Le Figaro
Alexandra Richard
October 31, 2001 page 2
Dubai, one of the seven emirates of the federation of United Arab Emirate in the north-east of Abu Dhabi. This city of 350,000 inhabitants was the discreet locus of a secret meeting between Osama Ben Laden and the local representative of the CIA, in July. A member of the administration of the American Hospital of Dubai confirms that the public enemy number one stayed in the hospital from July 4th to July 14th.
Arriving from the airport of Quetta, Pakistan, Osama Ben laden was transferred upon arrival at Dubai airport. Accompanied by his personal doctor and faithful lieutenant, the Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahari (though on this latter, the testimony of the eyewitness was not formal), as well as by four body guards and an Algerian nurse, Bin Laden was admitted to the American Hospital, a building of glass and marble situated between Al-Garhoud Bridge and Al-Maktoum bridge.
Each story of the hospital has two VIP suites and around 15 rooms. The millionaire Saudi was admitted to the reknown department of urology head by Dr. Terry Callaway, an expert on kidney stones and male infertility. In the course of several telephone calls, Callaway did not wish to respond to our questions.
In March of 2000 the weekly journal, Asia Week, published in Hong Kong, raised questions about Ben Laden's health, stating that he suffered form a serious physical problem and more precisely that he was in danger due to a kidney infection that had spread to the liver and required the care of a specialist. According to legitimate sources, Ben Laden had delivered to a post in Kandahar a mobile dialysis machine sometime in the first part of the year 2000. According to our sources, "this trip for reasons of Ben Laden's health" was not the first. Between 1996 and 1998, Osama ben Laden went to Dubai several times for health purposes.
On September 27th, 15 days after the World Trade Center attacks, prompted by the request of America, the Central Bank of Arab Emirates froze the accounts and investments of 26 people or organizations suspected of contact with the Ben Laden organization, notably those of the Dubai Islamic Bank.
"Relations with the Arabian Emirates have always been close", explains our source. The princes of the royal families which had recognized the Taliban regime, visited Afganistan frequently. A prince of one of the royal families regularly partook of hunts on property owned by Ben Laden, whom he had known and socialized with for a number of years.
Daily flights between Dubai and Quetta are guaranteed by both Pakistan Airlines and the Emirate airlines. Emirate and saudi private aircraft fly to Quetta frequently even though these are not recorded in the flight plans at the airport.
Throughout his stay in the hospital, Osamma Ben Laden received visits from many family members and Saudi Arabian and emirate personalities of status. During this time, the local representative of the CIA was seen by many people taking the elevator and going to Ben Laden's room.
Several days later the CIA person bragged to his friends about having visited the Saudi millionaire. From authoritative sources, this CIA agent visited CIA headquarters July 15th, the day after the Ben Laden's departure for Quetta.
At the end of July, emirate customs officials arrested a Franco-Algerian islamic activist, Djamel Beghal at the airport of Dubai. At the beginning of August, French and American authorities are notified. Interrogated by local authorities in Abu Dhabi, Begal says that he had been called to Afghanistan at the end of 2000 by Abou Zoubeida-Quaida. Beghal's mission was to blow up the US Embassy, avenue Gabriel, near the Place de la Concorde in Paris, upon his return to France.
According to various arabic diplomatic sources and French intelligence itself, precise information was communicated to the CIA concerning terrorist attacks aimed at American interests in the world, including within its own territory.
In August, at the US Embassy in Paris, an emergency meeting was called with the DGSE and the highest American officials. Extremely bothered, these latter requested from their French peers exact details about the Algerian activists, without explaining exactly where the nature of their inquiry. When asked the question, "what do you fear in the coming days?", the Americans responded with incomprehensible silence.
Contact between the CIA and Ben Laden goes back to 1979 when, representing the family business in Istanbul, Ben laden begins to enroll volunteers from the Arab-Muslim world for the Afghan resistance against the Red Army. Looking into the attacks of August 1998 on the American Embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dares Salam, Tanzania, FBI investigators discovered that the traces left by the blast indicated that they were from an American military explosive and that these explosives had been delivered three years before to Afghan Arabs, the famous international brigade of volunteers, fighting on the side of Osama Bin Laden during the Afghanis war against the Soviet army.
On further investigation, the FBI discovered certain <<plans> that had been put together between the CIA and its "Islamic friends" over the years. The meeting in Dubai is, so it would seem, consistent with a "certain American policy".
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