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Rumsfeld Says Bin Laden Could Not Have Acted Alone
WASHINGTON, Sept 23 (News Agencies)
- U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Sunday there was "no way in the world" prime suspect Osama bin Laden acted alone in the September 11th terror attacks on U.S. targets.
"It's not believable that the Taliban did not know where his network was located," Rumsfeld told CBS's "Face the Nation."
"They have networks throughout the country, and it is just not believable that the Taliban do not know where the network can be located and found and either turned over or expelled."
Asked later whether he believed the United States would find bin Laden and could use weapons being deployed against him and his supporters, Rumsfeld told journalists: "No, I'm not confident that we will find him and use this firepower."
The Saudi-born bin Laden has been a guest of Afghanistan's ruling Taliban militia since 1996, which has repeatedly refused to extradite him to face charges related to other terrorist attacks, including the 1998 bombing of two U.S. embassies in Africa.
Earlier Sunday, in a report from neighboring Islamabad, Pakistan, the Taliban announced the multimillionaire scion of a Saudi construction magnate had disappeared.
Rumsfeld suggested some elements of the ruling militia may disagree with the decision to continue to harbor bin Laden and could abandon the Taliban.
There are "undoubtedly" elements within the Taliban which can "persuade" other elements that, in any activity supporting the continued shielding of bin Laden, it would "best not be party to it," Rumsfeld said.
Elements outside Afghanistan have also been crucial to bin Laden's success in evading capture, Rumsfeld said, without accusing any one country directly but pointing to the seven nations considered by the United States as state sponsors of terrorism, including Iraq, Syria, Libya and Cuba.
"There's no way in the world that a network can function as effectively over such a long period of time, with such excellent finances and false passports and all of the intelligence information they had to have, without being fostered and facilitated and assisted and financed by states and by businesses and by non governmental organizations and by corporations," Rumsfeld said.
The U.S. administration of President George W. Bush believes bin Laden is the prime suspect behind the hijackings and terror attacks that left more than 6,800 dead or missing in New York, Pennsylvania and Washington.
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