By Khaled Dawoud Pakistani and US newspapers reported yesterday that a suspect in the bombing of the US Embassy in Nairobi has provided information on a global para-military network targeting US interests and orchestrated by the multi-millionaire Islamist Osama Bin Laden. Stripped of his Saudi Arabian nationality, Bin Laden is living in Afghanistan under the protection of the fundamentalist Taliban movement. The Pakistani daily News and the Washington Post based their reports on "notes taken by Pakistani intelligence officials" who spent a week questioning a man, identified as Mohamed Sadiq Odeh. Odeh was detained in Pakistan where he had flown from Kenya on 7 August -- the day the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam were bombed. Odeh, described as a 34-year-old Palestinian engineer, was sent back by Pakistan to Kenya for further questioning. Pakistani reports also said that two other men linked to the bombing, a Saudi Arabian and a Sudanese, were also arrested and handed over to Kenya where investigators are working closely with US intelligence and FBI agents. Odeh reportedly told Pakistani officials that his network was financed and run by Bin Laden, who allegedly controls some 4,000 to 5,000 militants from a number of Islamic countries. Some of these militants are sent abroad to stage attacks, such as the Nairobi and Dar es Salaam bombings, which left 257 dead and 5,000 injured. Shortly after Odeh was handed over to Nairobi, FBI and Kenyan investigators denied that the man had admitted responsibility for the Nairobi bombing. However, Odeh has not been released by Nairobi-based FBI investigators. Kenyan newspapers also reported yesterday that investigators, accompanied by FBI agents, raided a small hotel in the capital where they believe the suspects assembled the bomb used against the US Embassy. The Daily Nation reported that the investigators were tipped by Odeh after lengthy hours of interrogation. The newspaper also said that two hotel rooms were rented from 3-7 August by two Palestinians, an Egyptian and a Saudi to prepare the bomb. It added that Odeh told investigators he was a member of a seven-man team who all travelled to Karachi from Nairobi after carrying out their mission. The other six, according to the report, managed to pass through Karachi airport with forged Yemeni passports on their way to Afghanistan, where Bin Laden was to greet the group. US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright asked Taliban leaders on Tuesday to hand over Bin Laden, indicating that this was a precondition for recognising the fundamentalist movement as the rulers of Afghanistan. Albright told reporters after visiting the sites of the bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam that "Mr Bin Laden's activities are inimical to those of civilised people in the world and the United States. If they [Taliban] wish to be recognised, they should not be in a position of harbouring any of those who are considered terrorists," she said. Taliban rejected the US demand yesterday and vowed to protect Bin Laden, the Afghan Islamic Press reported. "We will never hand Osama over to anyone and will protect him with our blood at all cost," the agency quoted Taliban Chief Mulla Mohamed Omar as saying. "US intelligence and investigation agencies find it convenient to blame Osama to cover up their own failures." Pakistan also denied reports that it had been asked by the US to allow American agents to carry out a military strike against Bin Laden's hideout in Afghanistan, using Pakistani territory. The London-based Arabic-language newspaper Al-Hayat reported yesterday that it had received a communiqué from the "International Islamic Front for Jihad against Jews and Crusaders", reportedly led by Bin Laden, threatening that strikes against the US "will continue everywhere". Bin Laden and five other militant leaders had announced the creation of the front in a statement sent out in February. Attached to the Islamic Front's communiqué were three others issued by a previously unknown group, the "Army for the Liberation of Islamic Holy Sites", which has claimed responsibility for the embassy bombings. The embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were targeted, the statement said, because they were used to orchestrate attacks against Somali Muslims when US troops were deployed there in 1995 in an attempt to settle the civil war.
