'US was warned of bin Laden'

2005-08-17 14:07

Washington - The state department warned the administration of then president Bill Clinton back in July 1996 that Osama bin Laden's move to Afghanistan would make him a bigger threat, reported The New York Times newspaper on Wednesday.

An analyst warned: "His prolonged stay in Afghanistan - where hundreds of 'Arab mujahedeen' receive terrorist training and key extremist leaders often congregate - could prove more dangerous to United States interests in the long run than his three-year liaison with Khartoum," in Sudan.

The warning, included in declassified documents provided to the newspaper by the conservative legal advocacy group, Judicial Watch, referred to the al-Qaeda leader's expulsion from Sudan under international pressure.

Before the assessment, bin Laden was considered more as a financier of terrorism than a mastermind.

Clinton administration criticised

When he moved to Afghanistan, analysts suspected he was taking a more active role, including in the June 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 US soldiers.

The Clinton administration in the past had been criticised for failing to go after bin Laden with more determination.

In 1998, it failed to capture or kill him in Afghanistan after al-Qaeda's bombing of two US embassies in East Africa.

Adam Ereli of the state department said the top-secret assessment should be viewed in the context of what was happening globally in 1996, rather than in the hindsight of events after the attacks of September 11 2001.

Ereli said in 1996 "the question was getting him out of Sudan".

He said before the East Africa bombings, bin Laden "wasn't recognised as the threat he is now.

"Yes, he was a bad guy, he was a threat, but he was one of many, and by no means of the prominence that he later came to be."

- AFP