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Keys to Symbols
1987:
==Apr.15 > [•] During an Iranian-Kurdish
offensive in northern Iraq, Baghdad attacks 20 Kurdish villages with chemical
weapons. The US government is becoming disgusted with Iraq’s gas warfare,
but continues its alignment with Saddam. See
Mar.16.1988 [hiro2 / wap.Dec.30.2002]
==Apr.17-24 > [•X] In his first (and perhaps
only) experience of combat, bin Laden and 50 jihadis under his command
fortify the heights at Jaji near the Pakistani border, and hold off 200
Soviet troops in a week of tough fighting before pulling back. Jihadi leader
Abdullah Azzam and future 9/11 planner Khalid Sheikh Mohammed are said to
have fought at Jaji. [berg / hiro1 / mcder]
==Apr.--- > [•X] Muslim extremist mujahadeen leader Hekmatyar stages a
raid into Tajikstan, expanding the Afghan war into Soviet
territory. [hiro1]
==Apr.--- > [•X] Islamists make serious
gains in Egyptian national elections, despite flagrant vote-rigging by the
desperate Mubarak regime. [hiro1]
==May.17 > [•] An Iraqi fighter plane
hits the frigate USS Stark with two Exocet missiles, killing 37
crewmembers. At this time, the US and the Iraqis are still on good
terms and the attack is probably a mistake.
==Jun.02 > [•X] After an extensive review,
a task force chaired by Vice President Bush reports that the current
provisions for combatting terrorism are entirely "sound," despite
evidence of weakness in airport security and other areas. There is no further
attempt to reform counterterrorism policy for the next eight
years. [naftali]
==Jul.31 > [•] A large demonstration by
Iranian pilgrims in Mecca leads to a riot in which 402 are
killed. [hiro2]
==Nov.--- > [•X] Terrorist leader Abu Nidal
executes hundreds of his own men, including some of his most senior
associates. Hundreds more members of his ANO organization are killed by the
end of 1988, and many other followers defect. Some defectors form a
counter-group, which is engaged in a war with the ANO by 1990. These bloody
convulsions are indirectly orchestrated by the CIA's Counterterrorism Center
- assisted by the PLO, the Jordanians, and the Israelis - who have been
feeding Abu Nidal bogus intelligence designed to inflame his paranoia. The
ANO has been one of the world's most dangerous terrorist organizations for
years, but it never recovers from these self-inflicted
wounds. [harc / naftali]
==Dec.08 > [•] The first intifada
begins: Palestinians rise against Israeli authority first in Gaza and
then in the West Bank. [lmd]
== -------- > [•X] Bin Laden has contact with
the Egyptian group Al Jihad and its leader al-Zawahiri. Under their
influence he begins to talk of using the mujahedeen training camps to create
an organization for global jihad that will overthrow Arab governments and
attack their Western supporters. [berg /
nyt.Jan.14.2001]
== -------- > [•XX] Militant Islamists are
becoming active in America. Mustafa Shalabi opens the Alkhifa Center in
Brooklyn, recruiting Muslim volunteers for the Afghan war, and cultivating
links to the MAK and - after 1988 - to the newly formed al-Qaeda. See
Mar.01.1991 [berg]
1988:
==Feb.--- > [•] As the Soviet Union
relaxes its grip, ethnic unrest begins to break out in the
Caucasus. [wall]
==Mar.16 > [•] Shortly after Iranian
forces and Kurdish rebels capture the Kurdish city of Halabja, the Iraqis
bomb the town with nerve gas. An estimated 4000 people are killed,
mostly civilians. [hiro2]
==Apr.--- > [•X] Around this time, while
writing that the jihadis who'd fought in Afghanistan need to act as the
vanguard of the Islamist movement, bin Laden's mentor Azzam coins the phrase al
qaeda al-sulbah ('the strong foundation'). See
Aug.11 [911cm / obs.Jul.13.2003]
==Apr.16-Jun > [•] Iraq launches a series of
successful offensives against Iran, frequently using mustard gas and nerve
gas. At the same time, the US intensifies its low-level naval conflict
with Iran, which has been underway since
1987. [hiro2]
==May.15 > [•] Soviet troops begin to
withdraw from Afghanistan, as part of a peace accord reached in February with
the US and Pakistan. But Pakistan ignores its part of the bargain and
continues to openly aid the mujahadeen. [hiro1
/ wall]
==Jul.03 > [•] The cruiser USS Vincennes shoots
down an Iranian airliner, mistaking it for a fighter plane. All 290
passengers on the airliner are killed. [hiro2]
==Aug.11 > [•X] Bin Laden holds a meeting
in Peshawar to discuss “the establishment of a new military group.”
This is probably the formation of Al Qaeda.
[ap.Feb.19.2003]
==Aug.17 > [•] Pakistani military
dictator Zia ul-Haq is killed in a suspicious plane crash, along with gifted
American ambassador Arnold Raphel. Zia had cooperated with the US against the
Russians in the Afghan War, but he had greatly encouraged the spread of
Islamist extremism in Pakistan during his 11 years in power. [clarke]
==Aug.20 > [•] The Iran-Iraq War ends,
as a cease-fire agreement goes into effect. The eight-year war has been
arguably the longest conventional war of the 20th Century. There have
been over a million casualties, and the direct and indirect costs run over a
trillion dollars. Both nations are exhausted, and Iraq has run up an
immense foreign debt. [hiro2]
==Dec.21 > [•X] Pan Am Flight 103 explodes
over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 people in the plane and on the ground.
In 1990 investigators link the bombing to Libya. A Libyan intelligence agent
is convicted of the crime in 2001 and the Libyan government formally accepts
responsibility a couple years later. [naftali]
== ------- > [•] The Washington-based
Center for Security Policy (CSP) is established. In the 1990s, CSP and
the older, closely linked Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs
(JINSA) become major neoconservative advocacy groups for a much more
aggressive US foreign policy, especially in the Middle East. Both
groups have strong ties to the hawkish Israeli Likud Party and to the
American defense industry. CSP/JINSA members and advisers include Richard
Perle, Michael Ledeen, Douglas Feith, Elliott Abrams, and many others who
will be highly influential in shaping foreign policy in the second Bush
administration. [csp / nat.Aug.15.2002]
== late 1980s > [•X] Kashmir begins to
destabilize. Supported by Pakistan, Muslim veterans of the Afghan war
begin launching terrorist attacks against Indian troops and authorities.
[berg]
1989:
==Jan.20 > [•] George H. W. Bush is
inaugurated as President of the United States.
==Feb.14 > [•X] The Ayatollah Khomeini
issues a fatwah calling for the assassination of Salman Rushdie, accusing the
novelist of defaming Islam. Rushdie
survives. [wall]
==Feb.15 > [•] The last Russian forces
leave Afghanistan - but for the time being, the US and the Saudis continue to
fund the mujahadeen. [hiro1]
==Feb.18 > [•X] Hamas makes its first
attack on an Israeli, killing a soldier. Originally formed by the
conservative Muslim Brotherhood in 1978 as a charitable organization, around
the mid-1980s Hamas began to form armed cells and to target Palestinian
criminals and dissidents. During the 1990s, it becomes one of the most
dangerous Palestinian terrorist groups. [ict]
==Mar.21-Jan.20.1993 > [•] Dick Cheney serves as
Secretary of Defense, and stoutly resists calls to cut military spending
despite the fading away of the Cold War. Cheney appoints Paul Wolfowitz
as Undersecretary for Policy. Under Cheney and Wolfowitz, Pentagon
policy staff is “a refuge for Reagan-era hardliners,” in the words of Colin
Powell. See Feb.1992 [defl /
nyrb.Sep.26.2002]
==Spring > [•] Encouraged by Pakistan,
the mujahadeen launch a full-scale offensive against Jalalabad, intended to
bring down the pro-Soviet Kabul government. The offensive stalls in bloody
fighting, straining the anti-Russian alliance. [mcder]
==Jun.03 > [•X] The Ayatollah Khomeini
dies of cancer at the age of 86. His funeral sets off an outburst of
mass hysteria. [hiro2]
==Jun.30 > [•X] An Islamist military junta
seizes power in Sudan. [hiro1]
==Jun-Dec. > [•] Communist power collapses
in Eastern Europe.
==Jul.--- > [•X] In Afghanistan, fighting erupts between the Pushtun
Islamist Hekmatyar and the more moderate Tajik leader Massoud. The mujahadeen
forces begin to break up along ethnic lines, despite bin Laden’s advice that
they stay united. [hiro1]
==Oct.01 > [•] Colin Powell becomes
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. [defl]
==Fall > [•X] Sudanese leader Turabi
invites bin Laden to relocate his organization to Sudan. By 1990, bin Laden's
agents are buying property in the country. [911cm]
==Nov.01 > [•X] Bin Laden reportedly
bribes Pakistani legislators in an unsuccessful attempt to oust the
relatively liberal Prime Minister Benazir
Bhutto. [berg]
==Nov.24 > [•XX] In an unsolved murder,
jihadi leader Abdullah Azzam and his two sons are killed by a bomb while on
their way to Friday prayers in Peshawar. Most of Azzam’s MAK is absorbed into
bin Laden’s al-Qaeda organization. [berg]
=Around this time, foreign veterans of the
Afghan war (often called 'Afghan Arabs') are returning to their homes, and
are forming extremist groups throughout the Islamic
world. [nyt.Jan.14.2001]
1990:
==spring > [••X] Bin Laden leaves
Afghanistan and returns to Saudi Arabia. He soon becomes a popular
speaker, denouncing America and warning of an attack by Saddam
Hussein. [hiro1 / berg]
==May.--- > [•XX] The start of Islamist terrorist activity in America.
Sheikh Omar Abdal Rhaman, a leading Egyptian extremist and an affiliate of
al-Qaeda, arrives in Brooklyn. The blind sheikh was issued visas - at
least one by a CIA officer - despite being on the State Department’s
terrorist watch list. The US government later blamed the blunder on
computer error. Rhaman will be involved in a number of terrorist schemes,
culminating in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. See Nov.05.1990 and
Mar.01.1991 [vv.Mar.30.1993 / berg]
==Jun.12 > [•X] In Algerian local
elections, an Islamist fundamentalist party wins control of most municipal
and provincial assemblies. Algeria begins to
destabilize. [wall]
==Jul.25 > [•] After months of
deteriorating American-Iraqi relations and at the height of a crisis between
Iraq and Kuwait, Saddam Hussein meets with US Ambassador April Glaspie.
Glaspie tells Saddam that America has “no opinion” on his quarrel with
Kuwait. Although her comments accurately reflect US policy, Glaspie is
later scapegoated for the Bush administration’s unexplained failure to
clearly warn Saddam against attacking Kuwait. [nyt.Sep.23.1990
/ wap.Dec.30.2002 / abur]
==Aug.02 > [•] President Bush unveils a
new military deployment policy. With the collapsing Soviet Union
becoming less of a threat, he plans to use US forces more flexibly, so as to
be able to respond to unexpected threats from any part of the world. American
strategy is quietly shifting from preventing Soviet dominance to preserving
US preeminence. [harp.Oct.2002]
==Aug.02 > [•] Iraq invades Kuwait -
the (first) Gulf War, to 1991. By Aug.04, Iraqi forces have overrun
Kuwait and are massing on the Saudi border. [wall]
==Aug.06 > [•X] Threatened by an Iraqi
invasion, King Fahd reluctantly invites US troops into Saudi Arabia after
meeting with an American delegation headed by Cheney and Schwarzkopf. The same
day, Prince Sultan politely declines a proposal by Osama bin Laden that
mujahadeen units be organized to drive the Iraqis from Kuwait. US troops
begin to arrive in Saudi Arabia the next day. [hiro1
/ clarke]
==Aug.06 > [•] The UN Security Council
imposes sanctions on Iraq. Most Arab states oppose Iraq, but the PLO
unwisely supports Saddam Hussein. [lmd]
==Aug.17 > [•X] Saudi Islamist
intellectual Shaikh Safar al Hawali denounces the presence of US troops as
part of an American plot to control the Persian Gulf, the first step toward
its goal of dominating the entire Muslim world. Angry anti-American
sermons by conservative Saudi ulamas are taped and widely
circulated. [hiro1]
==fall > [•] Operation Desert Shield: a
massive buildup of US and coalition forces is underway near the Saudi-Iraqi
frontier. US forces eventually number
550,000. [defl / hiro1]
==Nov.05 > [•X] El Sayyid Nosair shoots
the violent anti-Arab Rabbi Meir Kahane after Kahane finishes a speech at a
Manhattan hotel. Nosair is quickly apprehended, preventing him from
carrying out several other assassinations he was evidently planning. The
Kahane murder is probably the first Islamist terrorist action carried out on
American soil, but at the time US counterterrorism agencies are virtually
unaware of the case. Nosair is an associate of the Islamist Sheikh
Abdul-Rhaman, who will later be involved the the 1993 World Trade Center
bombing. [vv.Mar.30.1993 / naftali]
== ------- > [•] Its attention diverted by
the conflict in the Gulf and the Soviet collapse, the US government is
loosing interest in Afghanistan. As the former CIA station chief in Islamabad
later said “Afghanistan was off the front burner… we got the hell out of
there.” [nyt.Jan.14.2001]
1991:
==Jan.17 > [•] Operation Desert Storm
begins. The US-led coalition opens a massive air offensive
against Iraq two days after the expiration of the UN deadline for Iraq’s
withdrawal from Kuwait. [defl]
=[•X] The US intelligence community
fears that the outbreak of war will set off a wave of Iraqi-sponsored
terrorist attacks within America. This does not
happen. [naftali]
==Jan.18 > [••] Iraq launches Scud
missiles against Israel. [wall]
==Jan.25 > [•] Iraq releases an immense
oil slick into the Persian Gulf. On Feb.22, it sets hundreds of Kuwaiti
oil wells on fire - the last well is extinguished Nov.03. These acts
cause tremendous regional environmental
damage. [wall]
==Jan.26 > [•] President Barre is driven
from Somalia as that country slides into
chaos. [wall]
==Feb.24 > [•] US and coalition forces
launch a ground offensive against Iraq - within four days, the Iraqis
have been driven from Kuwait with heavy losses. On Feb.28, Bush
suddenly halts the offensive, although many of Saddam’s Republican Guard
units remain intact. [defl / wall]
==Mar.01 > [•XX] New York Islamist activist
Mustafa Shalabi is stabbed to death in his home - his associate Sheikh Rhaman
is widely suspected of being behind the unsolved murder. Shalabi’s
Brooklyn Alkhifa Center is soon taken over by al-Qaeda members, several of
who will be involved in the 1993 World Trade Center
bombing. [berg]
==Mar.01 > [•] Popular revolts against Saddam
Hussein erupt among Shiites in the south and Kurds in the north. Bush
initially encourages the revolts, but soon abandons them. By month’s
end, Saddam has brutally reasserted his control over most of Iraq.
After the Iraq War in 2003, mass graves of Shiites and Kurds executed in 1991
are uncovered. [wall]
==Mar.03 > [•] A formal truce is arranged
between the US-led coalition and the Iraqis. On Apr.06, a permanent
cease-fire is agreed to. Despite the end of the war, US forces
remain permanently stationed in Saudi Arabia for reasons that are never
clearly explained, but probably in part to prop up the Saudi monarchy.
Many Muslims are deeply affronted by the American military presence in
Arabia. The war costs Saudi Arabia about $45 billion, more than half
its annual GDP, and badly damages the nation’s finances. The personal
wealth of the Saudi royal family is
unaffected. [defl / hiro1 / hiro4 /
berg]
==Mar.17 > [•] The Serbian government of
Slobodan Milosevic suspends the constitution of predominantly Muslim Albanian
Kosovo. [wall]
==Apr.17 > [•] Coalition forces enter
northern Iraq to prevent Saddam from completely crushing the
Kurds. [wall]
==Apr.--- > [•••X] Osama bin Laden departs
from Saudi Arabia, permanently. After a brief return to Afghanistan -
where he becomes convinced the Saudis are sending hit-men after him - bin
Laden relocates to Sudan and forms a close relationship with Hassan
al-Turabi, the de facto ruler of the country. Bin Laden develops a
variety of large-scale commercial enterprises (ultimately unprofitable) that
provide cover for his still hidden political agenda. In his five years
in Sudan, he becomes even more radicalized. Meanwhile, al-Qaeda
continues to operate training camps and other facilities in Afghanistan and
Pakistan, and forms alliances with extremist Islamist groups throughout the
world. [hiro1 / berg / nyt.Jan.14&Sep.30.2001 /
911cm]
==mid.May > [•X] 400 Saudi religious leaders pass a petition to King Fahd,
demanding an end to royal autocracy and corruption, along with the increased
Islamization of the nation. See May.1992.
[hiro1]
==Jun.25 > [•] Slovenia and Croatia
declare independence, and the Yugoslav federation begins to
disintegrate. On Oct.15, Bosnia declares independence. By then,
fighting had broken out between Serbia and Croatia, the start of years of
vicious ethnic wars in the region. [wall]
==Jul.05 > [•X] The large,
well-connected, and thoroughly corrupt Bank of Credit and Commerce
International (BCCI), based in the United Arab Emirates, is closed down as a
colossal banking scandal breaks. One of the bank’s many shady
activities was extensive money laundering for terrorist
groups. [bbc / lat.Jan.20.2002]
==Aug.19-21 > [••] A botched coup causes the
collapse of communist authority in the USSR. States in the Caucasus
soon begin declaring independence. [wall]
==Oct.30 > [•] The Madrid Conference
opens. Under pressure from the US and the Soviet Union, Israel and its Arab
neighbors engage in bilateral talks for the first
time. [lmd]
==late 1991 or 1992 > [•X] Al-Qaeda and Iran
informally agree to provide some mutual support. [911cm]
==Dec.04 > [•X] Hezbollah releases Terry
Anderson, the last of the American hostages it seized in the 1980s. The
threat of terrorism seems to have receded, and there is talk of shutting down
the CIA's Counterterrorism Center. [naftali]
==Dec.25 > [••] Gorbachev resigns. The
USSR officially ceases to exist by Dec.31. The Soviet Central Asian
republics become independent states. Without Soviet aid, Najibullah’s Kabul
government is rapidly loosing ground to the Islamist-dominated
mujahadeen. [hiro1]
== ------- > [•X] Training camps that are loosely
affiliated with al-Qaeda are appearing in remote areas of
Yemen. [berg]
1992:
==Jan.11 > [•X] The Algerian Army seizes
control of the government and annuls the recent national election victory of
the Islamist extremist FIS. On Feb.09, the regime declares a state of
emergency after rioting by fundamentalists. The political FIS morphs
into the guerilla Armed Islamic Group (GIA) and Algeria slides into a decade
of brutal civil war. According to some accounts, bin Laden helped fund
the start-up of the GIA. [ict / wall /
nyt.Jan.14.2001]
==early 1992 > [•X] Al-Qaeda issues a fatwa
calling for resistance against Western 'occupation' of Islamic lands.
US troops are specifically targeted for
attack. [911cm]
==Feb.--- > [•] Neoconservatives begin
to advocate an ultra-aggressive American foreign policy. After the
collapse of the Soviet Union renders their traditional anti-communism
obsolete, some neocons rethink their outlook on international affairs.
In Feb, neoconservative Defense officials Paul Wolfowitz and I. Lewis Libby
finish the draft version of Defense Policy Guidance (DPG) begun by Secretary
of Defense Dick Cheney, envisioning a drastically more assertive American
foreign policy, with the US unilaterally using overwhelming military power to
intimidate other nations, including allies, to secure access to Persian Gulf
oil and other vital resources, and to thwart the development of any potential
rival - by preemptive military action if necessary. The paper causes a storm
of criticism when it’s leaked to the New York Times on Mar.08, and the final
version that Cheney releases in Jan.1993 is toned-down, though still highly
ambitious. Most foreign policy experts in both parties reject the
Cheney-Wolfowitz plan, but the DPG is the first of several neoconservative
proposals for reshaping international relations to promote strictly American
interests, and an early step toward the belligerent foreign policy the US
will adopt after 9/11. Years later, an article in Harper’s put it
bluntly: “The Plan is for the United States to rule the world.”
Wolfowitz and Libby will both occupy senior positions in George W. Bush’s
Defense Department. See Sep.2000 [harp.Oct.2002
/ nyrb.Sep.26.2002 / nyt.Mar.02.2003]
==Mar.02 > [•] Ethnic violence breaks out
in Sarajevo. Bosnia begins to break down.
[wall]
==Apr.16 > [•] Led by the moderate
Massoud, the mujahadeen occupy Kabul as Russian-backed President
Najibullah takes refuge in the UN office. This ends the long struggle
between Afghan Marxists and Islamists, intensified by foreign
intervention. Roughly a million Afghans have died in the conflict since
1979… but Afghanistan’s ordeal is far from over. See
Aug. [rubin / hiro1]
==May.14 > [•X] Islamist extremists murder
13 Coptic Christians near Asyut in Egypt’s worst sectarian violence in a
decade. The nation’s simmering religious unrest begins to move toward a
crisis. [hiro1]
==May.--- > [•X] The Saudi regime dissolves the reformist Committee for
the Defense of Legitimate Rights and arrests its leaders - one co-founder is
eventually beheaded. A pro-government cleric comments “Criticism that
leads to destabilization of society constitutes revolt and is unacceptable in
Islam.” More intellectuals are arrested in September, and crackdowns
continue into 1994 Although the CDLR was relatively liberal, many
fundamentalists are angered by its suppression and openly split with the
pro-regime religious establishment. [hiro1]
==Summer > [X]
24-year-old architecture student Mohamed el-Amir Atta moves from Egypt to
Hamburg and pursues graduate studies in urban planning. In this foreign
environment, he becomes more devoutly Islamic. People who encounter him in
the early to mid 1990s often find him disagreeable, but do not regard him as
an extremist. See Winter 1995-1996 [mcder /
lat.Jan.27&Sep.01.2002]
==Jun.23 > [•] Yitzhak Rabin defeats the
conservative Likud and forms Israel’s first Labour government since
1977. [lmd]
==Aug.13 > [•] The UN condemns the Serbs’
‘ethnic cleansing’ policy in Bosnia. [wall]
==Aug.27 > [•] The southern no-fly zone is
imposed on Iraq. [wall]
==Aug.--- > [•] Tensions between rival mujahadeen factions break out in
open conflict. Islamist extremist Hekmatyar shells Kabul, which until
now had escaped damage in the Afghan wars - thousands are killed and a large
part of the city wrecked. The bloody infighting is renewed in the fall
and winter. By Feb.1993, a Guardian reporter is describing “not just
breakdown of law and order, but disintegration of society” in
Afghanistan. Kabul’s population falls by 75% to under 500,000.
See Jan.01.1994 [hiro1]
Ramzi
Yousef
==Sep.01 > [•X] Ramzi Yousef arrives in New
York intending to destroy the World Trade Center, which a boyhood friend had
suggested as a suitable target. Yousef, whose real name is Abdul Basit Abdul
Karim, is an ethnic Baluchi with a degree in electrical engineering who has
been trained in bombmaking in the jihad camps near Peshawar. He is evidently
acting as a sort of freelance terrorist. Yousef disembarks at JFK wearing
"a bright orange, brown, and olive green three-piece silk ensemble with
flowing sleeves and ballooning harem pants," but without an entry visa.
He is arrested at the airport, and then immediately released due to lack of
detention space. See Feb.26.1993 [mcder
/ lat.Sep.01.2002]
==Oct.01 > [•X] Egyptian Islamists begins
a series of attacks on tourists. [hiro1]
==Dec.06 > [•] Hindu extremists demolish
a 16th Century mosque, setting off bloody sectarian violence in
India. [wall]
==Dec.09 > [•] US troops arrive in
Somalia, initially to protect relief
efforts. [berg / wall]
==late.Dec > [•X] Two hotels in Aden are
bombed, killing a tourist and a hotel worker. The real targets were
probably US soldiers who had just left for Somalia. Years later, the US
government implicates bin Laden, in what appears to be his first act of
anti-American terrorism. [berg /
mih.Sep.21.2001]
==Dec.--- > [•X] Egyptian President Mubarak vows to crush the hardline
Islamist groups - which are estimated to have 10,000 core members - and
launches a severe policy of mass arrests and brutal interrogations. The
situation deteriorates into 1993. [hiro1]
== ------- > [•X] The first reports reach
the Saudi government that bin Laden is associating with Islamic terrorist
groups. He begins calling for the overthrow of the House of
Saud. [nyt.Dec.27.2001]
== ------- > [•X] Al-Qaeda establishes a
cell in Kenya. [911cm]
==1992-late 1990s > [•X] Hundreds of Muslim
veterans of the Afghan war fight in Bosnia, actively assisted by al-Qaeda. A
few al-Qaeda cells were still operating in Bosnia as late as 2002.
[berg / clarke]
==early.1990’s > [X] Al-Qaeda discusses procuring chemical
weapons with a Sudanese army officer. And perhaps around this time, bin Laden
is ripped off for $1.5 million when a Sudanese officer sells him fake
weapons-grade uranium. [berg / 911cm]
==early.1990’s > [•X] About this time, Islamist terrorist
cells quietly begin to form throughout Europe, often established by Afghan
war veterans. See Mar.1995
[nyt.Jan.14.2001]
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