An Arab intelligence expert, reported to know Saddam personally, told the magazine that: "very soon, you will be witnessing large-scale terrorist activity by the Iraqis." The source claims that the joint attacks would be aimed primarily at U.S. and British targets in the Islamic world.

LEAD FOCUS

By Steve Macko, ERRI Risk Analyst

UNITED KINGDOM/YEMEN (EmergencyNet News) - On Sunday, a British newspaper was reporting that the FBI has evidence that the Yemeni extremists involved in this week's kidnapping of Western tourists in Yemen were trained at terrorist camps run by the international terrorist Osama bin Laden. The ten-person FBI contingent is said to believe that the 16 British, American and Australian tourists were kidnapped as "direct retribution" for last month's air strikes on Iraq, and not to achieve the release of local Islamic militants as Yemeni authorities claimed originally. The agents suspect that the tourists may have been kidnapped to "shield" Saddam Hussein from further bombing raids, with a warning that they would die if Iraq was attacked again.

A U.S. intelligence officer said on Saturday night that bin Laden has been deeply involved in the funding and training of Islamic extremists in Yemen for several years. Despite being a Saudi, he is one of the most powerful men in the Yemen. The intelligence officer said that U.S. authorities were convinced the Yemeni kidnappers were trained by bin Laden.

Yemen has long been a center for bin Laden's commercial and military operations, which have spread from Afghanistan. Until now, kidnappings there have been for ransom only. But the fact that Islamic Jihad is now targeting British and Americans civilians to protest on Saddam's behalf has raised fears of further attacks elsewhere.

British Foreign Office officials have warned British travelers to take extra care in countries where Islamic extremists are known to operate, and may give protection to British expatriates in Yemen.

On Saturday, British newspapers were saying that there was a warning from Islamic terrorists that they were planning to target British citizens. The warning was received by the Yemeni government last week but was not passed on to London until after Monday's kidnapping. Yemeni officials informed British embassy staff about the warning only on Tuesday, the day three British tourists and an Australian died after the army launched an ill- fated assault on the kidnappers' hideout. The tour party might have altered its itinerary if the warning had been passed on sooner.

The threat was reportedly received by the Yemenis days earlier when the victims had not yet entered the Abyan region, notorious as a haven for Islamic fundamentalists. Details of the source of the warning were sketchy but the Yemeni authorities indicated that it followed the arrest of an Islamic militant. A separate more general warning against Western targets was also received earlier in December but was not passed on to British diplomats. Instead it was reported in a local newspaper on 23 December.

The British Foreign Office has had two meetings with the Yemeni ambassador to discuss Britain's continuing dissatisfaction over conflicting accounts of the fatal shootout. The Foreign Office has let it be known that it would have preferred a negotiated settlement like dozens of earlier kidnappings when foreigners were held for weeks but released unharmed.

The warning and subsequent kidnapping on Monday suggest that the security situation in Yemen has taken a turn for the worst, and security arrangements for the few remaining Britons in Yemen have been increased.

Before Sunday's revelations in the case were made, Yemeni analysts and foreign diplomats were saying that the root cause of this past week's kidnapping lies in the complex wrangling of Yemen's internal politics rather than the shadowy world of international terrorism. It should be noted that from the moment the 16 tourists were abducted on Monday, the Yemeni authorities have painted the kidnappers as crazed Islamic fundamentalists with a global agenda and strong foreign links.

The Yemeni government has insisted that the group was called Islamic Jihad and it was demanding an end to United Nations sanctions on Iraq and had been caught red-handed with a plan to attack British, U.S. and U.N. interests in the city of Aden. The authorities also said they only launched the fateful raid to free the tourists after the kidnappers started executing the hostages and pledged to kill one hostage per hour until their demands were met. But the official version is contradicted by testimony from the hostages.

Abdulaziz al-Saqqaf, editor of the independent Yemen Times said that the Yemeni government is looking for a face-saving way out of a disaster and the only way they can get out of it is to make the kidnappers look like monsters. He added that the hostages were more valuable alive. There was no reason to kill them. The kidnappers were not foreign-haters, they saw their hostages as bargaining chips with the government.

Local analysts in both Sanaa and Aden say the tour group was kidnapped because of a dispute between the government and the Islamic group over the terms of its disbandment and integration into the Yemeni armed forces. They said the group was one of five or six militant organizations formed around 1993 with government backing to sow dissent in the more liberal and secular south.

A prominent Yemeni journalist, asking to remain anonymous, said that the problem is the government created a monster they could not control and they have come under strong pressure from Western governments to shut down Islamic militant groups. He said an agreement to merge the group into the armed forces fell apart and ended in an armed clash on 18 December during which the group's leader Saleh Haydara Atwani was arrested. His release was the kidnappers' principal demand.

The journalist stressed that the agreement between the group and the Yemeni government was not honored and that led to the kidnapping. It had nothing to do with Iraq, it was about local politics.

British diplomats have also cast doubt on comments by Interior Minister Hussein Arab about the arrest of an armed Islamic Jihad cell on 23 December which was planning to attack the British consulate in Aden. They say the embassy was only informed of the alleged plot seven days later in the eye of the diplomatic storm over the failed rescue.

TERRORISM/POLITICAL VIOLENCE

NEW YORK CITY (EmergencyNet News) - Time magazine reported on Saturday that Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden, accused of masterminding the bombing of two U.S. embassies in Africa, said U.S. efforts to disrupt his finances have had little effect. In its issue appearing on newsstands on Monday, Time reported bin Laden said in an interview: "America has been trying ever since (the 1993 attack on U.S. military personnel in Somalia) to tighten its economic blockade against us and to arrest me. It has failed. This blockade does not hurt us much. We expect to be rewarded by God."

Bin Laden is believed to have assets that value at about US$300 million. When asked if he was responsible for the bomb attacks on the embassies, bin Laden told Time that Muslims had responded to the call for a holy war against Americans and Jews. He said in the interview that Time said was conducted at an encampment in the Afghan desert: "Our job is to instigate and, by the grace of God, we did that, and certain people responded to this instigation."

(C) Copyright, EmergencyNet NEWS Service, 1999. All Rights Reserved. Further redistribution without permission is prohibited by law.

The ERRI DAILY INTELLIGENCE REPORT is a subscription publication of the EmergencyNet NEWS Service, which is a part of the Chicago-based Emergency Response and Research Institute. This publication specializes in Corporate Security/Terrorism/Intelligence/Military and National Security issues.