Word: yousef
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...least one major question remains unanswered: Who financed Yousef on his wide-ranging travels? Speculation has centered on the usual pariah states, particularly Iraq and Iran. But experts in and out of the various intelligence services warn against jumping to conclusions. Says Steven Emerson, the director of the PBS documentary Jihad in America: ``He is not high maintenance. The World Trade Center bomb cost less than $3,000, so the monies involved in carrying out these kinds of plots are not extensive.'' He adds that a lot of money was raised during the anti-Soviet jihad--or holy war-- movement...
While his origins are still murky--reports have him either as native Iraqi or Kuwaiti, educated in Swansea, England, perhaps raised in Pakistan--Yousef's alleged terroristic record in America has emerged from court papers and books. The scrawny 25-year-old arrived in New York City on Sept. 1, 1992, on an Iraqi passport, having moved through Jordan and Pakistan before landing at J.F.K. airport. According to Two Seconds Under the World, an account of the Trade Center bombing authored by New York Newsday columnist Jim Dwyer, Yousef said he had been tortured by the Iraqi military and successfully...
...bogus Swedish passport and bombmaking books in his luggage. According to the federal prosecutors, Ajaj was ``carrying formulae regarding how to destroy buildings, bridges and other properties, and videotapes which called for war on the United States and portrayed scenes of explosions, including depictions of American facilities being bombed.'' Yousef, standing at the next counter, remained impassive as Ajaj was led away. The government now says Yousef's fingerprints were found on Ajaj's bomb manuals...
...Yousef and Salameh put their bomb in a van and drove it to the basement of the World Trade Center. The eventual explosion killed six people and injured more than 1,000. Within days the main suspects in the bombing were arrested--except for Yousef, who, using the name Abdul Basit, escaped on a plane to Pakistan just hours after the explosion. Says Dwyer: ``He masterminded every detail of the plot, including his own escape, which he pulled off more expeditiously than anyone else.'' Yousef's capture was the culmination of one of the most extensive and painstaking manhunts...
...program, placing undercover officers in U.S. businesses that operate overseas. The reason is simple. During the cold war, CIA case officers under embassy cover could cruise foreign ministries and cocktail parties to collect intelligence on the Soviet Union. But, as last week's arrest of Ramzi Ahmed Yousef showed, drug traffickers, terrorists, nuclear smugglers, money launderers and regional warlords aren't found on the diplomatic circuit. To penetrate the new threat, unconventional covers are needed. Indeed, President Clinton's newly nominated CIA spymaster--Air Force General Michael P.C. Carns--will have to continue to grope through the murky new world...