NYPost

BIN LADEN'S CHILLING PLOT

By JESSICA TISCH

June 14, 2001 -- Osama bin Laden's now-foiled plan to disrupt President Bush's trip to Italy next month may have been merely a prelude to a larger attack on Americans worldwide - and a possible presidential assassination - in the near future.

Middle East expert Steven Emerson told The Post yesterday that bin Laden is "actively planning attacks on American targets overseas in the Middle East and Persian Gulf."

Emerson, who runs a research group that investigates militant Islamic activity in the United States and abroad, cites the increased frequency of terrorist surveillance on American institutions as evidence of such possible attacks.

Nor is the increased possibility of terrorist attack limited to the Mideast, Emerson says.

"Hezbollah and other Islamic movements beyond bin Laden are clearly considering action beyond the Israeli-Palestinian arena," he said.

Emerson also perceives a growing threat on Bush's life.

"I expect that bin Laden would consider any U.S. official, including the president, a target," he says, referring to a Post article yesterday about a terrorist plot to attack Bush at the G8 economic summit next month in Genoa.

The Post reported that bin Laden's organization was reportedly planning an airstrike on the summit, using remote-controlled rockets packed with explosives.

Emerson, the author of four books, runs The Investigative Project and has testified in front of Congress more than a dozen times.

Citing a rash of flag-burnings and widespread calls for "the death of America," Emerson also sees growing cause for concern about the safety of Israeli civilian flights traveling to and from the United States.

He sees these flights as increasingly probable targets for terrorist attack in light of the recent acquisition of anti-aircraft missiles by Palestinian groups.

Emerson links the growing international threat to the emergence of what he calls "one big Islamic militant Internet" led by Hezbollah and bin Laden. Smaller fundamentalist groups, he says, now have greater, even global, reach under Hezbollah's leadership, which has helped unify militants against a common enemy.

-- Anonymous, June 14, 2001