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2 Allies Aided Bin Laden, Say Panel Members
Saudi Arabia and Pakistan let terrorists flourish before 9/11, apparently in return for protection from attacks by Al Qaeda.
By Josh Meyer
Times Staff Writer
June 20, 2004
WASHINGTON ? Pakistan and Saudi Arabia helped set the stage for the Sept. 11 attacks by cutting deals with the Taliban and Osama bin Laden that allowed his Al Qaeda terrorist network to flourish, according to several senior members of the Sept. 11 commission and U.S. counter-terrorism officials.
The financial aid to the Taliban and other assistance by two of the most important allies of the United States in its war on terrorism date at least to 1996, and appear to have shielded them from Al Qaeda attacks within their own borders until long after the 2001 strikes, those commission members and officials said in interviews.
"That does appear to have been the arrangement," said one senior member of the commission staff involved in investigating those relationships.
The officials said that by not cracking down on Bin Laden, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia significantly undermined efforts to combat terrorism worldwide, giving the Saudi exile the haven he needed to train tens of thousands of soldiers. They believe that the governments' funding of his Taliban protectors enabled Bin Laden to withstand international pressure and expand his operation into a global network that could carry out the Sept. 11 attacks.
Saudi Arabia provided funds and equipment to the Taliban and probably directly to Bin Laden, and didn't interfere with Al Qaeda's efforts to raise money, recruit and train operatives, and establish cells throughout the kingdom, commission and U.S. officials said. Pakistan provided even more direct assistance, its military and intelligence agencies often coordinating efforts with the Taliban and Al Qaeda, they said.
Such efforts allowed Al Qaeda's network of cells to burrow deeply into the social and religious fabric of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, enabling the organization to survive the U.S.-led demolition of its headquarters in Afghanistan in 2001, to regroup and to launch new waves of attacks ? including the kidnapping and beheading of an American engineer in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, last week.
Only after Pakistan and Saudi Arabia launched comprehensive efforts to take out their domestic Al Qaeda cells ? as late as last year, in the case of Saudi Arabia ? did the two nations become victims of terrorist attacks. And officials in both countries acknowledge that Al Qaeda's fundraising, recruiting and training structure is now so firmly rooted that it will be extremely difficult to eliminate.
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Rumors of Collusion
For years, there have been unsubstantiated allegations that the governments of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia intentionally ignored Bin Laden's efforts in their countries or even cut deals with him, either out of sympathy with his efforts or to protect themselves from attack. That claim is made in a lawsuit by the families of Sept. 11 victims against Saudi Arabia.
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