Bin Laden Terror

Entire Taliban-al Qaeda Force Heads for Mountain Refuges

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report November 17, 2001, 9:32 AM (GMT+02:00)

Friday, November 16, was the day Mulla Mustafa Omar ordered Taliban forces to abandon their southern stronghold of Kahandar and head for the towering Hindu Kush mountains in the north. While most of the media picked up Iran Radio's claim that Osama bin Laden had fled to Pakistan, debka ...

Bin Laden May Focus Ramadan Attacks on US and Saudi Targets

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report November 15, 2001, 9:33 AM (GMT+02:00)

According to debkafile's military sources, the United States believes that most of the Taliban's 60,000-strong fighting force and its weaponry in Afghanistan have escaped with low casualties from the heavy US bombing strikes and the lightning Northern Alliance offensive. Information from the battlefront shows no more ...

The Decisive Afghan Battle Is Still Ahead

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report November 11, 2001, 9:35 AM (GMT+02:00)

The capture of Mazar-e-Sharif was the first victory the Afghan oppositionNorthern Alliance chalked up in three years against the dominant Taliban regime. It was also the United States' first tangible achievement in a month of combat. Without detracting from the victory's strategic and propaganda importance, it must be said ...

Are Bin Laden and Saddam in Nuclear Tune?

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report November 10, 2001, 3:19 PM (GMT+02:00)

Three violently anti-American leaders suddenly burst into speechlast Wednesday, November 7 - all in the hearing of the media. The most wanted terrorist in the world, Osama bin Laden, waved his nuclear-chemical warfare threat in an interview he granted to the Pakistani editor Hamid Mir, in a secret place north of ...

Are Bin Laden and Saddam in Nuclear Tune?

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report November 10, 2001, 9:37 AM (GMT+02:00)

Three violently anti-American leaders suddenly burst into speechlast Wednesday, November 7 - all in the hearing of the media. The most wanted terrorist in the world, Osama bin Laden, waved his nuclear-chemical warfare threat in an interview he granted to the Pakistani editor Hamid Mir, in a secret place north of ...

Abdul Haq Fell into Trap Laid by Bin Laden

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report October 29, 2001, 9:41 AM (GMT+02:00)

According to debkafile's intelligence sources, one of Osama bin Laden's special elite units was responsible for the capture and death of the Afghan opposition leader and guerrilla hero Abdul Haq three days ago. The same unit, commanded by al Qaeda's senior operations chief Muhamed Atif (aka ...

Will US Setbacks Bring Nuclear Option Nearer?

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report October 28, 2001, 9:43 AM (GMT+02:00)

The United States-led Afghanistan campaign is facing grave difficulties as it enters its fourth week, notwithstanding the many tons of ordnance dropped on key Taliban targets. Saturday, the Taliban claimed to have repulsed an opposition offensive backed by US air strikes in the key northern city of Mazar-e-Sherif. While Kabul ...

Osama bin Laden's Saudi Following

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report October 23, 2001, 9:44 AM (GMT+02:00)

Osama Bin Laden may have lost his Saudi citizenship, but not his following at home. The last issue of DEBKA-Net-Weeklycarries a special survey of the master-terrorist's fundamentalist Islamic roots in the oil kingdom and his current adherents. After all, at least nine of the 19 suicide hijackers who ...

AMERICA'S WAR ON TERROR - Part III: Bin Laden May Have Small Nuclear Bombs

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report October 13, 2001, 9:50 AM (GMT+02:00)

US Vice President Dick Cheney told the American people that Al Qaida has been training terrorists to use chemical and biological weapons. He said this after the FBI denied finding links between the anthrax cases in the United States and terror. Whatever they are told, most Americans now believe their ...

AMERICA'S WAR ON TERROR - Part II: The Military Campaign Fails to Grip

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report October 13, 2001, 9:48 AM (GMT+02:00)

debkafile's military analysts define the first round of theUS assault in Afghanistan as uncertain and operationally unimaginative. In fact, it may be said that the US is reliving the 1998 Kosovo War, when it tried to break Slobodan Milosovic's rule by blasting Belgrade from the air. That ...

AMERICA'S WAR ON TERROR - Part I: The War Re-Tilts World Balance

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report October 13, 2001, 9:46 AM (GMT+02:00)

A week after US warplanes begin pounding Kabul and Kahandar, debkafile's strategic experts offer a preliminary evaluationof its outcome: While in purely military terms, the US Afghanistan campaign has achieved very little (See Part II of this analysis below), in geopolitical terms, the United States has set off ...

Bin Laden Upsets Three Applecarts

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report October 8, 2001, 9:52 AM (GMT+02:00)

Two hours into the very limited US preliminary assault in Afghanistan, its prime target the ex-Saudi Islamic fundamentalist terrorist, Osama Bin Laden, appeared in a canned videotape broadcast of Arab TV. He was got up in fundamentalist Islamic folk hero gear - an Afghan turban and battle fatigues - and filmed against ...

Fears of Terrorist Backlash

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report October 6, 2001, 3:00 PM (GMT+02:00)

US intelligence are in no doubt that a fresh wave of terrorist strikes, including possibly chemical and biological attacks, threatens the United States in the wake of a US assault on Osama Bin Laden. On September 13, two days after the devastating airliner crashes in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania ...

Bin Laden's Scattered Legions

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report September 14, 2001, 9:56 AM (GMT+02:00)

Al Qaeda ("the Base"), the militant Islamic movement the Saudi terrorist tycoon Osama Bin Laden founded in 1990, is estimated by debkafile's terror experts to number no more than 12,000 fighting men in all. They are scattered round the world, mainly in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kashmir, Yemen, Saudi ...

Beware the Second Wave

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report September 14, 2001, 9:55 AM (GMT+02:00)

debkafile's intelligence sources report that Islamic militants under the command of Saudi multimillionaire terrorist Osama Bin Laden, the radical Egyptian Jihadi Islami, Iraqi military intelligence and other Middle East groups, stand poised for a second wave of horrendous attacks in America. An estimated 30 to 50 suicide-killers are ...

Creating Red Herrings

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report September 14, 2001, 9:54 AM (GMT+02:00)

Deception and misdirection are keywords in the Bin Laden's jihad against America. The red herrings were planted well in advance of the suicide assaults in New York and Washington. debkafile picks up the false trail from the time it was laid. On August 8, RIA Novosty news agency ...

A Vast Conspiracy Hatched in the Dark?

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report September 12, 2001, 9:58 AM (GMT+02:00)

Given the scale in time and dimensions of this last appalling conspiracy against America, none of debkafile's intelligence experts can explain how it came to fruition without any Western intelligence community noticing what was going on. The pre-planning must have taken years and involved hundreds if not thousands ...

Mystery of Disappearing al-Qaeda Soldiers

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report February 27, 2001, 9:28 AM (GMT+02:00)

While US troops scour the mountains and caves for Osama bin Laden, the bulk of his al Qaeda army has also disappeared. It was found to be missing when the Northern Alliance seized control of the northern Taliban enclave of Konduz-Khanabad on Monday, November 26. Roughly 1,500 of bin ...

Al Qaeda in Sinai Has Advanced to Striking Range of the Suez Canal, Israel and Jordan

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report (GMT+02:00)

<a href="/pictures/Iraq_Sinai_3.jpg">mg class="picture" src="/dynmedia/pictures/Iraq_Sinai_3_t.jpg" align="right" border="0"></a> The emphatic advisory to Israeli travelers to stay clear of their favorite Sinai resorts for this year's High Holidays reflects incoming intelligence on the broadening threat posed by al Qaeda today. Since the Taba attacks exactly a ...