CIA met with Bin Laden in July

The public enemy # 1 is said to have been treated at the American Hospital of Dubaï at the beginning of summer for serious chronic kidney failure. During his 15 day stay, a local representative of the CIA came to visit the Saudi millionaire. This agent is said to have been informed about possible attacks.

By Alexandra Richard - Le FIGARO (#1 Conservative Daily in France) -
Published on October 30, 2001

DUBAI (one of the seven Emirates of the federation of the United Arab Emirates, in the northeast of Abu Dhabi).

In July of this year, this town of 350,000 inhabitants was the discreet setting of a secret meeting between Osama Bin Laden and the local representative of the CIA. An inside source within the administrative direction of the American hospital of Dubaï, affirms that "public enemy number one" stayed at this hospital from July fourth to the fourteenth.

Coming from the airport of Quetta in Pakistan, Osama Bin Laden landed at Dubaï Airport accompanied by his personal doctor and faithful lieutenant, whose identity is believed to be Egyptian Ayman Al-Zawahari - although on this point testimonials are not considered absolutely reliable - and by four bodyguards, as well as an Algerian male nurse. Bin Laden was admitted at the American hospital, a glass and marble building located between the Al-Garhoud and Al-Maktoum Bridges.

On each floor there are two "VIP" suites as well as about fifteen regular hospital rooms. The Saudi millionaire was admitted in the very well known Department of Urology led by Doctor Terry Callaway, kidney stones and male infertility specialist. Although contacted by phone numerous times, Doctor Callaway did not wish to answer any of our questions.

Already in March 2000, the weekly magazine Asia Week published in Hong Kong inquired about the health of Bin Laden and reported a serious physical problem, even stating that his life was threatened because of a "renal infection which had propagated to the liver and required specialized care". According to reliable sources, Bin Laden has had mobile dialysis equipment delivered to his Afghan hideout during the first half of 2000. According to our sources, "Bin Laden's trips for health reasons are not a rare occurrence". Between 1996 and 1998, Osama Bin Laden went to Dubaï several times for this and other "business".

On September 27, two weeks after the attacks on the World Trade Center and At the request of the American government, the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates announced the freezing of the accounts and the investments of 26 people or organizations suspected of maintaining contacts with Bin Laden, and in particular those associated with the Dubaï Islamic Bank.

Our sources explain that "the relationship between the Emirates and Saudi Arabia have always been very close, the princes of the reigning families who established diplomatic relations with the Taliban regime visited Afghanistan often. One of the princes of a reigning family who had a long standing relationship with Bin Laden, regularly went for pleasure hunts on Bin Laden's lands and domains in Afghanistan. There are direct daily flights between Dubaï and Quetta offered by Pakistan Airlines and Emirates. As for private Saudi or Emirate private aircrafts, they frequently serve Quetta where, often, they are not even logged in any of the airport's registers.

During his hospitalization, Osama Bin Laden received visits from several members of his family, as well as Saudi and Emirate personalities. During this same stay, the local representative of the CIA, who is very well known in Dubaï, was seen using the hospital's main elevator to go to Osama Bin Laden's room.

A few days later, the CIA man boasted in front of friends that he had visited the Saudi millionaire. According to reliable sources, this CIA agent was recalled back to the US by his superiors on July 15, shortly after Bin Laden's return to Quetta.

By the end of July, Emirates customs officers at the Dubaï airport arrested a Franco-Algerian Islamist activist, Djamel Beghal. At the beginning of August, French and American authorities were alerted. Questioned by local authorities in Abu Dhabi, Beghal stated that he was summoned to Afghanistan at the end of 2000 by Abou Zoubeida - a military person in charge Bin Laden's organization, Al Quaida. Beghal's mission: to blow up the United States Embassy in Paris, Avenue Gabriel, close to the Place de la Concorde, upon his return to France.

According to various Arab diplomatic sources and French secret services themselves, very accurate information was communicated to the CIA relating to planned terrorist attacks aimed at American interests in the world and within the territory of the European Union. A DST (Direction Securite Territoire: French FBI) report dated September 7 recaps all of this information, mentioning specifically that these orders to strike emanated from Afghanistan.

In August, at the United States Embassy in Paris, an emergency meeting was convened between the DGSE (French CIA) and the highest ranked American secret services personnel. Acting visibly and clearly worried, the Americans submitted to their French counterparts very narrowly defined requests for information concerning certain Algerian activists, although they did so without ever providing any background or context for their request. When the French asked "but what is it exactly that you fear in the next few days", the Americans only replied with absolute silence which, to the French, was incomprehensible and almost raised more questions than it answered.

The contacts between the CIA and Bin Laden go back to 1979 when he was his family's business agent in Istanbul. That is where he began recruiting Arab or Muslim volunteers for the Afghan resistance against the Red Army. During their investigation into the attacks of August 1998 against the American embassies of Nairobi (Kenya) and Dares-Salaam (Tanzania), the FBI discovered that the chemical signatures left by the explosives used in these terrorist attacks were standard issue US explosives. Explosives which had been delivered three years earlier to the well known Afghan volunteer resistance fighting alongside Osama Bin Laden during the war of Afghanistan against the Soviet army.

Continuing its investigations, the FBI further discovered various "schemes and deals" which the CIA and its "Islamist friends" have devised and collaborated on for many years. Thus one may conclude that the Dubaï meeting is but the logical continuation of an "opaque and nebulous American policy".