17 September 2001Powell Says Anti-Terrorism Campaign Will Be Long-Term Effort
(Al-Qaida, Usama bin Ladin are specific targets, he says) (530) By Merle D. Kellerhals, Jr. Washington File Staff Writer Washington -- U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell says he is pleased with the global coalition forming to combat terrorism and stressed that the long-term goal is to end terrorism. Powell also said September 17 during a State Department briefing that the United States is specifically seeking to neutralize and destroy the terrorist network al-Qaida, which is headed by Usama bin Ladin. The coalition will conduct a multifaceted long-term campaign, which includes legal, political, law enforcement, diplomatic, military and intelligence collection operations as appropriate, Powell said. "Everybody recognizes that this challenge is one that went far beyond America, far beyond New York City and far beyond Washington," Powell said. "Thirty-seven countries lost citizens in the World Trade Center." The United States and the coalition must deal not only with this present instance, but also with the whole concept of terrorism as a scourge of civilization and go after it, he said. "In the first round of this campaign, we have to deal with the perpetrators of the attacks against America in New York and in Washington," he said. "And it is becoming clear with each passing hour, with each passing day that it is the al-Qaida network that is the prime suspect, as the President had said. And all roads lead to the leader of that organization -- Usama bin Ladin and his location in Afghanistan." Powell said the Taliban leaders of Afghanistan should eject bin Ladin from the country before he puts their society at risk. The Taliban, for their part, have said bin Ladin and his organization are guests in their country. "Well, it is time for their guests to leave," Powell said. "We mean no ill toward the people of Afghan[istan]," he said. "They are a suffering people. They are a poor people." On September 11th hijacked commercial jetliners slammed into the twin, 110-story World Trade Center towers in New York killing thousands, and another hijacked commercial jetliner crashed into the western side of the Pentagon in Washington killing approximately 190 people. A fourth hijacked commercial passenger plane crashed into the Pennsylvania countryside 80 miles southeast of Pittsburgh before it could be used by terrorists against prospective targets in Washington. Al-Qaida was created by bin Ladin in the late 1980s to bring together Arabs who fought in Afghanistan against an invasion by the former Soviet Union. The group helped finance, recruit, transport and train Sunni Islamic extremists for the Afghan resistance, according to the State Department's "Patterns of Global Terrorism 2000" annual report. Currently the group is working with other Islamic extremist groups in the region to overthrow regimes it deems "non-Islamic" and expel Westerners and non-Muslims from Muslim countries, the annual report said. Bin Ladin issued a call in February 1998, "saying it was the duty of all Muslims to kill U.S. citizens -- civilian or military -- and their allies everywhere." (The Washington File is a product of the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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