On May 31, 1996, “The four Saudi men accused of bombing the Saudi National Guard training center in Riyadh [on November 13, 1995] are beheaded in Riyadh’s main square. Before their execution, they are coerced by the Saudi’s into a public confession. In the confession, they claim to have read bin Laden communiqués.” – “Hunting […]
5/29/1996
On May 29, 1996, “In the first of two prosecutions, [terrorist Ramzi] Yousef goes on trial in U.S. Federal Court in Manhattan for the Bojinka plot and the murder of the passenger on PAL Flight 434. Judge Kevin T. Duffy allows Yousef to represent himself, with the assistance of attorney Roy Kulcsar. In his opening […]
5/26/1996
In an article in The Casper Star-Tribune on May 26, 1996, former Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney “defended the decision to leave Saddam Hussein in power in Iraq, saying again that Saddam was not worth the lives of American soldiers. He pushed to lift the sanctions on Iran–‘The good Lord didn’t see fit to put […]
5/19/1996
“On May 19, 1996, UBL [Usama Bin Ladin] left Sudan, apparently of his own accord, and relocated to Afghanistan. In many ways this was the worst-case scenario for us. Afghanistan at the time was in the midst of extraordinarily chaotic fighting…that would soon leave the country in the hands of the Taliban, a brutal, backward […]
5/19/1996
“When Bin Ladin left [Sudan on May 19, 1996], it appears that the Sudanese government expropriated all his assets: he left Sudan with practically nothing. When Bin Ladin arrived in Afghanistan, he relied on the Taliban until he was able to reinvigorate his fund-raising efforts by drawing on ties to wealthy Saudi individuals that he […]
5/19/1996
Sudanese officials were hoping to expel Osama Bin Ladin to Saudi Arabia. “Saudi officials apparently wanted Bin Ladin expelled from Sudan. They had already revoked his citizenship, however, and would not tolerate his presence in their country. And Bin Ladin may have no longer felt safe in Sudan, where he had already escaped at least one […]
5/18/1996
“Bin Laden, his wives and children, and a large retinue of followers departed Sudan on May 18, 1996, and traveled in two aircraft to Jalalabad [Afghanistan]. Bin Laden flew in on a small private plane. …Sudanese officials chartered a second aircraft from Ariana, the Afghan state airline, for $50,000. [Afghan] President [Burhanuddin] Rabbani denied having […]
5/18/1996
“Since the United States had advanced knowledge that bin Laden was about to leave [Sudan for Afghanistan on May 18, 1996], it had a second chance to nab him while he was in international airspace. The CTC [Counterterrorism Center] drew up an operations plan for such a seizure and presented it to White House officials. […]
5/18/1996
“When an angry Osama, his family and retainers flew out of Khartoum [Sudan] on May 18 [1996] on a chartered Ariana Afghan B-727, for his third and perhaps final stay in Afghanistan, Clinton administration policy-makers exulted. They felt they were solving the immediate problem as best they could. Osama was on his way…to the beleaguered […]
5/18/1996
“The Sudanese told bin Laden to leave, confiscated his construction equipment, and forced him to sell all his assets at a fraction of their worth. Perhaps fearing that Sudan would turn him over to his enemies if he stayed much longer, bin Laden left Khartoum on May 18, 1996, on his own initiative. He returned […]