IAN BLACK, Brussels | Wednesday
THE United States finally showed its Nato allies ”clear and compelling” evidence yesterday that last month’s terror attacks on New York and Washington were launched from abroad by Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida network.
Speaking after a classified briefing by a senior US official, Lord Robertson, the Nato secretary general, said: ”The information presented points conclusively to an al-Qaida role in the September 11 attacks.”
The atrocities were covered by article 5 of the alliance’s founding treaty, he said, which states that an attack on one member is an attack on all.
”The facts are clear and compelling,” Lord Robertson declared.
However, participants admitted there was no single ”smoking gun” and that the evidence, resting on its cumulative, circumstantial weight, constituted a political rather than a judicial case. ”These guys are not going to end up in court,” said one Nato official.
The long-awaited evidence was presented at Nato headquarters in Brussels by Frank Taylor, the US state depart ment’s counter-terrorism coordinator, to a hastily convened meeting of alliance ambassadors and senior officials.
It included interceptions of telephone and other electronic communications, satellite images and human intelligence as well as police and forensic evidence from the attack sites.
”It covered the gamut of intelligence sources,” said a Nato official.
Briefing material cannot be made public
The material could not be made public because it went to the heart of intelligence sources and methods.
”We don’t want the terrorists to know what we do know as well as what we don’t know because that could give them clues and lead them to change their methods,” said one well-placed source.
Mr Taylor gave a 40-minute oral briefing with a slide presentation to provide what was described as a convincing description of the links between the 19 hijackers and Bin Laden and the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.
Similar presentations were being given by US ambassadors in Berlin, Rome, Paris and elsewhere.
The briefing was classified ”secret”, rather than ”top secret”, and Mr Taylor said there was even more sensitive information which could not be made available.
US and British officials have said from the start that it was necessary to strike a balance between satisfying public opinion and safeguarding intelligence methods.
Nato as a whole remains unlikely to take part in military action against Afghanistan or elsewhere, which is still expected to involve mainly the US and Britain.
Last month Nato agreed to invoke article 5 of its 1949 treaty – which provides for collective defence by all the allies if one is attacked – if Washington could show the attacks were directed from abroad. Yesterday’s decision removed the word ”if” and meant article 5 was now ”fully invoked”. — The Guardian
FEATURES:
Shattered World: A Daily Mail & Guardian special on the attack on the US
OFF-SITE:
The Guardian’s special report on the attacks