Saudi Arabia's former intelligence chief, Prince Turki al-Faisal, said on Saturday the Taliban had twice agreed to hand over Osama bin Laden to the kingdom but reneged after the US bombed Afghanistan in 1998.
Prince Turki also told the Middle East Broadcasting Center in an interview that he believed that Saudi-born bin Laden was behind the Sept. 11 suicide attacks, saying those who felt otherwise were "turning a blind eye to the facts."
The prince, who served as intelligence chief for 24 years until August, said spiritual leader Mullah Mohammad Omar pledged at a meeting in June 1998 to turn bin Laden over. Taliban envoy Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil, now the movement's foreign minister, had reiterated that vow during a visit to Saudi Arabia in July 1998.
"I asked Mullah Omar when I met with him and he agreed. He said: `We are ready,'" Prince Turki said of the June meeting, when he had first asked the Taliban to surrender bin Laden.
But that changed three months later, after the US had carried out air strikes on Afghanistan in response to bomb attacks in August 1998 on its embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
"In September I found Mullah Omar with a complete change. He even used abusive words against the [Saudi] kingdom ... so I interrupted the meeting," he said.
Two US House of Representatives committees yesterday condemned China’s attempt to orchestrate a crash involving Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim’s (蕭美琴) car when she visited the Czech Republic last year as vice president-elect. Czech local media in March last year reported that a Chinese diplomat had run a red light while following Hsiao’s car from the airport, and Czech intelligence last week told local media that Chinese diplomats and agents had also planned to stage a demonstrative car collision. Hsiao on Saturday shared a Reuters news report on the incident through her account on social media platform X and wrote: “I
‘BUILDING PARTNERSHIPS’: The US military’s aim is to continue to make any potential Chinese invasion more difficult than it already is, US General Ronald Clark said The likelihood of China invading Taiwan without contest is “very, very small” because the Taiwan Strait is under constant surveillance by multiple countries, a US general has said. General Ronald Clark, commanding officer of US Army Pacific (USARPAC), the US Army’s largest service component command, made the remarks during a dialogue hosted on Friday by Washington-based think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Asked by the event host what the Chinese military has learned from its US counterpart over the years, Clark said that the first lesson is that the skill and will of US service members are “unmatched.” The second
STANDING TOGETHER: Amid China’s increasingly aggressive activities, nations must join forces in detecting and dealing with incursions, a Taiwanese official said Two senior Philippine officials and one former official yesterday attended the Taiwan International Ocean Forum in Taipei, the first high-level visit since the Philippines in April lifted a ban on such travel to Taiwan. The Ocean Affairs Council hosted the two-day event at the National Taiwan University Hospital International Convention Center. Philippine Navy spokesman Rear Admiral Roy Vincent Trinidad, Coast Guard spokesman Grand Commodore Jay Tarriela and former Philippine Presidential Communications Office assistant secretary Michel del Rosario participated in the forum. More than 100 officials, experts and entrepreneurs from 15 nations participated in the forum, which included discussions on countering China’s hybrid warfare
MORE DEMOCRACY: The only solution to Taiwan’s current democratic issues involves more democracy, including Constitutional Court rulings and citizens exercising their civil rights , Lai said The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is not the “motherland” of the Republic of China (ROC) and has never owned Taiwan, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday. The speech was the third in a series of 10 that Lai is scheduled to deliver across Taiwan. Taiwan is facing external threats from China, Lai said at a Lions Clubs International banquet in Hsinchu. For example, on June 21 the army detected 12 Chinese aircraft, eight of which entered Taiwanese waters, as well as six Chinese warships that remained in the waters around Taiwan, he said. Beyond military and political intimidation, Taiwan
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