Afghanistan, Bosnia, Chechnya: Bin Laden's Dinner Guest

[Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1@xxxxxxx>]

*****   New York Times 16 December 2001

Dinner Guest of bin Laden Identified as Saudi Fighter

By DOUGLAS JEHL

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, Dec. 15 - The Saudi who was seen visiting Osama
bin Laden in the videotape released this week is a 38-year-old
veteran of conflicts in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Chechnya who left the
kingdom most recently on Sept. 21, a senior Saudi official said today.

The official's account was the most authoritative yet in resolving
the mystery surrounding the dinner guest, who was seen and heard on
the tape paying effusive tribute to Mr. bin Laden and flattering him
with news of Saudi clerics who he said had endorsed the Sept. 11
attacks in their sermons, fatwas and other messages.

The official identified the dinner guest as Khaled al-Harbi, a
legless former fighter in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Chechnya who was
not regarded as a religious scholar, and he said earlier accounts by
Saudi and American officials naming him as Ali Sayeed al-Ghamdy, a
religious scholar, were incorrect.

Unlike Mr. Ghamdy, who had been banned from preaching by the
government in 1994, Mr. Harbi has never been arrested by the Saudi
government or included on any kind of security watch list, the Saudi
official said.

The official said Saudi Arabia did not know anything about Mr.
Harbi's whereabouts between his departure from the kingdom 10 days
after the Sept. 11 attacks and his appearance on the videotape, which
was released in Washington on Thursday....

...In offering his account of what was known about the Saudi visitor,
the senior Saudi official said he had been among the estimated 15,000
or more volunteers from the kingdom who had taken part in the war
against the Soviets in Afghanistan during the 1980's, in what Saudi
scholars advocated as a holy war against infidel occupiers....

The Saudi official said that little information was known about Mr.
Harbi's service in Bosnia and Chechnya, but that it took place during
the early to mid-1990's, and that the Saudi volunteer had lost his
legs in one of the conflicts. In the videotape, the Saudi visitor
appeared to have been disabled from the waist down; Mr. bin Laden was
seen bending down to greet the visitor as he sat on the floor, most
of his body obscured by loose robes....

<http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/16/international/asia/16SHEI.html>   *****
--
Yoshie

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