WASHINGTON - Three al Qaeda members have told Moroccan officials that Osama bin Laden commanded his fighters in December to disperse across the globe to attack American and Jewish interests.
The Washington Post says the three men, citizens of Saudi Arabia, told the interrogators they escaped from Afghanistan and came to Morocco on a mission to use bomb-laden speedboats for suicide attacks on United States and British warships in the Strait of Gibraltar.
The men, captured in May in a joint Moroccan-CIA operation, appeared briefly in court in Morocco at the weekend but made no public statements.
Moroccan officials said bin Laden's instructions were behind a string of recent attacks, including Friday's bombing outside the US Consulate in Karachi, Pakistan, that killed 11 people.
They said information from prisoners and other evidence showed that al Qaeda leaders continued to direct missions from afar.
The Moroccans said that, based on their findings and communication with other intelligence agencies, there was every indication that bin Laden was still alive.
The accounts provided by the three Saudi captives were related during interviews with senior Moroccan officials who have direct knowledge of the interrogations.
The Saudis were among the al Qaeda members who assembled in the mountainous Tora Bora region after US-backed forces captured Kabul, the Afghan capital.
While sneaking out of Tora Bora, a bin Laden lieutenant assembled al Qaeda members for final instructions.
The lieutenant, who said he was carrying direct instructions from bin Laden, ordered the members to flee Afghanistan to whatever areas of the world in which they had previously operated, including Asia, the Gulf, Africa, Turkey and Europe, the Post said.
Bin Laden's decree directed them to launch terrorist attacks once they had become established in familiar areas.
"Members who were very knowledgeable about one region had to go back to that region to prepare and perpetuate terrorist attacks," a senior Moroccan official said.
Moroccan officials said the Saudi prisoners described a final ceremony in which the men pledged allegiance to bin Laden and swore themselves to martyrdom through suicide operations.
- REUTERS
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