“Osama bin Laden in [May 10] 1997 to CNN. ‘The news was broadcast by radio stations that the Soviet Union invaded a Muslim country; this was a sufficient motivation for me to start to aid our brothers in Afghanistan.’ ” – Peter Bergen, The Osama bin Laden I Know, Pages 24-25 […]
5/2/1997
“Tony Blair was elected as British Prime Minister on May 2, 1997.” – Andrew Langley, Bush, Blair, and Iraq: Days of Decision, Page 15 […]
4/15/1997
In an April 1997 issue of the weekly magazine Al-Ahram Al Arabi, Osama bin Laden said: ” ‘When we buy American goods, we are accomplices in the murder of Palestinians,’… ‘American companies make millions in the Arab world with which they pay taxes to their government. The United States uses that money to send $3 […]
4/15/1997
Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir wrote a letter on April 15, 1997, “making an unconditional, no-strings-attached offer of counterterrorism assistance to Democratic Congressman Lee Hamilton of Indiana, who had long been an influential voice in foreign policy.” Multiple copies were sent to National Security Advisor Sandy Berger. In it, Al-Bashir “invited the FBI’s counterterrorism unit, […]
4/15/1997
“The [April] 1997 update of the [July] 1995 [National Intelligence Estimate] did not discuss new intelligence [on Bin Ladin]…The only reference to Bin Ladin was this sentence: ‘Iran and its surrogates, as well as terrorist financier Usama Bin Ladin and his followers, have stepped up their threats and surveillance of US facilities abroad in what […]
4/5/1997
“On April 5, 1997, Sudan’s president, [Omar Hassan] al-Bashir, wrote a letter to Congressman Lee Hamilton, the ranking Democrat [from Indiana] on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, inviting an FBI team to visit Khartoum and examine their intelligence files on bin Laden. When the FBI requested permission to examine the Sudanese files, they could not […]
3/27/1997
“According to a [March 27, 1997] Pakistani news story that appeared after the first meeting of bin Laden and [Taliban leader] Mullah [Mohammed] Omar, in March 1997, the Afghan leader issued a statement saying that the United States should leave Saudi Arabia ‘because they risked losing the sympathy of Muslims.’ ” – Daniel Benjamin and […]
3/26/1997
In a speech on March 26, 1997, at Georgetown University, Secretary of State Madeline “Albright made clear that the United States would not support lifting sanctions before there was a new government in Baghdad: ‘We do not agree with the nations who argue that if Iraq complies with its obligations concerning weapons of mass destruction, […]
3/22/1997
“…in [March 22] 1997 bin Laden told CNN that [convicted Day of Terror plotter] ‘Shaikh Omar Abdel Rahman is a Muslim scholar well known all over the Muslim world. He represents the kind of injustice that is adopted by the U.S. A baseless case was fabricated against him even though he is a blind old […]
3/22/1997
“Bin Laden’s CNN interview [conducted by journalist Peter Bergen on March 22, 1997] was the first time that he told Western reporters he was declaring war on the United States. ‘We declared jihad against the U.S. government, because the U.S. government is unjust, criminal and tyrannical. It has committed acts that are extremely unjust, hideous, […]