The Clinton administration declared its missile strikes against suspected Islamic terrorist targets in Afghanistan and Sudan a success Friday even as terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden vowed to retaliate with new attacks against Americans.
“The war has just started. The Americans should wait for the answer,” a Pakistani newspaper, The News, quoted a spokesperson for bin Laden as saying.
American officials similarly talked of war, in their case what Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said will be a “long-term struggle” against bin Laden and other extremists who target Americans and other innocent civilians.
“This is, unfortunately, the war of the future,” she warned.
Defense Secretary William Cohen, asked if additional military action was contemplated against bin Laden’s network, said: “That’s always a possibility. We have contingency plans that we are developing, and there may be more in the future.”
Knight Ridder Newspapers reported that bin Laden is calling on Muslims worldwide to take up arms against the United States, attack American Embassies and boycott American companies in retaliation for the missile strikes.
Quoting Sheik Omar Barkri, identified as bin Laden’s spokesman in London, Knight Ridder said bin Laden has issued new anti-American communiques–written only in Arabic–urging Muslims to avoid U.S. Embassies and installations–and to fight Arab regimes friendly to the United States.
The initial criticism by some Republican lawmakers of President Clinton’s decision to bomb targets in Sudan and Afghanistan all but evaporated Friday. Even those senators who offered early criticism said they were persuaded during intelligence briefings that the president had acted properly.
In Thursday’s surprise missile attacks, a suspect pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum, Sudan, was “functionally destroyed,” White House National Security Adviser Samuel “Sandy” Berger said. White House officials said the plant was used to make ingredients for deadly VX nerve gas.
Berger said “moderate to severe” damage was inflicted on bin Laden’s terrorist training complex in eastern Afghanistan, the target of some 70 of the 75 Navy cruise missiles. “The attacks have significantly disrupted the capability to use these camps as terrorist training facilities,” he said.
But the CIA and Pentagon were unsure if the strike in Afghanistan disrupted an anticipated meeting there of terrorist leaders, a key reason offered by U.S. officials for the timing of the strike.
Security measures at U.S. government buildings, monuments, airports and other public facilities were significantly tightened, as were those at American military installations abroad.
“We are certainly going to do everything we can to defend ourselves,” Berger said. “But we’re also going to be on offense as well as on defense.”
In the Afghan capital of Kabul, two UN aid workers were shot in apparent retaliation for the missile assault. A mob attacked the deserted U.S. Embassy in Khartoum. There were protests throughout the Muslim world, including Pakistan and Libya, where strongman Moammar Gadhafi, whose country was similarly attacked during the Ronald Reagan administration, led a rally at which an American flag was burned.
The Clinton administration justified the missile launches with intelligence reports that warned the training complex was being used to prepare for new Islamic terrorist assaults against American installations and citizens.
Cloud cover and haze over the target area in Afghanistan on Friday interfered with U.S. reconnaissance satellites, and a full assessment of damage will not be available for several days. Authorities in Afghanistan claimed 21 people were killed in the attack and 30 wounded but that bin Laden had escaped unharmed. There was no independent verification of that claim.
Contradicting protests by the Sudanese government, Berger said the U.S. has “hard evidence” that the so-called drug factory was producing chemical components that could be used to make nerve gas. The factory, which U.S. officials asserted was financed by bin Laden, was reduced to a pile of smoldering rubble, as shown on Sudanese television.
To destroy the building, the U.S. used several $1 million cruise missiles with 1,000-pound conventional warheads encased in deep-penetrating titanium, designed for destroying bunkers and storage buildings while avoiding civilian casualties.
The strike at the suspected terrorist camp in Afghanistan was designed specifically to kill terrorists as well as destroy buildings, officials said. Some of the Tomahawks were fitted with warheads dispersing a cloud of anti-personnel cluster bombs over a wide area.
The American missile strikes, launched from U.S. warships in the Arabian and Red Seas, were intended as a response to the Aug. 7 terror bombings of U.S. Embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, that killed more than 250 people, including 12 Americans, and wounded thousands.
Berger said he had no information that bin Laden, who U.S. officials believe was responsible for the embassy attacks, or any of his lieutenants were killed in the attack on his Afghan bases. A presidential executive order prohibits assassination attempts.
Cohen, who joined Albright in briefing members of Congress on the action, told reporters at the Capitol: “We did not target specifically individuals; we targeted training facilities.”
A caller to a London newspaper, claiming to speak for bin Laden, said six followers of bin Laden–two Egyptians, three Yemenis and a Saudi–had been killed in the raid.
President Clinton, who interrupted his Martha’s Vineyard vacation to explain the missile strikes to the American people over national television, spent several hours Friday on the phone reassuring world leaders on the need for the action.
Berger said Clinton spoke with President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, himself a past target of bin Laden-backed terrorists; British Prime Minister Tony Blair; Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan; and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Clinton returned late Friday to Martha’s Vineyard to resume his vacation.
Berger said Pakistan withdrew its earlier claim that one of the U.S. cruise missiles had gone off course and detonated in Pakistani territory, killing several civilians.
The national security adviser said he did not think Russian President Boris Yeltsin’s condemnation of the American missile strike would upset his forthcoming summit meeting with Clinton.
“We disagree with them (the Russians) on various issues,” Berger said, “but we also have an enormous degree of common business to do, from security matters to regional issues–Bosnia, Kosovo, the Persian Gulf (and) obviously our concerns about the economic situation there.”
Berger, Cohen, Albright and other administration figures repeatedly denied suggestions from Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.) and others that Clinton timed the missile strikes to deflect attention from continuing grand jury testimony by former White House intern Monica Lewinsky, with whom Clinton has admitted having an inappropriate relationship.
Berger argued that the Islamic terrorists have been waging their campaign for years, long before any White House sex scandal. He insisted the strikes had been planned for days and were part of a continuing campaign against terrorism.
“I think it’s very important for the American people to understand that we are involved here in a long-term struggle,” Albright said. “We have been affected by this before.”
Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.) said he approved of Clinton’s decision to attack terrorist sites in Sudan and Afghanistan.
“It was certainly a legitimate strike and was not done for any other motives,” he said. “I certainly accept that and support the president.”
Hyde said he formed his opinion after speaking with House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and Porter Goss (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
“They both told me that they had been briefed earlier, the week before and knew about this,” he said, erasing any doubts that the president was using the attacks as a diversion from his personal political troubles.
Hyde also said that the strikes would show the world that terrorist acts don’t come without cost and that countries cannot harbor terrorists.
“Both of these points were made,” he said. “Whether they need to be repeated again and again, we’ll have to see.”
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