- The FBI has opened new offices and added thousands of
agents in the Middle East in an effort to foil attacks by Islamic militants.
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- Officials said over the last few years, the FBI opened
up legation offices in such cities as Amman, Cairo, Damascus, Dubai, Muscat
and Tel Aviv. They said the FBI plans to open additional offices in Abu
Dhabi, Muscat, Sanaa and Tunis.
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- The buildup amounts to a doubling of the FBI presence
overseas. Most of the offices were opened in the Middle East and Persian
Gulf, Middle East Newsline reported. In all, the FBI has 44 offices overseas.
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- Officials said the decision to increase the FBI presence
in the Middle East was taken after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
The investigation of the bombing, which killed six and injured more than
1,000, pointed to a conspiracy by Egyptian, Sudanese and Pakistani nationals.
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- "I determined that to have an effective counter-terrorism
program that protected Americans in their homes and offices, the FBI had
to have its agents in Cairo, Islamabad, Tel Aviv, Ankara, Riyad, and other
critical locations around the world.," former FBI director Louis Freeh
said. "We opened FBI Legat offices in those countries to strengthen
our counter-terrorism program."
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- Freeh told the Joint House-Senate Select Intelligence
Committee that is investigating the 2001 Al Qaida suicide attacks that
the FBI presence has increased cooperation with Gulf Arab and other regional
states in counterterrorism. He said the FBI also established offices in
Central Asia to monitor terrorism from Iran.
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- Officials pointed to close cooperation with security
agencies in Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. At times, hundreds of FBI agents
would be sent to a specific Arab country to help investigate an Islamic
insurgency strike. The FBI has 11,561 agents.
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- Freeh said the FBI forged a working relationship with
Saudi security agencies in 1996 in the wake of the Khobar bombing in which
19 U.S. military personnel were killed. The former FBI director cited Saudi
ambassador to the United States Prince Bandar Bin Sultan for paving the
way to establish an office in the kingdom.
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- After long negotiations, he said, the Saudis allowed
the FBI to interrogate six Saudi nationals, the first time the kingdom
allowed direct access to its detainees. That national provided key information
that would implicate Iran in the planning, funding and execution of the
Khobar attack.
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- "The direct evidence obtained strongly indicated
that the 1996 bombings were sanctioned, funded and directed by senior officials
of the government of Iran," Freeh said. "The Ministry of Intelligence
and Security and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard corps were shown to be
culpable for carrying out the operation. The bombers were trained by Iranians
in the Bekaa Valley."
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- http://216.26.163.62/2002/ss_terrorism_10_29.html
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