World News

Tracking Osama bin Laden

Written by Joshua Smith - 13th September, 2001

--> FULL COVERAGE: America Under Attack <--

While no organisation has yet issued a credible claim of responsibility for the attacks that devastated the sense of democratic liberty held by Americans yesterday, several indicators have pointed to the involvement of notorious anti-US terrorist leader Osama bin Laden.

Bin Laden has been either directly or indirectly involved in several serious and violent attacks against America and American interests in the past, including the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and the unprovoked attack against the USS Cole that killed seventeen US servicemen on October 12th, 2000. He is also sspected to have had ties with the group that organised the first bombing of the World Trade Center, which killed 6 people and caused millions of dollars of damage in 1993.

Evidence uncovered by the FBI ad other investigative forces regarding this latest tragedy suggests a modus operandi similar to that employed by Bin Laden and his various supporting terrorist cells in the past, while the discovery of flight manuals written in Arabic and the unveiling of the identities of all 12 terrorists involved in the suicide hijackings lead back to Bin Laden's Arabic cells.

A comment issued by Bin Laden following the disaster suggesting that the US should consider that the attackers were home-grown Americans is the last that has been heard from the notorious figure, and his whereabouts at this stage are unclear.

Reports issued by an Arabic online newspaper earlier today claimed that Afghanistan's ruling Taliban militia had placed the alleged orchestrator of the attacks under house arrest. The publication reported that fundamentalist Arab sources have made the claim that the "...Taliban have arrested Osama bin Laden before placing him under surveillance with several of his assistants," including bin Laden's military commander, Muhammad Atef Al-Makni and the head of the Egyptian branch of Al-Jihad Ayman Al-Zawahri.

This claim has yet to be confirmed by diplomats from the Taliban's embassy in Abu Dhabi, but if proven factual, this will likely be seen as testament to George Bush's determination that not only will the terrorists responsible for the atrocity be targeted, but so would the governments and groups that shield and harbour such international criminals. Already, there has been a fundamental shift in support for the extremist group, with former enemies or neutral nations of the United States vocally condemning the attacks and offering to support the US in their peacekeeping and controlled efforts of retribution.