Telegraph

Secrets of Al-Qaeda: Network studied Oklahoma-style bomb

NICK FIELDING

THE terror organisation of Osama Bin Laden drew up plans to copy the Oklahoma City bomb, which claimed the lives of 168 people in 1995.

A do-it-yourself guide, detailing the components needed to make the bomb and written by a Bosnian recruit to Bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network, was among documents and weapons found last week in the basement of a Kabul mansion used by the terrorists.

The author of the notebook was one of 200 young militants drawn to Afghanistan for a holy war against America and its allies. They fled from Kabul on Monday night.

The bomber and his fellow fanatics from Somalia, Algeria, Bosnia, Uzbekistan, Sudan and the Dagestan region of Russia left behind 22 Milan anti-tank missiles as well as step-by-step instructions on how to lay minefields and topple skyscrapers. But it was the bomb-making manual with diagrams, mathematical equations and the initially puzzling codeword CHON that sheds most light on Bin Laden's organisation.

On one page, under the title Explosivija za Oklahomu, the owner of the notebook had scribbled formulas with inscriptions in English for TNT, ammonium nitrate and nitro-glycerine. The Oklahoma bomb was made from ammonium nitrate and fuel oil.

Underlined several times on the page were the capital letters CHON. Their meaning became clear towards the end of the notebook. There the terrorist recruit had written, without punctuation, "Karbon Hidrogen Oxygen Nitrogen". The Oklahoma bomb may have been a topic of study only because it demonstrates how much damage a simple bomb can create. But there is a more intriguing possibility. Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, his accomplice, were responsible for the Oklahoma bomb. Several investigators pointed out that Nichols had spent time in the Philippines and met members of Abu Sayyaf, an Islamic group connected to Bin Laden. Suggestions that the two bombers had been manipulated by an Arab terror cell were rejected by the FBI, but are still a source of speculation in America.

As at least four former Al-Qaeda safe houses in Kabul began to give up their secrets last week, details emerged of plans for nuclear devices and chemical warfare.

Comments on headed notepaper from the Grand hotel in Peshawar, Pakistan, discuss a "supersonic moving missile". A house used by two Arab doctors working for Al-Qaeda contained instructions for making the poison ricin.

More elaborate plans uncovered in Kabul include studies for a kinetic energy supergun capable of firing chemical or nuclear warheads. However, it seems more likely that the terrorists were toying with a proven form of attack: another assault on a building in America. Qurban Bir, 27, a decorator hired to repaint the Kabul house, said he saw a diagram of a tall building "like the Empire State in New York" with diagonal lines showing the best trajectories for its demolition.

Also scattered across the floor of the elegant house in the Karte Parwan district of Kabul was a flight simulator computer program and a list of American flying schools.

A page torn out of Flying magazine listed schools in Florida, including Walkawitz Aviation in Titusville which is also a skydiving school, and Phoenix Aviation in Daytona Beach. Both schools have been visited by the FBI several times since September 11.

Greg Nardi, who manages Walkawitz Aviation, said he told FBI investigators on Thursday of a conversation about a year ago with an Arab visitor. The man asked whether it was possible to parachute safely from a jet plane and how far he would drift.

Other papers included addresses of people in Canada and Italy and letters from young recruits hoping to join Al-Qaeda. A visiting card from U-Enterprises of Vancouver, in Canada, was found. Essam Hafez Marzouk, one of its directors, was arrested in Egypt two years ago and jailed for links with the militant Islamic Jihad group.

Copies of a letter from Bin Laden to Mullah Mohammed Omar, leader of the Taliban, were found in which Bin Laden asked not to be turned over to the Americans. Omar's reply agreed to this request.

Scattered across the floors were dozens of green and yellow forms in Arabic marked "Al-Qaeda Ammunition Warehouse". They list weapons including rifles and grenades and note who they were issued to. The walls of the Al-Qaeda houses were plastered with maps including one showing power plants in Europe, Africa and Asia. Another map showed Saudi Arabia with American military bases marked in Arabic "Occupied by the Crusader".

To the east of Kabul, at the Farmada and Darunta training camps near Jalalabad, more evidence has emerged of bomb-making and chemical weapons laboratories. At Farmada, where 600 Arabs lived, dozens of tanks and armoured personnel carriers were abandoned amid craters from the American bombing. The camps were hit by bombs but many parts are still standing.

At the former Soviet military base of Darunta, where villagers said 300 Arab fighters were stationed, a cramped laboratory was found which had been run by a 60-year-old red-bearded Arab, thought to be a Saudi called Abu Khabab. He fled the night before cruise missiles and American bombers hit the site.

Left behind was a long metal box containing 18 toxic liquids, including several brown half-gallon bottles of sulphuric and nitric acid and acetone. On another shelf were several smaller plastic containers, including one labelled cyanide. Much of the laboratory equipment was from the United Arab Emirates. Chemicals came from China. A packet of ear plugs bought in Britain still bore a £2.51 price tag.

Another British link emerged in papers piled on a shelf beside manuals on bomb-making, detonation and guerrilla warfare. It was a photocopy of a money transfer in sterling asking a London branch of Pakistan's Habib Bank AG Zurich to credit the account of Moazzam Begg in Karachi.

A training manual found in another room illustrated the basic geometry of assassination: a killer riding pillion on a motorcycle should shoot his victim at an angle of 30 degrees for maximum effect.

Like Farmada, Darunta was hit in air attacks — but even though it is close to the main highway to Kabul, the laboratory survived cruise missiles. Khabab is believed to be still on the loose, heading south with what remains of his young Al-Qaeda recruits.

Copyright 2001

-- Anonymous, November 17, 2001