about the growing possibility that, even without an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement, the United Nations General Assembly might approve a resolution in September granting statehood to Palestinians on Israeli-controlled land referred incompletely to the options available to the United States for blocking such a resolution. It has no veto power in the General Assembly, as the article stated, but such a resolution would first require a recommendation from the Security Council, where the United States could exercise a veto.
Arabs resigned to delay of Palestinian state September 11, 2000
CAIRO, Egypt (Reuters) — Arabs grimly acknowledged on Monday that Palestinians had little choice but to defer their statehood dream, but some saw peace talks with Israel as futile.
Few Arab governments commented on Sunday’s widely expected decision by the PLO Central Council to postpone declaring an independent state that Palestinian President Yasser Arafat had vowed to proclaim as early as September 13.
The official Arab silence seemed to signal quiet relief at a move that allows more time for a negotiated final peace with Israel and defuses prospects for violent confrontation.
“We are determined to do what needs to be done to save the peace process and, therefore, regain our land and rights,” Palestinian Planning Minister Nabil Shaath told Egyptian radio, adding that the council would review the issue on November 15.
November 15 is the anniversary of a declaration of statehood which Arafat made from exile in Algiers in 1988.
Senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said the delay was a vote for the peace process. “We hope that we can conclude an agreement this year and with that we can have our own state by agreement. The decision last night was to recommit ourselves to peace as a strategic option,” he told Israel’s Army Radio.
Sign of weakness
Yet many Arabs viewed the PLO decision as an expression of Arab and Palestinian feebleness in the face of an expansionist Israel unwilling to concede basic Palestinian rights, particularly sovereignty over Arab East Jerusalem.
In Damascus, two radical groups — the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine — criticized the delay.
“Israel wants the establishment of an unarmed Palestinian state which is deprived of the right to sign any defensive deals with any of its Arab neighboring countries in addition to the cancellation of Palestinian refugees’ rights to return to their homes,” DFLP leader Nayef Hawatmeh told Reuters.
“If Arafat had announced the Palestinian state…it would not have been like (northern) Cyprus that nobody recognizes except Turkey,” grumbled Egypt’s state-owned al-Akhbar daily, arguing that 180 countries would endorse a Palestinian state.
“But, as usual, Israel prevented this with threats (of retaliation) in the event of unilateral Palestinian action and the United States is supporting Israel on that,” it said.
Egyptian analyst Tahseen Bashir, once adviser to the late President Anwar Sadat, said the PLO decision was weak.
“What has been implemented of the (1993) Oslo accords does not give the Palestinians sovereignty over their land and Israel controls the Palestinian economy,” the former diplomat said.
“These defects made it difficult for the Palestinians to declare their independence without Israeli agreement.”
In Jordan, which hosts some 1.4 million registered Palestinian refugees, residents of the sprawling Baqa’a refugee camp accused their leaders of caving in to U.S. pressure and some called for violence to seize Palestinian rights.
“The Palestinian leadership fixed a date for the declaration of the Palestinian state, but did not go ahead with it. This is a sign of cowardice,” complained Fayez Ahmed, 55.
No gain for refugees
In Ain al-Hilweh, Lebanon’s largest Palestinian refugee camp, many said delaying statehood by months, or even years, would make little difference to their 52-year-old plight. They said that without Israeli recognition, proclaiming a sovereign country would be meaningless, though some spoke wistfully of their need for state protection, however symbolic.
“We want peace,” said 70-year-old Ibrahim Moghrabi, sitting on the pavement outside his tiny tin-roofed grocery shop.
“This delay does not harm us in any way and if it means that we are giving peace another chance, then we support it.”
Abu Nasser Hussein, an elderly tailor who hails from Safad, in Galilee, scoffed at the idea of declaring a state that would not lead to the return of land occupied by Israel since 1948. “I don’t support this state business if it doesn’t mean that every inch of our land will come back to us,” he said. “The Israelis and the Arabs are conspiring against us. We know that if Abu Ammar (Arafat) had declared a state it would not have had any meaning.” Aytaf Hamed, clutching her baby daughter, said she craved to belong to a state. “Palestinians live a very hard life in Lebanon, we’re lucky if we get work as garbage collectors.
“My husband is unemployed although he’s an expert builder and I have to work to support our kids. We need a state to protect us and to end the humiliation and misery we live in.” An estimated 365,000 Palestinian refugees live in Lebanon, where they are denied many civil rights, barred from 70 professions and regarded as a potential source of violence.
Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. |
II.
Saddam Warned of WTC Attack Before 9/11, Praised Bin Laden Afterwards
NEWSMAX | 3-28-04 | Carl Limbacher.
Why did the Bush administration immediately suspect that Iraq was behind the 9/11 attacks when there was no evidence of any connection, as Richard Clarke and other Bush critics maintain?
Maybe it was because there was indeed evidence, very dramatic evidence, in fact – in the form of warnings in the state-run Iraqi press that such an attack was coming, along with praise for Osama bin Laden and his kamikaze hijackers in the days after the World Trade Center was destroyed.
Less than two months before 9/11, the state-controlled Iraqi newspaper “Al-Nasiriya” carried a column headlined, “America, An Obsession Called Osama Bin Ladin.” [July 21, 2001] In the piece, Baath Party writer Naeem Abd Muhalhal predicted that bin Laden would attack the U.S. “with the seriousness of the Bedouin of the desert about the way he will try to bomb the Pentagon after he destroys the White House.”
The same state-approved column also insisted that bin Laden “will strike America on the arm that is already hurting,” and that the U.S. “will curse the memory of Frank Sinatra every time he hears his songs” – an apparent reference to the Sinatra classic, “New York, New York.” [Two 9/11 families were awarded over $100 million last May by U.S. District Court Judge Harold Baer based on this and other evidence that Iraq was involved in 9/11]
Saddam’s threats of a 9/11-style attack before 9/11 weren’t limited to that single report. In 1992, his son Uday used an editorial in Babil, the newspaper he ran, to warn of Iraqi kamikaze attacks inside America, saying, “Does the United States realize the meaning of every Iraqi becoming a missile that can cross countries and cities?”
Then in the late 1990s, according to UPI, “a cable to Saddam from the chief of Iraqi intelligence was transmitted by Baghdad Radio. The message read, ‘We will chase [Americans] to every corner at all times. No high tower of steel will protect them against the fire of truth.'”
Coincidence? Perhaps.
But after the 9/11 attacks, Saddam became the only world leader to offer praise for bin Laden, even as other terrorist leaders, like Yassir Arafat, went out of their way to make a show of sympathy to the U.S. by donating blood to 9/11 victims on camera.
The day after the attacks, in quotes picked up by Agence France Press, Saddam proclaimed that “America is reaping the thorns planted by its rulers in the world.”
“There is hardly a place (in the world) that does not have a memorial symbolizing the criminal actions committed by America against its natives,” AFP quoted the Iraqi dictator complaining, based on reports in the Iraqi News agency.
After excoriating the U.S. for ending World War II by using nuclear weapons, and for its involvement in Vietnam, Saddam gloated, “[He] who does not want to reap evil must not sow it, and [he] who considers the lives of his people precious must remember that the lives of the people in the world are precious also.”
“The American peoples should remember that no one ever crossed the Atlantic carrying weapons to be used against them. They are the ones who crossed the Atlantic carrying death, destruction and ugly exploitation to the whole world.”
A day later Saddam told visiting Tunisian Foreign Minister Habib ben Yahya, “America brought the hatred of the world upon itself.”
For his part Uday flat-out praised the 9/11 attacks, saying, “These were courageous operations carried out by young Arabs and Muslims,” according to quotes picked up by the Saudi daily Asharq al-Awsat.
As Richard Clarke and his fans in the Democrat-media complex report in ominous tones that President Bush ordered him to launch an unwarranted investigation into the 9/11-Iraq connection, it’s worth remembering how much Iraq had done justify that order.
THIS IS PRIOR TO 2001:
Saddam + Bin Laden?
It would be a marriage made in hell. And America’s two enemies are courting.
Authors: Christopher Dickey, Gregory L. Vistica and Russell Watson
with Joseph Contreras in Jerusalem
January 11, 1999
NEWSWEEK
Volume 133, Issue 2, pages: 34-36
IN THE NO-FLY ZONES OF northern and southern Iraq, Saddam Hussein’s gunners blindly fired surface-to-air missiles at patrolling American and British warplanes. In Yemen, terrorists seized a group of British Commonwealth and American tourists, and four of the hostages died in a shootout. In Tel Aviv, the U.S. Embassy abruptly closed down after receiving a terrorist threat. Perhaps it was just a typical week in the Middle East. But in a region where no one puts much faith in blind coincidence, last week’s conjunction of Iraqi anti-aircraft fire and terrorism aimed at the countries that had just bombed Iraq convinced some that a new conspiracy was afoot.
Here’s what is known so far: Saddam Hussein, who has a long record of supporting terrorism, is trying to rebuild Ms intelligence network overseas – assets that would allow him to establish a terrorism network. U.S. sources say he is reaching out to Islamic terrorists, including some who may be linked to Osama bin Laden, the wealthy Saudi exile accused of masterminding the bombing of two U.S. embassies in Africa last summer. U.S. intelligence has had reports of contacts between low-level agents. Saddam and bin Laden have interests – and enemies – in common. Both men want U.S. military forces out of Saudi Arabia. Bin Laden has been calling for all-out war on Americans, using as his main pretext Washington’s role in bombing and boycotting Iraq. Now bin Laden is engaged in something of a public-relations offensive, having granted recent interviews, one for NEWSWEEK (following story). He says “any American who pays taxes to his government” is a legitimate target.
Saddam’s terrorism capability is still small-time, according to senior U.S. officials. “He’s nowhere close to the level of the Iranians or Hezbollah,” says one. But terrorism may be Iraq’s growth industry. An Arab intelligence officer who knows Saddam personally and stays in touch with his clandestine services predicts that “very soon you will be witnessing large-scale terrorist activity run by the Iraqis.” The attacks, he says, would be aimed at American and British targets in the Islamic world. Washington is somewhat skeptical, but this source says plans have already been put into action under three “false flags”: one Palestinian, one Iranian and one “the AL Qaeda apparatus,” the loose collection of terrorists who receive bin Laden’s patronage. “All these organizations have representatives in Baghdad,” says the Arab intelligence officer.
According to this source, Saddam expected last month’s American and British bombing campaign to go on much longer than it did. The dictator believed that as the attacks continued, indignation would grow in the Muslim world, making his terrorism offensive both harder to trace and more effective. With acts of terror contributing to chaos in the region, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait might feel less inclined to support Washington. Saddam’s long-term strategy, according to several sources, is to bully or cajole Muslim countries into breaking the embargo against Iraq, without waiting for the United Nations to lift it formally. With the sudden end of the allied air offensive, the Iraqi challenge to U.S. and British overflights in the exclusion zones may have been Saddam’s way of keeping the regional pot boiling.
Early last week, an Iraqi air-defense battery fired three surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) at U.S. warplanes over the northern zone. Two days later, the Iraqis launched several SAMs at four British Tornado jets over the southern zone. The allies responded with smart bombs that damaged some of the mobile launchers. The Iraqis announced they would continue to fire at allied planes over both zones, but a Pentagon spokesman said there was a “very low likelihood” they would hit anything.
Apart from wanting to taunt Bill Clinton, Saddam has good reason for challenging the no-fly zones, especially the one in the south. The Iraqi opposition in the region is mostly Shute Muslim, supported by fellow believers in Iran, which has already trained thousands of Iraqi exiles to fight in units known as the Badr Brigades. Saddam’s nightmare, however unlikely, is that Iran and the United States will combine to overthrow him, using the southern Shiites as foot soldiers.
Tensions in the Middle East probably will rise sharply in the coming year, and not just because of Saddam. The governments of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Turkey and Iran have all been hobbled by ill leaders or political squabbling. The Arab-Israeli peace process is stalled again, with Israel facing an election in May – just when the Palestinians threaten a unilateral declaration of statehood. The threat to the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv seems to have had no connection to Saddam or bin Laden. Intelligence sources said an odd collection of Iranians, Armenians, Russian gangsters and members of the militant Hamas movement were supposed to be planning a strike against the seaside embassy building. “Our guys didn’t put a lot of credence in it,” says a U.S. counterterrorism expert. But American officials in Israel have reason to be edgy. When the CIA was assigned to help implement the latest Arab Israeli peace agreement, the name of the agency’s station chief – who has an office in the embassy – became public. Now a U.S. official says the station chief and his case officers are being watched by terrorists. Revealing the names “created a possible target,” complains a White House aide.
Though it was too early to know for sure, the CIA suspected that bin Laden had a hand in the abduction of 16 foreign tourists in Yemen last week. Four of the hostages – three Britons and an Australian were killed when the police intervened, and two others, including an American woman, were wounded. Most kidnappings in Yemen are strictly cash-and-carry affairs, in which tribal desperadoes raise money without harming their captives. But these kidnappers, who came from a Yemeni group calling itself Islamic Jihad, demanded that the authorities release two of their leaders, who have ties to bin Laden. And they said they were protesting Western “aggression” against Iraq.
The idea of an alliance between Iraq and bin Laden is alarming to the West (what if Baghdad gave the terrorists highly portable biological weapons?). Saddam may think he’s too good for such an association. Jerold Post, a political psychologist and government consultant who has profiled Saddam, says he thinks of himself as a world leader like Castro or Tito, not a thug. “I’m skeptical that Saddam would resort to terrorism,” says a well-informed administration official. “He can do a lot of other things to screw with us.” But Saddam is famous for doing whatever it takes to stay in power. Now that the United States has made his removal from office a national objective, he knows he is fighting for his life. “The worst thing you can do is to wound him, let him know you meant to kill him, and then let him survive,” says an Iraqi Shiite leader in London. As his own people know only too well, Saddam is quite capable of fighting dirty.
A New Mideast Axis?
While Saddam turned the sides over Iraq into a shooting gallery, bin Laden ran a terrorist training camp near Kandahar.
Saddam + Bin Laden? Newsweek article from January 11, 1999
On January 11, 1999, an article appeared in Newsweek titled “Saddam + Bin Laden?” The sub headline declared, “It would be a marriage made in hell. And America’s two enemies are courting.” This article, which matter of factly points out that Saddam Hussein has a long history of supporting terrorism, says Saddam is now reaching out to Islamic terrorists including those associated with Osama bin Laden according to U.S. intelligence reports. The article also points out that, in the prior week alone, several surface-to-air missiles were fired at U.S. and British planes patrolling the no-fly zones and that Saddam is now fighting for his life now that the U.S. has made his removal from office a national objective.