We have relaunched: What's new at ZDNet Asia?

ZDNet / News / Business / Story

Bin Laden denies committing US attacks

By , CNET on September 12, 2001

Summary

Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden, who masterminded the 1998 bomb attack on the US embassy in Nairobi, has denied that he is behind Tuesday's attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Events

Microsoft MSDN/Developer Event
25 Mar 2010

One Marina Boulevard, Microsoft Singapore

IT Architect Regional Conference Singapore 2010
20 - 21 Apr 2010

Singapore Management University, Singapore

The Internet Show 2010
21-22 Apr 2010

Suntec Singapore

Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden, who is accused of masterminding the 1998 bomb attack on the US embassy in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, has denied that he is behind Tuesday's attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Bin Laden contacted a Pakistani newspaper on Wednesday to say that he supported the attack, but was not involved, reported the BBC.

The denial will no doubt be welcomed by the Taliban government in Afghanistan, who have been sheltering bin Laden. They have denied that bin Laden is capable of launching such a complex operation.

However, US officials had said on Tuesday that the people who conducted attacks on New York and Washington that destroyed the World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon may have had links to Saudi exile bin Laden or his organization.

Names of suspected "terrorists" with possible ties to bin Laden's organization were found on the passenger rosters of the hijacked planes, a government source had said.

Throughout Tuesday, US officials have said the massive attacks by hijackers who crashed commercial airplanes into the buildings may be linked to bin Laden.

An Arab journalist with access to bin Laden told Reuters in London that the Saudi exile had spoken of an "unprecedented attack" on US interests three weeks ago.

US officials, however, said they had no knowledge such an attack was coming. "There was no advance warning of this," one unidentified official said.

Asked if he believed bin Laden was responsible, Senator Richard Shelby, an Alabama Republican who is vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said: "A lot of things point to him."

"There are indications that people with links to bin Laden and the al Qaeda organization may have been responsible," an unnamed US official told Reuters. "There is reason to believe people with links to him may have been responsible for this."

US is still investigating whether the suicide bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen last year was tied to bin Laden.

But some intelligence analysts urged caution in making snap judgements about who was responsible for Tuesday's attacks, saying it could have been the work of other groups tied to the Middle East, angry over a perception that the United States supports Israel to the detriment of the Palestinians.

CNN reports that several groups, including Hamas, in the Middle East have denied responsibility.

President Bush, in the meanwhile, has said he would "make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them."

Reuters contributed to this report.

Talkback

Add your opinion

In order to post a comment, you need to be registered. (Sign In or register below)

Post your comment
Transform your business interactions with real-time voice, video and telepresence solutions.
Tech Vendor: Cisco

ZDNet Asia Live

RT @mistertechblog: I wrote about Nexus One and Touchdown, desktop dock, Bluetooth/USB tethering, ebooks here: http://bit.ly/bRdzx0

6 hours 7 minutes ago by yklee13 on topsy

Read my blog post on getting the most from your Nexus One: http://www.zdnetasia.com/blogs/m...

Data Centre Operator (Fresh Graduates Welcome to Apply) in ... http://bit.ly/bagYuu

6 hours 37 minutes ago by intmasterfeed on topsy

#Cisco #Cloud Cloud on ZDNet Asia: Aussie university joins Cisco cloud ยท Early-adopter criminals embrace cloud... http://bit.ly/d93C8S #TCN

7 hours 39 minutes ago by thetechgang on topsy

www.3w.com.au has seen it's outsourced IT Contracting Business in Manila grow at 4 times the rate of its traditional Australian Based...

14 hours 18 minutes ago by brucemills on Companies' outsourcing spend to increase

RT @3wconsulting: Whitepaper from http://3W.com.au "Outsourcing Your IT Requirements to Philippines" now on @zdnetaustralia & @zdnetasia http://ow.ly/1oY9f

Whitepaper from http://3W.com.au "Outsourcing Your IT Requirements to Philippines" now on @zdnetaustralia & @zdnetasia http://ow.ly/1oYbA

Whitepaper from http://3W.com.au "Outsourcing Your IT Requirements to Philippines" now on @zdnetaustralia & @zdnetasia http://ow.ly/1oYbz

Zdnetasia.com Estimated Worth $178,365 USD. Daily Ad Revenue:$244 USD, Daily Views:81,445 Pages... - http://www.haplog.com/www.zdneta...

recently estimated website net worth of zdnetasia.com - http://www.haplog.com/www.zdneta...

1 day 10 minutes ago by haplog on topsy

When I create an event, I click on an approximate time during the day when I want the event to occur, then I click "edit event detail...

1 day 47 minutes ago by bessellbrowne on Google Calendar gets 'smart' rescheduling

ipads break alott i had one it broke three times in the month i had it so i got rid of the damn thing id just go for the laptop Top Grade...

1 day 48 minutes ago by bessellbrowne on Report: 'Hundreds of thousands' of iPad preorders

There are a number of websites that still require Internet Explorer to view and IE for Mac Stinks (it is really ies4osx which is the Wind...

1 day 50 minutes ago by bessellbrowne on Microsoft: Only minor tweaks in Windows 7 SP1

The receivers don't transmit back to the satellite. Unless there is a phone line attached to the receiver, they don't have any wa...

1 day 53 minutes ago by bessellbrowne on Apple to join the geolocation craze?

"Lead Cognos BI Developer Insurance - Jobs - ZDNet Asia" http://bit.ly/bRcxOG

1 day 48 minutes ago by rhrcognos on topsy

whatever little understanding I have we 'll only progress toward end of the world if we use HPCs to lenthen life of human being. Huma...

2 days 59 minutes ago by abhi32002@gmail.com on High computing promises elixir of life

Thanks for the knowledgeable article on SDDs. Allas...when all this reasearch will happen in Indian Universities. Hope the new bill on Fo...

2 days 12 minutes ago by abhi32002@gmail.com on APAC HPC users eye solid-state drives

It was a good article. This brings a good opportunity for Indian IT firms to come up with new solutions in this field. HPC can become a b...

2 days 31 minutes ago by abhi32002@gmail.com on High computing most-wanted job in Asia

COL KR DHARMADHIKARY(RETD) its very late to reply the link, but if it is still alive and looking for opportunity, i would like to know th...

2 days 28 minutes ago by deb021280 on Education takes off in rural India, helped by PCs

It was just a matter of time until google was marginalised anyway. I'm afraid this will be forgotten in China very quickly. Still, it...

2 days 33 minutes ago by robinsmith on Report: Google to leave China on April 10

High performance computing (HPC) most-wanted job in Asia http://bit.ly/9vFC3i (via @zdnetasia) #singapore

He doesn't care if her shoes are of glass, All he wants to see is a huge rack and nice a*s. Sleeping beauty's not awoken by true ...

2 days 2 minutes ago by warlowdavies on One pair of 3D glasses to rule them all

RT @zdnetasia: EMC COO, Pat Gelsinger, on bridging gaps in the organization and its cloud ambitions in Asia. (cont) http://tl.gd/i5jjd

EMC COO, Pat Gelsinger, on bridging gaps in the organization and its cloud ambitions in Asia. http://bit.ly/9etOZW

Asian SMBs need to pay more attention to disaster recovery planning http://bit.ly/bDet08 via @zdnetasia

Asian SMBs need to pay more attention to disaster recovery planning http://bit.ly/bDet08

[TECH] URL Shorteners slow Web redirection. - http://bit.ly/bySnWK @zdnetasia

URL shorteners are great but they can slow web redirection & you pray it would never go down http://bit.ly/bySnWK via @zdnetasia

URL shorteners slow Web redirection. http://bit.ly/bySnWK

Chinese agencies cry foul over Google. http://bit.ly/by6rwV

all of sg's isps have been practising compulsory invisible proxy for all home subscribers at their backend since many years back alre...

3 days 12 minutes ago by melvinchia on Web filters mean bad news for business

it is not to good for china.
Proactol

3 days 57 minutes ago by nathonastle on Chinese ad partners beg Google for information

Very good explanation of JMX

4 days 2 minutes ago by Babith B on Managing applications with JMX

The reaction to a report issued Tuesday by Flurry Analytics managed to completely overlook some interesting news--the Android-based Motorola Droid outsold the original iPhone over the same period of time following their respective launches--to focus instead on the sales numbers for the Nexus One.

4 days 5 minutes ago by lonemavericks on diggs

Another ZTE story....

4 days 7 minutes ago by Moderate Your Greed on Philippines opens bid for final 3G license

Keep up with ZDNet Asia

Linkedin Join our network

RSS Feeds Subscribe now

Newsletters Subscribe today

Twitter Follow us

Inside ZDNet Asia

Special Report: Tech Focus in 2010

Latest Videos on Tech Industry

Insight: Interviews with Newsmakers

Search for over 15,000 Tech Jobs in Asia

Find your Tech answers in TechGuides

IT Library: Over 60,000 IT papers at your fingertips

Download IT Priorities 2010 Report