“When military action was finally taken against bin Laden, it proved to be ineffective and even counterproductive. On August 20, 1998, U.S. warships in the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf fired a series of cruise missiles at four terrorist training camps. …The bombing of the terrorist training camps was carried out even though bin Laden […]
Category: quotes
8/20/1998
Regarding the August 20, 1998, attack on bin Laden, President Bill Clinton said: ” ‘…we were told he was going to be at that training site…and he left a couple of hours before [the missiles hit]. So what did I have? A 40 percent chance of knowing we could have hit it. But there were […]
8/20/1998
“…the ability to intercept Osama bin Laden’s Inmarsat [satellite telephone] calls was lost shortly after America’s August [20] 1998 bombing strikes on Afghan terrorist training sites. One official told me [columnist Bill Gertz] that the link went silent after a report in the Washington Post quoted a former U.S. intelligence official as saying that the […]
8/20/1998
From a New York Times article on August 20, 1998: “When pressed after the two African [embassy] bombings in [August 7] 1998 to turn him [bin Laden] over, [Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad] Omar refused: ‘Even if all the countries of the world unite, we would defend Osama with our own blood.’ “ – Bruce Riedel, […]
8/20/1998
” ‘Our target was terror,’ President [Bill] Clinton said in disclosing a near-simultaneous cruise missile attack against targets near Khost [Afghanistan] and in Khartoum, Sudan [on August 20, 1998]. Bin Laden had launched a ‘terrorist war’ against the United States, Clinton said, and ‘our mission was clear: to strike at the network of radical groups […]
8/20/1998
“The Navy’s cruise missiles that hit Osama’s training camps on August 20 [1998] did not kill Osama and indeed served principally to magnify his reputation to near-mythic proportions. The episode encouraged even more Muslim volunteers to flock to his Afghan training camps.” – Jonathan Randal, Osama, Pages 239-240 […]
8/20/1998
Following the August 7, 1998, African embassy bombings, “…the simultaneous cruise missile reprisals against Afghanistan and Khartoum that [President Bill] Clinton ordered thirteen days later, on August 20 [1998], and their unintended consequences coincided with the lowpoint of his presidency. The missiles struck with sophisticated military efficiency, but proved to be embarrassments for the administration. […]
8/20/1998
In his Address to the Nation on August 20, 1998, President Clinton said: ” ‘Today I ordered our armed forces to strike at terrorist-related facilities in Afghanistan and Sudan because of the imminent threat they presented to our national security. …Our target was terror, our mission was clear–to strike at the network of radical groups […]
8/20/1998
“Just after the American air strike on Khowst [Afghanistan] in August [20] 1998, according to Pakistani journalist Rahimullah Yusufzai, ‘three men financed by the Saudi government’ were arrested by the Taleban before they could attack bin Laden. From his talks with bin Laden and [Egyptian Islamic Jihad leader Ayman] al-Zawahiri, Yusufzai learned that the team’s […]
8/20/1998
“After the outcry over the [unsuccessful] missile strikes [on August 20, 1998], [President Bill] Clinton directed that the campaign against al Qaeda be a covert one conducted by the CIA, with an emphasis on disrupting their operations. He also authorized lethal force only if they found bin Laden or other top al Qaeda leaders.” – […]