Arab reaction to U.S. attacks on Afghanistan and Sudan sites
Regional, Politics, 8/21/1998

Hamas threatened the US and Israel, Iraq condemned the attack, Gaddafi supported Sudan and Iran thought that the US raids were related to Monica Lewinsky's testimony.

International and Arab reaction continued to the simultaneous US military attacks against strategic and military targets in Afghanistan and Sudan in response to the bombing of US embassies in Nairobi and Dar Es Salam. The US shelled seven sites in what the US identified as a terrorism training complex in Afghanistan and destroyed a medicine factory in Khartoum that the US claimed makes "precursor chemicals" that can be used in the manufacture of chemical weapons.

In the Palestinian occupied territories the Islamic resistance movement, Hamas, threatened the U.S. and Israel after the U.S. air strikes in Sudan and Afghanistan.

Moreover the spiritual leader of the movement, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin denounced the U.S. attacks, describing them as an invasion of the Arab and Islamic nation, then he announced that the reply of Hamas will be inside the Palestinian territory.

In Baghdad, Iraqi government television said that Iraq condemned the American air raids against the targets in Sudan and Afghanistan, saying: "It is a repeated international terrorism."

A statement from the Iraqi leadership said that Iraq is ready for cooperation with any Arab state or any country in the international community to confront hostile American policy.

In Libya, Colonel Moammar Gaddafi headed a march in Tripoli, protesting the attacks, in which demonstrators repeated slogans against the US and burned the American flag. The Libyan government said that Gaddafi phoned Sudanese President Omar El-Bashir yesterday evening in order to express Libya's support for Sudan after the U.S. attacks.

Sudan categorically denied the allegation of the attacked site being anything but a pharmaceutical company and called on the United Nations to set up an investigation commission, describing the attack as a "criminal act." Sudan promised to file a complaint against the US with the UN Security Council.

In Tehran, the Iranian media said the US raids on suspected terrorist sites in Afghanistan and Sudan could be an attempt to distract attention from the investigation of Clinton's relationship with Monica Lewinsky.

Pakistan, which reportedly suffered a stray US missile intended for the Bin Laden sites, also condemned the American military operation, while Britain and Israel supported the attack. The European Union through the Foreign Minister of Austria which presides over the EU said "The US action against targets in Afghanistan and Sudan is obviously a result of the terrorist attacks on the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam, which as we know took a terrible toll," foreign minister Schüssel said in Vienna today. "I assume that the US administration ordered the military action against terrorist bases in the two countries as a result of compelling evidence."

Meantime, the Afghan Taliban movement said that Osama Bin Laden, was not hit in the attack, and he is safe. The attack was timed to coincide with a meeting of the leaders of terrorist groups that was supposed to be taking place yesterday, US officals. But U.S. National Security Advisor said yesterday that "we have no specific information" that Bin Laden was at the site that was attacked by the U.S.

US Secretary of State Madelein Albright described a reported statement by Bin Laden against the US and its citizens as "a declaration of war." Albright said that this will be a long term war against terrorism while other US officials hinted at the possibility of more strikes in the days to come.

US President Bill Clinton had said yesterday, "There is convincing information from our intelligence community that the Bin Ladin terrorist network was responsible for these bombings. Based on this information, we have high confidence that these bombings were planned, financed, and carried out by the organization bin Ladin leads," adding that Bin Laden, who has been implicated in supporting other terror operations, was implicated by "compelling evidence" as planning further attacks on Amreicans and others.
US National Security Advisor Sandy Berger today acknowledged that Russian "President Yeltsin and others" have not supported the US attacks. Berger added that others have.

August 7, the day of the embassy bombings, was the eighth anniversary of George Bush's 1990 order that US troops be sent to Saudi Arabia as part of Operation Desert Shield and later Operation Desert Storm, which ousted Iraqi troops from Kuwait. Osama Bin Laden objects to the presence of US troops in Saudi Arabia, and has been a target of suspicions in the Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia which targeted a building housing US military personnel. Osama had Bin Laden denied his involvement in the Saudi Khobar incident.

Leader of the Afghan Taleban movement, al-Mulla Muhammad Omar, last week denied that the Saudi billionaire in exile Osama Bin Laden is involved in the two attacks that devastated the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

He told the paper from his base in Qandhar that he does not think Bin Laden is behind the two aggressions. He asked how a man who lives as a refugee in Afghanistan came to organize two attacks with explosives in Africa.

The Arab popular reaction tends to view these events as done only against Arab or Islamic countries and that attacks are never done against Israeli terrorism as Lebanon's Prime Minister Rafik Hariri has described the Israeli daily attacks on Lebanese civilians and infrastructure and its occupation of Arab lands. US Secretary of State Albright said "this is not a religious issue" but this is against countries that harbor terrorism.

Today, US Undersecretary of State Department Thomas Pickering said there may be more attacks on terrorist sites and that this efforts "represents intensification" of our fight against terrorism. Yesterday, US Secretary Of State Albright said it is important for the American people to realize that "there may be retaliatory action" against the U.S.

Previous Stories:
  Arab League: US Missile strikes a threat to security in Mideast   (8/21/1998)
  Israel threaten to terrorize Lebanon as 40 citizens cheat death from failed bomb   (8/21/1998)
  US military strikes against Afghanistan and Sudan targets in self defense   (8/20/1998)

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