A Growing Global Chorus Calls for Proof

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell’s promise Sunday to detail Osama bin Laden’s role in the attacks on New York and the Pentagon comes as a growing chorus of nations is demanding just such proof.

From the Persian Gulf to Europe to Latin America, world leaders have become increasingly concerned that the U.S. is ready to strike Bin Laden or his supporters in Afghanistan without sufficient evidence.

A U.S. attack without a very public, very powerful presentation of evidence, they fear, could fracture the nascent international coalition against terrorism and send the Middle East into a new spasm of violence.

World opinion has been nearly universal in expressing outrage at the Sept. 11 attacks against the U.S.; however, it has been far less united in deciding how best to respond and whom to blame.

“If [the U.S.] hits Afghanistan and other Islamic countries without undeniable proof of their involvement in the acts of terror and in violation of international law, such strikes could trigger serious consequences and retaliation,” said Mikhail Prusak, chairman of the international affairs committee in Russia’s upper house of parliament.

Although Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban has demanded such verification of Bin Laden’s involvement from the start, the diversity of countries now clamoring for evidence has compelled the U.S. to move quickly to shore up support for military action.

The U.S. has so far released few details about what information it has--or doesn’t have--on the identity of the architect of the terrorist attacks that left more than 6,900 dead or missing.

President Bush has insisted that the U.S. needs no additional proof of Bin Laden’s role, because court trials, witnesses and intelligence have conclusively established his authorship of bombings at the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 as well as other terrorist acts.

But top U.S. and British officials acknowledge the need for a good show of evidence--while worrying that providing it would give terrorist networks further insight into how Western intelligence works.

Even close allies such as France and Germany want to see more than circumstantial proof, according to Paul Beaver, an independent defense analyst in London. Italy and France are worried about the effects of any retaliation on local Muslim communities as well as business interests in the Arab world.

“It is important in the sense that we have to be able to explain why this is not just mere speculation or resorting to the usual suspects,” said a British government official who asked not to be identified.

Neither Russia nor the governments of Central Asia have issued formal demands for evidence tying Bin Laden to the suicide hijackings in New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia. But such proof could go a long way in those countries toward quelling internal opposition to assisting a possible U.S. military campaign.

Mideast Allies Urge International Probe

The need for a thorough airing of evidence is most crucial in the Mideast, where only the thinnest support exists for a U.S. war on terrorism.

Although nearly all Arab nations have condemned the Sept. 11 attacks, they have been extremely reluctant to endorse a counterstrike against a fellow Muslim state without certain proof.

Even traditional American allies in the region such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates have urged a thorough investigation, preferably conducted under an international umbrella--an idea the U.S. has so far rejected as too time-consuming and politically risky.

But even if the U.S. could produce hard evidence, problems would remain because, short of a confession by Bin Laden, the U.S. would be hard-pressed to convince most Arab nations of his guilt.

The U.S. is not particularly trusted in the region because of its close ties to Israel. Moreover, its objectivity is questioned in the face of such a massive, emotionally charged disaster.

“America is not very credible here among the Arab countries,” said Radwan Abdullah, a Jordanian political analyst.

One indication of the trouble the U.S. faces is illustrated by the legion of conspiracy theories now floating through the Muslim world. One that has taken particular hold, even among many well-educated, middle-class Arabs, is that the bombing was the work of the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service.

Apparently stemming from a publication by Hezbollah, long designated by the U.S. as a terrorist group, the rumors claim that more than 4,000 people who are Jewish did not show up for work at the World Trade Center the morning of the attack, and that the Mossad was trying to distract attention from the Palestinian uprising in Israel.

Despite the absence of any proof of the Mossad’s role, many Muslims have accepted the theory with far more ease than they have embraced the possibility of Bin Laden’s participation.

‘It’s Just Like the Liberty’

“It’s just like the Liberty,” said Tariq Rashid Butti, an accountant in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, referring to an attack on a U.S. intelligence ship during the 1967 Middle East War that turned out to have been carried out by Israeli forces. “Where is America’s proof that Bin Laden did this?”

For many Arabs, the rush to blame Bin Laden is reminiscent of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, when Islamic terrorists were immediately, and incorrectly, blamed for the attack.

“This attack wasn’t just against the United States, it was against all nations. It should be investigated internationally, under the United Nations’ umbrella,” said Khaled Shomali, a Kuwaiti visiting the United Arab Emirates. “Revenge may help for a moment . . . but it won’t solve your problems.”

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Times staff writers Marjorie Miller in London, Tyler Marshall in Islamabad, Maura Reynolds in Moscow and Michael Slackman in Amman, and special correspondent Ranwa Yehia in Cairo contributed to this story.