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Bin Laden may have sold cruise missiles to Beijing

China paid Osama bin Laden several million dollars for access to unexploded American cruise missiles left over from the US attack on his bases three years ago, an alleged senior al-Qaeda agent in Europe claims.

The alleged agent's account is contained in the transcript of a secretly taped conversation between supporters of bin Laden. The revelation emerged as US President George W. Bush announced that he had won Beijing's support for the war on terrorism on Friday. After his first face-to-face meeting with Chinese President Jiang Zemin (江澤民) in Shanghai, Bush said: "President Jiang and the government stand side by side with the American people as we fight this evil force."

The Chinese government has denied it obtained US missiles after the 1998 raid, which was carried out in reprisal for the bombings of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

Beijing is said to have made a deal with al-Qaeda to acquire the missiles despite the fact that it was facing a growing threat from Muslim separatists in the Xinjiang region. In 1999, China accused bin Laden's organization of training members of the independence movement in guerrilla warfare.

The US fired 75 missiles into Afghanistan during the attack on bin Laden's camps on Aug. 20, 1998. A report four months later in the Pakistani newspaper Ausaf, cited Taliban sources as saying that 40 were found unexploded.

The story of what happened next was taken up by Lased ben Heni in a conversation with associates this year. Ben Heni, a 32-year-old Libyan arrested in Munich last week, is accused by Italian prosecutors of being the liaison officer between two terrorist cells owing allegiance to al-Qaeda in Frankfurt and Milan.

On March 9, in a rundown flat in the Milan suburb of Gallarate, he met the leader of the Italian cell, Sami ben Khemais Essid and told him of his experiences in Afghanistan visiting bin Laden's camps. Unknown to the two men, the flat had been bugged by officers of the Italian anti-terrorist police.

"Perhaps the Americans are convinced by the bombardment of the sheikh's [bin Laden's] training centers," Ben Heni is quoted as saying. "For them, it was a victory. But, in fact, it was a defeat because the majority of the missiles didn't even explode.

"With these weapons, he [bin Laden] has boosted his financial resources. ... In particular, businessmen have come from China. He works a great deal with China. He's got good relations with them.

"Thanks to the money that comes from these studies from outside, he created the army of muhajidin headed by Omar Zayan in Chechnya."

The transcript is the first supporting evidence from inside al-Qaeda of sporadic reports in the months following the 1998 attack that China had acquired two unexploded Tomahawk missiles. In March 1999, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman described the reports as "groundless."
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