Transcript: Bin Laden determined to strike in US
Saturday, April 10, 2004 Posted: 6:51 PM EDT (2251 GMT)
The
following is a transcript of the August 6, 2001, presidential daily
briefing entitled Bin Laden determined to strike in US. Parts of the
original document were not made public by the White House for security
reasons.
Clandestine, foreign government, and media reports
indicate bin Laden since 1997 has wanted to conduct terrorist attacks
in the US. Bin Laden implied in U.S. television interviews in 1997 and
1998 that his followers would follow the example of World Trade Center
bomber Ramzi Yousef and "bring the fighting to America."
After
U.S. missile strikes on his base in Afghanistan in 1998, bin Laden told
followers he wanted to retaliate in Washington, according to a -- --
service.
An Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) operative told - -
service at the same time that bin Laden was planning to exploit the
operative's access to the U.S. to mount a terrorist strike.
The
millennium plotting in Canada in 1999 may have been part of bin Laden's
first serious attempt to implement a terrorist strike in the U.S.
Convicted
plotter Ahmed Ressam has told the FBI that he conceived the idea to
attack Los Angeles International Airport himself, but that in ---,
Laden lieutenant Abu Zubaydah encouraged him and helped facilitate the
operation. Ressam also said that in 1998 Abu Zubaydah was planning his
own U.S. attack.
Ressam says bin Laden was aware of the Los
Angeles operation. Although Bin Laden has not succeeded, his attacks
against the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 demonstrate
that he prepares operations years in advance and is not deterred by
setbacks. Bin Laden associates surveyed our embassies in Nairobi and
Dar es Salaam as early as 1993, and some members of the Nairobi cell
planning the bombings were arrested and deported in 1997.
Al
Qaeda members -- including some who are U.S. citizens -- have resided
in or traveled to the U.S. for years, and the group apparently
maintains a support structure that could aid attacks.
Two
al-Qaeda members found guilty in the conspiracy to bomb our embassies
in East Africa were U.S. citizens, and a senior EIJ member lived in
California in the mid-1990s.
A clandestine source said in 1998 that a bin Laden cell in New York was recruiting Muslim-American youth for attacks.
We
have not been able to corroborate some of the more sensational threat
reporting, such as that from a ---- service in 1998 saying that Bin
Laden wanted to hijack a U.S. aircraft to gain the release of "Blind
Sheikh" Omar Abdel Rahman and other U.S.-held extremists.
Nevertheless,
FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious
activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or
other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal
buildings in New York.
The FBI is conducting approximately 70
full-field investigations throughout the U.S. that it considers bin
Laden-related. CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our embassy
in the UAE in May saying that a group or bin Laden supporters was in
the U.S. planning attacks with explosives.