Islamic Groups Target U.S. With New Threats

A coalition of extremist Islamic groups linked to a dissident Saudi millionaire has issued new threats against the United States, an Arabic newspaper reported Wednesday.

In a statement sent to the Cairo bureau of the Pan-Arab daily Al Hayat, a group calling itself the International Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders warned that recent “holy struggle operations” against the United States will continue “until all American forces retreat from the Islamic lands.”

An umbrella group by the same name was formed in February by Saudi businessman Osama bin Laden, a onetime U.S. ally against Soviet forces in Afghanistan whom American officials now consider a primary threat to U.S. interests worldwide.

U.S. officials have pointed to Bin Laden as a suspect in the devastating Aug. 7 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, which left more than 250 dead and more than 5,000 injured. Twelve Americans were among those killed.

In Washington, U.S. officials took note of the warning. “We treat all of these things seriously,” one official said.

In the aftermath of the twin bombings, U.S. authorities say they have noticed a rise in the number of threats directed at U.S. embassies, military installations and other overseas facilities.

After moving nonessential personnel from the U.S. Embassy in Pakistan on Monday, American officials temporarily halted access to the U.S. mission in Amman, Jordan, on Tuesday. On Wednesday, there were unconfirmed reports of threats to embassies in London and Copenhagen. And Associated Press reported that Albanian and U.S. agents were searching for suspected members of a terrorist group after receiving “serious evidence” of a threat to bomb the U.S. Embassy in Tirana, the Albanian capital.

The latest warnings published by Al Hayat were likely to add to the concerns.

“The coming days, God willing, will see that America meets a black fate, similar to what happened to the Soviet Union,” the statement from the Islamic Front said. “There will be more attacks. More and more Islamic groups will appear that will all fight against American interests.”

Al Hayat said the statement arrived at its Cairo office Tuesday, along with three statements from the Islamic Army for the Liberation of Holy Places, which had previously claimed responsibility for the East African explosions.

In one of the new statements, the Islamic Army said it would continue “shipping more American dead bodies to its unjust government . . . until we humiliate America’s arrogance and roll its dignity in the mud of defeat.”

U.S. officials were initially skeptical of the claim by the previously unknown group, pointing out that the nearly simultaneous explosions in African cities more than 400 miles apart probably required months of planning, extensive resources, technical skill and a sophisticated international network.

The statements also included an apparent attempt by the Islamic Army to absolve itself of blame in the deaths and injuries of hundreds of Africans--many of them Muslims--alongside the American targets.

“It was not the intention of the Islamic Army to hurt any Kenyan citizens, and the responsibility for the whole operation lies squarely with America. America should compensate the Kenyan people for bringing war to their land,” the group said.

The organization accused Kenya and Tanzania of cooperating with Israel as well as the United States. “Cooperating with the Israelis while they are occupying the Al Aqsa mosque [in Jerusalem] is considered a declaration of war against Muslims across the world,” the statement read. “Kenya and Tanzania have become the biggest American bases against Muslims.”

The separate statement from the Islamic Front umbrella group linked the embassy attacks to U.S. involvement in neighboring Somalia in the early 1990s. The two targeted embassies “supervised the killings of at least 13,000 Somali civilians in the treacherous attack led by America against this Muslim country,” it said.

U.S. officials have said they believe that Bin Laden may have played a role in several bombings against U.S. civilians or military personnel, including a 1993 attack that killed 19 Americans participating in the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Somalia.

The front’s statement said that when the Islamic Army claimed responsibility for the twin embassy attacks “it became clear to everyone, including the American people, that we were not lying when we warned them.” The Islamic Army had issued a warning about attacks, which was printed in Al Hayat several days before the bombings.

The influential Saudi-owned newspaper has long played a central role in exposing and exploring the many controversies and causes of the Middle East. Since 1986, it has been based in London, where it is the dean of about 60 Arabic-language newspapers and magazines.

In 1997, Al Hayat, often used as an outlet for statements from shadowy groups with causes, became a target itself. Staff members received more than a dozen letter bombs at the paper’s offices in London, Washington and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Two security guards were injured, one seriously, in those attacks.

In Afghanistan, meanwhile, the supreme leader of the ruling Taliban movement, which is providing haven for Bin Laden, came to the Saudi militant’s defense and vowed to protect him if the U.S. military mounted an operation aimed at extracting him from his fortified base.

Mullah Mohammed Omar said he summoned Bin Laden to his headquarters in the city of Kandahar last month and told the Saudi to refrain from launching military attacks. Omar’s request followed Bin Laden’s declaration in May of a religious decree calling for attacks on Americans around the world.

“We told Bin Laden that ‘you can live here as a guest, but you should not be doing politics or indulging in military activities from Afghanistan’s soil,’ ” Omar said in a telephone interview.

“I can assure anyone that he is not involved in the bombings in Kenya and Tanzania,” the cleric said. “I don’t believe he has the power and the resources to do such things in faraway places.”

Omar, whose fundamentalist followers have imposed a harsh form of Islamic rule in Afghanistan, said Bin Laden has become the leading suspect in the embassy bombings only because he is the easiest person to blame.

“The American CIA is inefficient. It has many shortcomings. To cover up these shortcomings, they have to find a scapegoat. They can never get the right person, so they are blaming Osama bin Laden for every bomb that explodes in America, Africa and Karachi,” the mullah said.

He scoffed at remarks by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright on Tuesday that Taliban leaders must hand over Bin Laden if they hope to gain diplomatic recognition around the world.

“No amount of temptation or coercion can force the Taliban to hand over Bin Laden to anyone,” Omar said.

Bin Laden and his coalition have been linked to the Africa bombings by Pakistani officials, who say a suspect they arrested on the day of the blasts confessed to a role and identified Bin Laden as the architect.

The suspect--identified by Pakistani officials as Mohammed Sadik Howaida, a 34-year-old Palestinian engineer--initially had not repeated the confession to U.S. and Kenyan investigators after he was turned over to them by the Pakistanis last week. But news reports Wednesday indicated that Howaida had begun to provide U.S. investigators with significant details about the bombing in Nairobi.

According to Pakistani intelligence sources working on the case, Howaida told them that he was part of a seven-member team that helped build the bombs and that the team worked under Bin Laden’s direction.

Howaida identified two accomplices who he said accompanied him to Pakistan, the sources said. On Saturday, Pakistani authorities arrested a Saudi, a Sudanese and an Afghan in connection with the bombings as the three men tried to make their way from Pakistan into Afghanistan.

Trounson reported from Jerusalem and Filkins from Islamabad, Pakistan. Times staff writer Paul Richter in Washington, researcher Aline Kazandjian in Cairo and special correspondents Rahimullah Yousefzai in Peshawar, Pakistan, and Javed Rana in Islamabad contributed to this report.