Al-Jazeera Reporter: Al-Qaida Considered Attacking U.S. Nuclear Facilities

Al-Jazeera Reporter: Al-Qaida Considered Attacking U.S. Nuclear Facilities

by Alaa Shahine
The Associated Press
September 8, 2002
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020908/ap_wo_en_po/attacks_al_jazeera_1

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - Al-Qaida considered striking U.S. nuclear facilities as it planned its assault on New York and Washington and has not ruled out nuclear attacks in the future, according to a reporter's account of his interview with two Sept. 11 plotters.

Al-Jazeera television correspondent Yosri Fouda told The Associated Press al-Qaida contacted him to arrange the interview at a secret location in Pakistan with Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Ramzi Binalshibh in June. He said he waited until now to air the interview — it is scheduled to appear Thursday on al-Jazeera — because he wanted to include it in a documentary marking the first anniversary of the attacks.

A videotape of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden released by U.S. officials in December for many established al-Qaida's responsibility for Sept. 11. Fouda's interviews with Mohammed and Binalshibh established the link even more clearly.

U.S. officials regard Mohammed as one of the highest-ranking al-Qaida leaders still at large and believe he is still planning attacks against U.S. interests. U.S. officials say Binalshibh was a member of a Hamburg-based cell led by Mohammed Atta, the Egyptian-born suspected lead Sept. 11 hijacker.

"I am the head of the al-Qaida military committee and Ramzi (Binalshibh) is the coordinator of the "Holy Tuesday' operation," Fouda quoted Mohammed as saying. Sept. 11, 2001 fell on a Tuesday.

Mohammed said planning began two and a half years before Sept. 11 and that the first targets considered were nuclear facilities.

We "decided against it for fear it would go out of control," Fouda quoted Mohammed as saying. "You do not need to know more than that at this stage, and anyway it was eventually decided to leave out nuclear targets — for now."

Fouda said at one point, while he was being led blindfolded to the meeting, he thought he was going to meet with al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.

Fouda, speaking by telephone from London, said during the two days he spent talking to the two, Mohammed once referred to bin Laden in the past tense and that a sense of disarray led him to believe bin Laden could be dead.

Mohammed and Binalshibh never sent him promised videotapes of the interview Fouda said. He has only audiotapes.

Fouda, the Egyptian reporter and host of al-Jazeera's investigative program Top Secret, said he flew to Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, and from there to Karachi on al-Qaida instructions. In Karachi, he was taken blindfolded and via a complicated route to an apartment where he met the two men he recognized as Mohammed and Binalshibh.

Al-Jazeera had announced last week it will broadcast the interviews as part of its coverage marking the anniversary of the attacks against the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

Fouda wrote about the interview for London's Sunday Times in a story that appeared this week. He told the AP he approached the Times to publicize the documentary.

He wrote in the newspaper that he learned in the interviews that the U.S. Congress had been the fourth target. Hijacked planes slammed into the twin towers of New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon, while crashed in a Pennsylvania field after passengers apparently stormed the hijackers.

Fouda also learned Atta had been a sleeper operative in Germany since 1992 and started detailed planning with a 1999 meeting in Afghanistan with other sleepers.

Once in the United States, Atta communicated with higher ranking al-Qaida officials via email, Fouda wrote. But when he had determined everything was ready, he telephoned Binalshibh in Germany to tell him the date, using a riddle that referred to the shapes of the numbers 9 and 11.

The Times story "gives both al-Jazeera and myself credit, and it helped me to elaborate more on the interview and its circumstances," he said.

The Qatar-based, pan-Arab broadcaster has drawn world attention with its broadcast of interviews with and statements by Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants.

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