The US and the UN ignored warnings from a secret Taliban emissary weeks before Sept. 11 last year that Osama bin Laden was planning a huge attack on the US, a British daily reported yesterday.
The warnings were delivered by an aide of Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil, the Taliban Foreign Minister at the time, who was known to be unhappy with foreign militants in Afghanistan such as bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, The Independent newspaper said.
Muttawakil, now reportedly in American custody, believed the Taliban regime's protection of bin Laden and the other militants would lead to the destruction of Afghanistan by the US military, the newspaper said, quoting the aide.
The foreign minister then ordered his official to alert the US and the UN about what was going to happen.
But in a massive failure of intelligence, the message was disregarded because of what sources described as "warning fatigue," the British daily said.
Muttawakil's aide, who wanted to remain anonymous, told The Independent that the minister learnt in July last year that bin Laden was planning a "huge attack" on targets inside the US.
Muttawakil found out about the coming attacks from the leader of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Tahir Yildash, the British paper said.
The organization was one of the fundamentalist groups that had found refuge on Afghan soil, lending fighters for the Taliban regime's war on the Northern Alliance opposition, and had good relations with al-Qaeda.
The aide went first to the Americans, traveling across the border to meet the US consul general in the Pakistani border town of Peshawar, in the third week of July last year.
The Afghan aide did not, however, reveal that the warning was from Muttawakil, rather than his own message, a factor that might have led the Americans to downgrade it, The Independent said.
When Muttawakil's emissary returned to Kabul, the foreign minister told him to see UN officials.
He took the warning to the Kabul offices of UNSMA, the political wing of the UN. The officials heard him out, but did not report the secret Taliban warning to UN headquarters, the paper reported.
The domestically designed Teng Yun 2 drone passed development milestones over the weekend, flying for more than 10 hours straight and circling Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ), in the longest flight of an indigenous uncrewed combat aerial vehicle. Developed by the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology, the Teng Yun 2, or “Cloud Rider” (騰雲二型), recorded its longest flight yet over the weekend, after a three-hour test flight last month, followed by five and seven-hour stretches in the air. The Teng Yun 2 No. 1812 departed from Chiashan Air Base in Hualien County at 6:46pm on Saturday and flew on a
OVER THE HUMP: In a seven-day period ending on Wednesday, the nation reported 366,628 new cases, down 19 percent from the 451,358 reported in the previous week The nation might further open up to more arrivals in the next two months, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday, as it reported 48,283 new local COVID-19 cases, down from more than 50,000 in the previous few days. Taiwan on Wednesday last week introduced a plan to allow up to 25,000 arrivals per week as part of efforts to gradually reopen borders, which includes reducing mandatory quarantines for inbound travelers from seven to three days, followed by four days in “self-initiated epidemic prevention.” The quota covers inbound Taiwanese arrivals, businesspeople and migrant workers. Former vice president Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) yesterday said
The Ministry of National Defense yesterday said it is monitoring Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy ship movements near Taiwan, after the Japanese Ministry of Defense disclosed that Chinese vessels made a rare voyage between Yilan County and Japan’s Yonaguni. The Japanese ministry on Wednesday said that two Chinese navy ships on Tuesday diverted from their usual route of entering the Pacific Ocean via the Miyako Strait and for the first time traveled there between Yilan and Yonaguni. The Japan Self-Defense Forces said that it picked up the presence of China’s Type-056A Jiangdao-class corvette 220km north of Yonaguni at 9am on Tuesday. The
A slew of new measures are to take effect on Friday, including nationwide bring-your-own-cup discounts. The new rule requires chain beverage shops to offer discounts of at least NT$5 (US$0.17) to customers who bring their own cups, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has said. The policy would apply to more than 50,000 chain retail locations, including beverage shops, convenience stores, fast-food restaurants and supermarkets. It aims to cut down on waste from single-use plastic cups, more than 2.2 billion of which were used in Taiwan in 2020, the agency said. For convenience, the EPA said it has asked retailers to display signs stating how
RSS