Far-Reaching Bin Laden Probe Pays Off

In the early months of 1996, agents working in the windowless white cubbyholes of the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center made a strategic decision. A joint CIA-FBI investigation into the misdeeds of World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Ahmed Yousef had uncovered a treasure of unexpected data about someone the agents concluded was even more dangerous. His name was Osama bin Laden.

The center, created a decade earlier in response to the trauma wrought by suicide bombers and hostage-takers in Beirut and staffed by an amalgam of personnel from 11 government agencies, began organizing its most extensive--and reportedly most expensive--investigation of a single individual suspected of orchestrating anti-American terrorism.

The international effort bore fruit Thursday, with the arraignment in New York of Mohammed Rashed Daoud Owhali on 14 charges of murder, conspiracy to commit murder and use of weapons of mass destruction in connection with the Aug. 7 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya.

Behind Owhali, U.S. officials believe, lurks the shadowy hand of Bin Laden and a clandestine network of terrorist cells that calls itself Al Qaida (“The Base”) and operates across a swath of territory stretching from Algeria to the Philippines.

And while the investigation of Bin Laden’s organization is far from finished, U.S. officials say Owhali’s apprehension could be the fastest breakthrough ever achieved in a case in which the United States was targeted by international terrorists.

“This is our biggest success,” said a ranking intelligence official assigned to the Counterterrorist Center’s Special Unit on Bin Laden. “This is an operation we’re really proud of.”

At the same time, the trail leading to Owhali and a second key suspect in the Nairobi attack involved a share of serendipity.

The arrest in Pakistan of Mohammed Saddiq Odeh, apprehended because he was bearing a conspicuously stolen passport with a mismatched photo, was the luckiest break in a terrorism case since Timothy J. McVeigh was stopped by an Oklahoma state trooper for driving without license plates, U.S. counterterrorism officials said.

Odeh was expected to be extradited from Kenya and arraigned today in a U.S. court on charges similar to those lodged against Owhali.

In addition, U.S. investigators say it was fortunate that Owhali managed to survive what was intended to be a suicide mission, and that a Kenyan guard at the American Embassy was able to provide a positive identification.

The CIA-FBI investigation, while ambitious from the start, took a quantum leap after the embassy bombings in Kenya and in neighboring Tanzania three weeks ago, which killed more than 260 people. The probe was expanded to involve more than a thousand U.S. personnel--representing agencies as divergent as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms in Washington and the legal affairs office of the U.S. Embassy in South Africa. The Justice Department alone deployed an unprecedented 471 FBI agents and staff members.

In announcing Owhali’s apprehension, Atty. Gen. Janet Reno characterized the post-bombing effort as the “most extensive overseas criminal investigation” in U.S. history.

Still, senior U.S. officials said privately that the quick breakthrough is attributable in large part to the decision three years ago to home in on Bin Laden.

Initially, the objective was to trace the flow of Bin Laden’s personal fortune, estimated at $250 million or more, through a maze of front companies, charities and nongovernmental organizations. U.S. officials believe the exiled extremist, the scion of a wealthy Saudi family, uses his clandestine financial network to move money, materiel and manpower to support terrorism around the world.

“His wealth was what prompted us to set up this unit--to trace his links and aid to terrorist groups. But the nature of the effort evolved with time as we learned more about him,” said a U.S. official familiar with the investigation.

During the past two years, the number of personnel committed to counterterrorism in general has more than doubled, and the money allocated has more than tripled, U.S. officials said.

In a series of earlier breakthroughs that officials will discuss only in general terms, the Bin Laden probe began to identify a substantial circle of followers, allies and agents dispersed across Asia, Europe and Africa.

One of the heaviest concentrations of Bin Laden operatives has been uncovered in the Balkans, but the network extended as far afield as Denmark, U.S. officials say.

Some cases have come to light since the East Africa embassy bombings: Last month, for example, Albania arrested and deported to Egypt four Islamic extremists suspected of plotting terrorist attacks. The Albanian press has reported that the operation involved the participation of American intelligence agents.

Bulgaria recently handed over to Egypt an extremist linked to Islamic Jihad, a key terrorist organization, according to the London-based Arab publication Al Hayat. It reported that Issam Abdel-Alim was arrested in his apartment and deported “under American charge” after days of interrogation at the hands of Bulgarian and U.S. intelligence agents.

Earlier discoveries have paid off handsomely as the probe has progressed. U.S. intelligence findings prevented bombing plots directed at two U.S. embassies abroad, FBI Director Louis J. Freeh disclosed last year. Those findings flowed directly from the Bin Laden investigation, U.S. officials now acknowledge.

More important, the intelligence gleaned as investigators painstakingly assembled bits and pieces of information eventually produced the big picture of Bin Laden’s network--and helped U.S. officials know where to look after the bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam.

Despite the pride taken in its accomplishments, the Bin Laden investigation is marred by one fundamental fact: It was unable to identify in advance the deadly threat to the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

“What type of success is this? Intelligence is only useful when it prevents something from happening,” rued Vincent Cannistraro, a former member of the Counter-terrorist Center staff.

“The mission of the CTC is to deter terrorism. When a bomb goes off and people lose their lives, that’s by definition a failure.”