Benjamin C. Works, Executive Director

--Celebrating Chaos Theory Since 1990--

_

SIT 8-19; Wednesday. August 19, 1998

"We have important work to do --real opportunities to seize, real problems to solve, real security matters to face."

Though our commander-in-chief is on vacation, there is a real "security matter" to face up to and it may be handled from Martha's Vineyard if need be. This is a real and ongoing crisis coincident with Mr. Clinton's personal crisis. "The game is afoot," but this is not a wag the dog situation, this is war.

Over the weekend the US decided to tighten security around its embassy in Tirana and to evacuate all non-essential personnel. Some 300 US Marines and a Navy SEAL platoon went in to the Albanian capital to protect US housing as well as the embassy. The Tosk-led government of the troubled republic announced it would tighten immigration procedures. The problem is two-fold; a continued trickle of volunteers and cash to the outlaw KLA which controls most of Northern Albania, and a chronic presence of Islamic radicals and terrorists dating back to the regime of Sali Berisha's Geg-dominated government, which collapsed last year in the infamous pyramid scheme's crescendo.

There was a corresponding flurry in Malaysia as well; that Islamic economy is suffering from the "Asian.Contagion" and there is much discontent focused at America. The independent Islamic bomber-followers of Osama bin Laden, Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman (now in a New York Prison for his role in the World Trade Center bombing) and other like minded conspirators, are to be found in Malaysia, the southern Philippines and Indonesia, as well as the Middle East and Afghanistan. That makes for a broad battlefield in which to find a few determined bombers.

The bombs in Africa woke everybody up, of course, and the magnitude of the problem of non-state-sponsored Islamic terrorism is going to propel a change in attitude in many capitals. There is virtual certitude that Osama bin Laden's cabal is responsible --certitude to the point that direct retaliation is obligatory. Even his Saudi sympathizers who lauded his ongoing campaign against Israel and his stated purpose of maneuvering the military infidels out of Arabia are disturbed. An associate of SIRIUS who spends time consulting in Saudi, himself, sent the following quick note yesterday afternoon:

"[A] Friend just back from Riyadh indicates that local thought, unofficially and clearly off the record, is that Osama ibn Laden is indeed the sponsor of the terrorist bombings in Africa, and is becoming a burdensome problem to the Royal family. Even [Crown Prince] Abdullah can't be certain of Osama's intent any more, and worry beads are emerging."

This may be why Pakistan so rapidly arrested and returned the suspected bomber to Kenya and the FBI despite its sponsorship of Taliban. Their client terrorists have turned unpredictable and unstable and Osama has metamorphasized into a homocidal Caliban.

Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are two of only three countries which recognize the Taliban government of Afghanistan and the war there has absorbed most Islamic Fundamentalist energy since the war with the Soviets began in 1980. But Osama's headquarters has grown, mutated, and now poses a clear and present danger to internal order in Islamic countries as well as posing a threat to America, Israel and non-Islamic countries such as Kenya --which Osama's men blame for assisting in the suppression of Islam in Somalia during the US-led intervention in 1992-94.

A clearer picture of the Bin Laden conspiracy is emerging as a key suspect, Mohammed Saddiq Odeh discloses details to the FBI in Nairobi. A Palestinian trained in Afghanistan, Odeh had been deported from Pakistan in connection with the August 7 bombing that killed 247 people and wounded 5,000. Pakistan has apprehended two more surviving conspirators and clear linkages from Osama back to the Al Khobar bomb of 1996 and a prior bomb in Riyadh in late 1995 are being made. Those two events killed 24 American service personnel.

It turns out that Saddiq Odeh was the bomb-maker for Nairobi and departed Kenya for a return to Afghanistan on the day before the August 7^th bomb detonations. He used some 1700 pounds of TNT, rather than Semtex, to create the explosion. Four collaborators (2 Palestinians, a Saudi and an Egyptian) assisted and three of them died in the explosion, apparently thanks to the last-minute skirmish with a Kenyan guard and a US Marine embassy guard. Osama's bombers are not kamikazes by intent.

According to reports from Egypt the Islamic International Front for Fighting Jews and Crusaders issued its first statement in February in the form of a fatwa, or religious edict, from several radical Islamist leaders, including Saudi-born Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden, now based in Afghanistan, is the key suspect in orchestrating the bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.

Other signatories to the front's first statement were Ayman al-Zawahri, leader of Egypt's Jihad group, Rifai Taha, head of Egypt's Gama'a al-Islamiya (Islamic Group), Mir Hamza, secretary general of Pakistan's Ulema Society, Fadl al-Rahman Khalil, chief of Harkat-ul-Ansar in Pakistan, and Abdel Salam Mohammed, who heads the Jihad Movement in Bangladesh. Taha now denies involvement against America. This grouping indicates that the cabal is Sunni and therefore not at all connected to the Ayatollahs of Shiite Iran in any way other than a kindred interest in eliminating Israel. In fact, Iran opposes the Taliban government of Afghanistan, the only visible sponsor of these independent bombers.

The Front has a broadly-defined war plan and there are no innocents in their minds.

Per Reuters, the latest Front statement said: ``When the formation of the Army for the Liberation of the Holy Places was announced through these operations it was then clear to all, including the American people, that we were not lying when we gave warnings.''

The front specified that the U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam had ``supervised the killings of 13,000 Somali civilians when the United States led an aggression against this Moslem country in 1993'' --the U.N. relief mission.

``It was not the intention of the Islamic Army to hurt any Kenyan citizens and the responsibility for the whole operation lies squarely with America. America should compensate the Kenyan people for bringing war to their land,'' the Front declared. "Your (Kenyan) government is at fault for bringing death to your country by letting America use your land to kill Moslems in neighbouring countries and besiege their economies.'' The Front also considers Kenya and Tanzania's governments to be in league with Israel.

Mme Albright and Ambassador Bill Richardson both made clear to the New York Times and the rest of the press that they would love to see Taliban hand over Bin Laden peaceably in exchange for diplomatic recognition by the US --mark that Plan A. But if Taliban will not play, then the US has to consider --given Albright's warlike declarations-- getting Bin Laden the old fashioned way --Plan B.

Some may find this following discussion a bit of a compromise of security and I am acutely aware of the need for operational security (or "OpSec"), an element the Clinton team usually ignores in their need to leak lurid details. I will keep this as general as possible, and you Beret-types can bet that planted stories will soon hit the Administration's favored newspapers and magazines. Ms Lewinsky had beyond-top secret clearance, after all.

Looking again at statements made by SecDef Cohen in Georgia and SecState Albright in Nairobi, we have made what is effectively a declaration of war against Osama's cabal and that requires follow-through against a criminal-terrorist enterprise.

The speed with which information of such substantial detail hits the Press raises my hackles as this pattern usually means an imminent counter-action is contemplated and even underway. With our President lying doggo in Martha's Vineyard for two weeks, there is an opportunity and the moon phase favors stealthy operators.

The problem with a non-state group as Bin Laden's is that there are few, if any, "centers of gravity" to strike back at. If Osama and his hard core are sitting around in his palatial cave headquarters in the Afghan boondocks, that could be a target for a combined strike by the US and select allies or a joint-strike by our Special Operations Command supported by CIA electronic and human assets.

Such strikes are more common in Tom Clancy novels than in reality, but rare in real life. The planning though would be well understood from an attack point of view, and though Afghanistan is fairly remote, it is not out of reach. But Osama may not be content to sit still as an easy target and may go on the dodge, like Saddam. In such a circumstance the US would have to lean heavily on Pakistan, which effectively controls Taliban, in order to shut down this destabilizing group. Further, his terrorist cells and sympathizers are scattered around the world, from the Philippines to France and Brooklyn. I would expect a wide-spread swoop-down on suspects to hit in several countries at once as a companion operation.

The greater problem in contemplating a direct strike is setting the political and diplomatic stage, particularly assuring Arab opinion is under control. Here we have to see how the details play in the press and in the bazaars and mosques.

From Clinton's point of view, nothing would be more timely than for such a direct action take place while he is on vacation, sweating out the aftershocks of his preposterous speech regarding the Starr investigations. I think the timing is necessary and analytically defensible, but his politically-inspired foes will propose a cynical timing: when in trouble at home, the tyrant always finds a foreign diversion, as Plato observed in The Republic --the Wag the Dog principle. A direct hit on Osama would partially restore credibility and reputation, though not permanently. It would also square the books on the Al Khobar bombing of our Air Force personnel. It is the sad truth that when the great leader is wounded and struggling, opportunists of many stripes independently advance their initiatives in a relative power vacuum to the extent of creating the appearance of a concerted conspiracy. As Clinton remains weak others will take their shots, as I have warned at the beginning of the month. Nairobi and Dar Es Salaam were proof of my thesis.

This awkward problem of whether or not we can get Osama out the easy-legal way again underscores the vainglory of the UN-Feminist campaign against Taliban. The powers in Kabul are not disposed to cooperate with the Clinton White House unless heavily borne upon by the Pakistani Army, or unless the UN Feminist campaign is torpedoed, making a police round-up of Osama's inner circle improbable. But it is also true that Taliban has no ability to obstruct a surprise strike in the boondocks. So they can overplay their hand. Meanwhile, Mme Albright has been caught in a material compromise of all her prior pronouncements in favor of Afghan Women's rights --and I do sympathize with the plight of the Afghan women, but know that our public policy was the wrong course to take and played into Taliban's hands.

Mr. Clinton is fortunate to have selected a Green Beret-Special Operations Command veteran as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. General Shelton will know several ways of acting. A strike could be in the form of cruise missiles only, or in the form of an airborne commando raid. While I would argue for commandos and for them to try to grab some prisoners along with physical evidence, the President has an aversion to risking lives and tends to prefer symbolic Tomahawk strikes in most cases. In this case, Osama has earned an attack "with extreme prejudice" and if the cabal is to be crippled, documentary evidence from his headquarters is necessary.

Meanwhile, somebody is going to have to clean up Northern Albania and restore some semblance of the rule of law there. One element of a concerted campaign, as Serbian observers have repeatedly warned us, is to ensure that Albania and Bosnia do not become secure bases for Islamic terrorists operating in and against Europe. We'll see how that gets handled and some of my sources still think the KLA will make another try in Macedonia before this is through. Skirmishing continues in Kosovo and Belgrade does not expect talks with the Rugova coalition to begin this week.

© Copyright 1998 Benjamin C. Works-SIRIUS