Bin Laden Activates European Brigades

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Bin Laden Calls His Balkan Brigades to Arms

26 September: DEBKAfile's military sources report that Osama

Bin Laden's deputy, the Egyptian Jihad chief Ayman al-Zawahri,

has ordered Al Qaeda and Jihad activists in Bosnia, Kosovo,

Albania and Macedonia – an estimated 6,000 men – to report for

duty and prepare to open a second Islamic front against the

United States in the Balkans. According to our sources, that

nucleus group is capable of mustering another 40,000 trained

and well-armed fighting men. Many hold on to the up-to-date

weapons handed out to them by NATO, including the US Army,

during the 1998 Kosovo War.

In Bosnia, the Bin Laden-Jihad alliance commands a reservoir

of 7,500 fighting men; in Kosovo – 15,000; in Albania – another

15,000 and in Macedonia – 5,000.

Earlier this week, rumors went round European and NATO

intelligence circles that al-Zawahri was in Tirana to organize the

Balkan fighting force. He was said to be drawing for help on the

Jihad's extensive infrastructure in the Albanian capital, the

Albanian criminal underworld and the Albanian Liberation Army

command posts that control large stretches of Kosovo.

NATO Headquarters in Brussels also received reports of some

3,000 Chechen rebels funded by Bin Laden beginning to cross

into Georgia, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. They are in flight from

President Vladimir Putin's 72-hour ultimatum to give themselves

up and surrender their arms. They suspect that Putin received an

American carte blanche to crush the Chechen rebellion in return

for his support of the US operation in Afghanistan. The generals

in Brussels fear the Chechens will strike at the US bases going

up n Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Tadjikistan.

There is every indication, according to DEBKAfile's military

sources, of preparations by Bin Laden and his network of

militant Islamic fundamentalists to launch two fronts - in the

Balkans and in Central Asia – to attack US and allied forces as

they open their offensive in Afghanistan.

NATO maintains 60,000 servicemen in the Balkans, one third

American; US strength in the former Soviet republics of Central

Asia now stands at some 15,000.

Washington's hopes of bringing Arab nations into its anti-terror

coalition were further dashed Monday, September 24, when

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Iraqi

president Saddam Hussein, both called Syrian President

Bashar Assad with a promise of any political and military support

he might need to frustrate an American strike against the militant

Shiite Hizballah in Lebanon and the radical Palestinian groups

based in Damascus.

Saddam disclosed he had placed his armed forces on supreme

battle preparedness in anticipation of the United States following

up on its operation in Afghanistan with an assault on Iraq in an

attempt to topple his regime.

DEBKAfile's military sources confirm that the Iraqi army was

placed on its highest preparedness at the end of last week.

Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians are reported fleeing

Baghdad and Basra and making for remote villages.

Another sign of the rising tension in Iraq is the airlift Beijing has

instituted to remove the 1000 Chinese technicians and military

men upgrading Iraqi air defense command centers with new

optic fibers systems.

These major military movements heavily overshadowed Yasser

Arafat's abruptly aborted trip to Damascus Tuesday and the

news that his oft-delayed and unpopular meeting with Israeli

foreign Minister Shimon Peres in Gaza would finally come off

Wednesday morning.

If that meeting does indeed come about, the two are expected to

sign a memorandum affirming a cessation of hostilities, the

application of the ceasefire negotiated by CIA director George

Tenet four months ago and of the first stages of the

recommendations made by former Senator George Mitchell and

his team.

According to DEBKAfile's sources in Washington, Arafat had

already set out for his long-awaited meeting with the Syrian

president in Damascus, when he turned round and retraced his

steps to Gaza. He changed course after US secretary of state

Colin Powell had harangued him by telephone from before he

embarked from Dahaniyeh airport in Gaza all the way to Amman.

Powell finally slapped down an ultimatum: Go to Damascus and

meet Assad, and he would not only burn all his bridges to

Washington once and for all, but he would be deemed to have

lined up with Saddam Hussein once again as he did in the 1991

Gulf War – only this time there would be no forgiveness from

Washington and he could expect full punishment.

Arafat, when his plane touched down in Amman, ordered his

pilot to turn back.