Usama bin Laden (Osama bin Laden)

As with all relations with Usama bin Laden any proffered link to Iraq would have to involve not only Turabi but also his chief lieutenants the visible face of the ruling NIF...

Egyptian Islamists from Usama bin Laden's guru Ayman el Zawahiri downwards are central to the Qaida network abroad; at home the banned but tolerated Al Ikhwan al Muslimin (Muslim Brotherhood) are under intense pressure; underground organisations such as Al Gamaa al Islamiya look crushed but officials are monitoring a new generation of activists...

The movement's exiles feel uncomfortable after widespread allegations of close relations with Usama bin Laden; several hundred Libyans fought in Afghanistan in the 1980s when Al Qaida was indirectly supported by the USA...

The plaintiffs also claim against 99 others including three leading Saudi Arabian princes (Sultan bin Abdel Aziz Mohamed al Faisal and Turki al Faisal) and a host of businessmen (often Saudi some already US terrorist-listed and including Usama bin Laden) banks companies and charities...

Khartoum's National Islamic Front government believes it will win public relations points without compromising the Islamist International: the nominally Christian LRA is as disposable as was Carlos the Jackal handed to France in 1994 (but as Usama bin Laden was not)...

It has produced a flood of documents purporting to show the guilt of Usama bin Laden and Al Qaida and the NIF's innocence...

Many leaders of the international movement are Egyptian including Mohammed Atta (believed to have led the 11 September attacks) Usama bin Laden's brilliant lieutenant Ayman el Zawahiri and lots more...

It may sideline some prominent people (as it did after 1995's attack on Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and in 1999 with Hassan el Turabi and his faction) so as to create apparent distance from Usama bin Laden and his comrades (AC Vol 42 No 24) many of whom it continues to host...

P>Many unusual cargoes have been delivered to Sudan in recent years as former resident Usama bin Laden knows...

If Usama bin Laden and his comrades headed for Somalia they could find it even less comfortable than Afghanistan...