Attack videos raise new fears

14 Jan, 2002 12:05 PM4 mins to read

Al Qaeda training methods are shown in detail. Herald correspondent BILLY ADAMS reports.

SYDNEY - The discovery of videos which show al Qaeda fighters practising assassinations of world leaders has raised concerns of more major terrorist attacks against the West.

The footage, which is the most comprehensive record yet of Osama bin Laden's terror network's training methods, is being sent to the United States Defence Intelligence Agency for analysis.

In almost seven hours of tape, Arabic-speaking teams are shown being drilled in, among other things, attacks on heavily guarded motorcades and what appears to be a mass assassination of heads of government at a golf tournament.

The practical how-to-kill instruction was blended with heavy doses of indoctrination, most vividly portrayed in one scene involving two young children.

A toddler, believed to be no older than two, is fighting with his older sister to play with an assault rifle. She finally opts for a pistol before announcing she will use it to fight the infidels.

The tapes were discovered after militants fled the training camp based in a school in the village of Mir Bacha Kot, just north of Kabul.

Conquering Northern Alliance troops found remnants of expensive weaponry like stun grenades and shells with state-of-the-art proximity fuses.

Inside the building chalk drawings on blackboards showed the correct stance for shooting with bullet-strewn walls testament to the theory being put into practice.

But it is the amateur videotapes which terrorism experts say provide the most detailed visual evidence so far of al Qaeda's extensive training methods.

Unlike basic military training tapes previously uncovered, the latest recordings focus on assassinations and hostage-taking.

Dozens of Arab, Pakistani and African militants are also shown practising drive-by shootings, bombings and building seizure using live ammunition.

One segment features what appears to be a plan to assassinate world leaders at a golf tournament.

Fighters are seen carrying weapons on to the course in golf bags before pulling out rocket-propelled grenades.

"These sorts of operations will be carried out against the leaders of some of the countries," says the narrator in Arabic, as a "caddie" shoots a human cut-out target.

The tapes include detailed planning to attack a motorcade, in what appears to be a road system in Washington DC.

Rehearsing one hostage situation, both the attackers and captives speak in English, and one hostage is apparently shot dead.

The tapes fell into the hands of J. K. Adena, an American special forces veteran now advising the Afghan military.

He is believed to have passed them to a correspondent for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, which broadcast footage on Sunday night.

"The danger is that everybody thinks that the face of al Qaeda is bin Laden," said Adena. "We know now from this tape the face of al Qaeda is not bin Laden. Bin Laden's just their boss and that doesn't mean there aren't hundreds of them, thousands of them trained to carry out these kinds of terrorist activities."

While terrorism experts say the tapes shed no new light on al Qaeda's operations, their sophistication, attention to detail and understanding of Europe and the US, suggest they could be rehearsals for more attacks on the West.

Speculating on the whereabouts of the militants, the ABC reported that the camp was not hit by air strikes, and given the large number of documents found, did not appear to have been searched by US intelligence officials.

Clive Williams, director of terrorism studies at the Australian National University, said last week's revelations of a plot to attack Western targets in Singapore showed that al Qaeda was capable of striking again.

"That was quite a surprise because Singapore has a very sophisticated security apparatus and they operated there from 1993 without being detected," he said.

"There are obviously cells around the world, but this means they could be in a number of places where we did not expect them to be.

"The only question is whether they have been given the go-ahead for an operation or not.

"The Singapore group had done the preparation work. They still needed to get more explosives ... and they were still waiting for the go-ahead from al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

"The question is whether they have given the go-ahead for some other operations."

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