posted 11-07-2001 04:29 PM            

quote:

---

FBI 'was told to back off bin Laden family'

London: United States special agents were told to back off the bin Laden family and the Saudi royals soon after George Bush became president, although that has all changed since September 11, a BBC television program has claimed

BBC2's Newsnight also said on Tuesday night that it had secret documents from the FBI investigation into the terrorist attacks which showed that despite claims that Osama bin Laden is the black sheep of the family, at least two other US-based members are suspected of links with a possible terrorist organisation.

The program said it had obtained evidence that the FBI was on the trail of bin Laden family members living in the US before September 11. A document showed that special agents from the Washington field office were investigating Abdullah, a close relative of Osama, because of his relationship with the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY), a suspected terrorist organisation, it said.

...

The program said it had been told by a highly placed source in a US intelligence agency there had always been "constraints" on investigating Saudis, but under President George Bush it had become much worse.

After the elections, the intelligence agencies were told to "back off" from investigating the bin Laden family and the Saudi royals. The policy was reversed after September 11, it reported.

---

posted 12-03-2001 02:00 PM            

A senior aide to President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that some of the perpetrators of terror attacks on the United States had trained in the breakaway republic of Chechnya.

''At least four of the suicide perpetrators of the terror attacks on the United States passed through Chechnya,'' said Sergei Yastrzhembsky, an aide to Putin and Russia's chief spokesman on Chechnya.

''The people who sent suicide attackers against New York and Washington conducted dress rehearsals for terror attacks in Chechnya,'' Yastrzhembsky told a news conference, according to the Interfax news agency.

Since the attacks, Russian officials have repeatedly claimed there is a Chechen connection to the New York and Washington attacks, but they publicly have offered no proof.

Yastrzhembsky reasserted that Russia was providing the United States with intelligence information about terrorists' whereabouts and financing and receiving similar data in return. ''Never before Russian and U.S. special services have had such close cooperation,'' he said.

''Russia has experience in fighting the terrorism which the West still lacks,'' he said in a reference to Chechnya.

Putin has urged Chechen rebels to sever all ties with Osama bin Laden, the main suspect behind the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.

The United States and other Western nations have tempered their criticism of the Russian military campaign in Chechnya amid evidence that some rebels in Chechnya had links with bin Laden. They welcomed Putin's recent offer to Chechen rebels to start negotiations on disarming.

Putin's envoy for talks with rebels, Viktor Kazantsev, voiced confidence that rebels would be quickly defeated now that ''the West has stopped helping and coddling the bandits.''

''The Americans have finally started to distinguish who is who,'' he said in an interview published Tuesday in the weekly Moscow News.

For the full report, check out http://www.boston.com/dailynews/275/world/Putin_s_adviser_claims_particiP.shtml .