Former British prime minister Tony Blair was urged to raise the issue of assassinating Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in a meeting with the US nine months before the September 11 attacks, newly released archives show.
In a briefing letter sent to Mr Blair on December 13, 2000, from his private secretary Sir John Sawers, who later became head of MI6 and a British diplomat to Egypt, he was urged to use an upcoming meeting with US president Bill Clinton to discuss the topic of killing Bin Laden.
The new information is revealed in the latest declassification of secret files by the National Archives.
On the topic of Bin Laden and terrorism, Sir John advised the prime minister to inform the president the UK was in favour of "whacking" the terrorist leader.
Britain's stance was partly a response to a terrorist attack a few months earlier on the US missile destroyer, USS Cole, while it was moored in Yemen's port of Aden.
In the attack on October 12, 2000, a rubber boat loaded with explosives was blown up as it rounded the bow of the destroyer, which had just pulled into the port for a refuelling stop.
The explosion killed 17 US Navy sailors and injured 37 others.
Al Qaeda later claimed responsibility for the attack and the US had been considering military action.
"The Americans do not yet have proof that UBL [sic] was responsible for the attack on the USS Cole," Sir John wrote to Mr Blair.
"They won’t launch strikes until they have a smoking gun. And that may not be until after January 20.
"You should tell him that you might be in the Gulf in the first week of January, and would not want air strikes then. They also need to be reminded that our personnel, eg in Pakistan, will be vulnerable to reprisals if the Americans have longer notice than us.
"We’re all in favour of whacking UBL, but we need a bit of notice and a chance to influence timings."
In June 2001, an Al Qaeda recruitment video featuring Osama bin Laden boasted about the attack and encouraged similar attacks.
Mr Clinton and his successor, George W Bush, were later criticised for not taking action after the USS Cole attack and before September 11, 2001, an atrocity that killed almost 3,000 people.
A report commissioned to investigate the September 11 attacks, was told by president Bush's National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice that when the Republican administration took office on January20, 2001 the evidence against Al Qaeda was "not clear".
"We knew that there was speculation that the 2000 Cole attack was Al Qaeda," she had said. "We received, I think, on January 25 the same assessment [of Al Qaeda responsibility]. It was preliminary. It was not clear."
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Farage on Muslim Brotherhood
Nigel Farage told Reform's annual conference that the party will proscribe the Muslim Brotherhood if he becomes Prime Minister.
"We will stop dangerous organisations with links to terrorism operating in our country," he said. "Quite why we've been so gutless about this – both Labour and Conservative – I don't know.
“All across the Middle East, countries have banned and proscribed the Muslim Brotherhood as a dangerous organisation. We will do the very same.”
It is 10 years since a ground-breaking report into the Muslim Brotherhood by Sir John Jenkins.
Among the former diplomat's findings was an assessment that “the use of extreme violence in the pursuit of the perfect Islamic society” has “never been institutionally disowned” by the movement.
The prime minister at the time, David Cameron, who commissioned the report, said membership or association with the Muslim Brotherhood was a "possible indicator of extremism" but it would not be banned.
GOLF’S RAHMBO
- 5 wins in 22 months as pro
- Three wins in past 10 starts
- 45 pro starts worldwide: 5 wins, 17 top 5s
- Ranked 551th in world on debut, now No 4 (was No 2 earlier this year)
- 5th player in last 30 years to win 3 European Tour and 2 PGA Tour titles before age 24 (Woods, Garcia, McIlroy, Spieth)
The specs: 2018 Opel Mokka X
Price, as tested: Dh84,000
Engine: 1.4L, four-cylinder turbo
Transmission: Six-speed auto
Power: 142hp at 4,900rpm
Torque: 200Nm at 1,850rpm
Fuel economy, combined: 6.5L / 100km
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'Young girls thinking of big ideas'
Words come easy for aspiring writer Afra Al Muhairb. The business side of books, on the other hand, is entirely foreign to the 16-year-old Emirati. So, she followed her father’s advice and enroled in the Abu Dhabi Education Council’s summer entrepreneurship course at Abu Dhabi University hoping to pick up a few new skills.
“Most of us have this dream of opening a business,” said Afra, referring to her peers are “young girls thinking of big ideas.”
In the three-week class, pupils are challenged to come up with a business and develop an operational and marketing plan to support their idea. But, the learning goes far beyond sales and branding, said teacher Sonia Elhaj.
“It’s not only about starting up a business, it’s all the meta skills that goes with it -- building self confidence, communication,” said Ms Elhaj. “It’s a way to coach them and to harness ideas and to allow them to be creative. They are really hungry to do this and be heard. They are so happy to be actually doing something, to be engaged in creating something new, not only sitting and listening and getting new information and new knowledge. Now they are applying that knowledge.”
Afra’s team decided to focus their business idea on a restaurant modelled after the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Each level would have a different international cuisine and all the meat would be halal. The pupils thought of this after discussing a common problem they face when travelling abroad.
“Sometimes we find the struggle of finding halal food, so we just eat fish and cheese, so it’s hard for us to spend 20 days with fish and cheese,” said Afra. “So we made this tower so every person who comes – from Africa, from America – they will find the right food to eat.”
rpennington@thenational.ae
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
Company profile
Date started: January, 2014
Founders: Mike Dawson, Varuna Singh, and Benita Rowe
Based: Dubai
Sector: Education technology
Size: Five employees
Investment: $100,000 from the ExpoLive Innovation Grant programme in 2018 and an initial $30,000 pre-seed investment from the Turn8 Accelerator in 2014. Most of the projects are government funded.
Partners/incubators: Turn8 Accelerator; In5 Innovation Centre; Expo Live Innovation Impact Grant Programme; Dubai Future Accelerators; FHI 360; VSO and Consult and Coach for a Cause (C3)
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Pharaoh's curse
British aristocrat Lord Carnarvon, who funded the expedition to find the Tutankhamun tomb, died in a Cairo hotel four months after the crypt was opened.
He had been in poor health for many years after a car crash, and a mosquito bite made worse by a shaving cut led to blood poisoning and pneumonia.
Reports at the time said Lord Carnarvon suffered from “pain as the inflammation affected the nasal passages and eyes”.
Decades later, scientists contended he had died of aspergillosis after inhaling spores of the fungus aspergillus in the tomb, which can lie dormant for months. The fact several others who entered were also found dead withiin a short time led to the myth of the curse.
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Neighbourhood Watch
WHAT IS GRAPHENE?
It was discovered in 2004, when Russian-born Manchester scientists Andrei Geim and Kostya Novoselov were experimenting with sticky tape and graphite, the material used as lead in pencils.
Placing the tape on the graphite and peeling it, they managed to rip off thin flakes of carbon. In the beginning they got flakes consisting of many layers of graphene. But when they repeated the process many times, the flakes got thinner.
By separating the graphite fragments repeatedly, they managed to create flakes that were just one atom thick. Their experiment led to graphene being isolated for the very first time.
In 2010, Geim and Novoselov were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics.
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Tomorrow 2021
The Matrix Resurrections
Director: Lana Wachowski
Stars: Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, Jessica Henwick
Rating:****
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Tomorrow 2021
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