Author: Laura Mansnerus And Judith
Miller
Publication: The New York Times
Date: July 4, 2001
An Algerian convicted of trying
to carry out a terrorist attack in Los Angeles on the eve of the millennium
celebration testified yesterday that he had received money and training
at camps in Afghanistan that American officials say were run by Osama bin
Laden.
Ahmed Ressam, the Algerian, described
in detail his training in light arms, explosives, assassinations and techniques
for blowing up "the infrastructure of a country." After more than six months
of training in Afghanistan in 1998, Mr. Ressam testified, he returned to
Canada with $12,000 in seed money to plot terrorist attacks against the
United States, Islam's "biggest enemy."
In his testimony yesterday in Federal
District Court in Manhattan, Mr. Ressam did not mention Mr. bin Laden,
the Saudi exile charged with conducting a jihad, or holy war, against the
United States and its allies.
But in describing the origins of
his plan to set off a bomb at Los Angeles International Airport, he nonetheless
confirmed the key outlines of the picture drawn by American intelligence
of Mr. bin Laden's operations. He described a network of camps in which
Algerians, Jordanians, Germans and others were trained and indoctrinated
for terrorist missions around the world.
Mr. Ressam testified at the trial
of Mokhtar Haouari, an Algerian accused of providing money and support
for the plot to blow up the airport. In Los Angeles in April, Mr. Ressam
was convicted of trying to bring explosives into the United States. He
has since agreed to cooperate with prosecutors; his sentencing has been
postponed to July 25.
Mr. Ressam's testimony, translated
from Arabic by an interpreter, offered a rare insider's look at the design
and attempted execution of a terrorist plot. His account depicted a decentralized
structure in which militants were trained and given considerable latitude
in selecting targets and missions.
In his testimony, Mr. Ressam said
the camps were run by Abu Zubaida, the nom de guerre of a Palestinian whom
American officials have identified as an important lieutenant to Mr. bin
Laden.
American officials say Abu Zubaida
reports directly to Mr. bin Laden and is in charge of recruiting for the
camps. Mr. Ressam said Abu Zubaida arranged for his trip from Montreal
to Afghanistan, providing him with Afghan clothes and an Afghan guide to
take him from Pakistan to a camp called Khalden.
Mr. Ressam also described how, at
the camps, he and others were made aware of orders to kill Americans that
had been issued by Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind Egyptian cleric who
was convicted in 1995 of conspiring to blow up the United Nations and other
landmarks in the United States. He is now serving a life sentence in federal
prison.
Mr. Ressam recounted how and why
he selected the Los Angeles airport as a target and how he planned to rehearse
and carry out the bombing. The plot went awry on Dec. 14, 1999, when a
border guard in Port Angeles, Wash., questioned him in a routine check.
Mr. Ressam, who does not speak English well, panicked and tried to flee.
He was arrested and the authorities found more than 100 pounds of explosives
in his car.
Mr. Ressam said he had planned the
operation for more than a year but was forced to improvise when two other
Algerians in his terrorist cell were detained in Britain and others then
backed out. He said he selected the Los Angeles airport because he had
passed through there on a flight from Pakistan.
Mr. Ressam testified that he wanted
to test security at the airport by leaving a luggage cart with a bag unattended.
Mr. Ressam said he was trained at
two camps in Afghanistan, Khalden and Darunta. Both have been identified
by American officials as integral parts of al-Qaeda, a terrorist group
founded by Mr. bin Laden that is an umbrella organization for anti- American
militants around the world. There was no mention of al- Qaeda in the testimony
yesterday, but Mr. Ressam was asked whether Abu Zubaida belonged to a "terrorist
organization."
"Yes," he replied.
The United States has been pressing
Afghanistan, most of which is ruled by the Taliban, to close down the camps
and evict Mr. bin Laden. The Afghans have refused and American officials
recently warned the Taliban that they would be held responsible for any
attacks against the United States organized from their country.
A senior Bush administration official
said Mr. Ressam's account "demonstrates that Afghanistan, in fact, has
turned into the most threatening terrorist sanctuary in the world today."
Mr. Ressam said he was among 50
to 100 men at the camp in Afghanistan. He described his training in light
weapons and explosives and instruction in "urban warfare." Among the possible
targets among "enemies' installations," he said, were power plants, airports,
railroads and large corporations.
Later, he said, he went to another
camp for training in explosives, and returned to Canada with ingredients
including hexamine, a booster used in bombs, and glycol. He said he bought
other components in Vancouver and made his own timing devices.
When asked why he chose an airport
as a target, he said, "An airport is sensitive politically and economically."
After Mr. Ressam had outlined his
plan, he was asked if he realized that many civilians would die. "Yes,
I would try to avoid that as much as possible," Mr. Ressam replied.
"But no matter how you did that,
many would die," said Joseph F. Bianco, an assistant United States attorney.
"Yes," Mr. Ressam said.
Mr. Ressam is the star witness against
Mr. Haouari, whom he met in Montreal through friends in a circle of Algerian
émigrés. He agreed just a few weeks ago, as his sentencing
date approached, to cooperate with
the government.
Mr. Haouari is charged with providing
money and support to Mr. Ressam, as well as bank fraud.
In testimony yesterday, Mr. Ressam,
34, began the story of a career that took him from a job in his father's
coffee shop in Algeria to his arrest in 1999 with a cache of explosives
in his rental car.
He described a life of petty crime
in Montreal, where he arrived as an illegal immigrant in 1994 "to improve
my life situation."
"I lived on welfare and theft,"
he said. He said Mr. Haouari was dealing in stolen checks and passports
and sometimes worked with him.
Mr. Ressam said that when he returned
to Montreal from Afghanistan, he had been assigned to work with several
other Algerians from the camps on general instructions to meet in Canada,
rob banks and use the money to finance "an operation in America."
When his comrades failed to arrive
in Canada, he testified, he worked mostly on his own.
He said that at the time, he and
Mr. Haouari were working on a plan for Mr. Ressam to open a shop as a way
to get information for counterfeit credit cards. He had told Mr. Haouari
about the terrorist training camp, he said, and Mr. Haouari expressed interest
in going, too.
He testified however, that he did
not give Mr. Haouari details of the plan or identify the target.
"No, no, for security reasons I
didn't want to tell him," Mr. Ressam said.
