Israel warned the CIA of the potential danger posed by Osama Bin Laden in 1988, but the Americans failed to attribute significance to the report, Dr. Shmuel Bar, a senior researcher at the Institute of Policy and Strategy (IPS) at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya and a member of the Israeli intelligence community for three decades, said Tuesday.Posted on 25 January 2006 @ 18:12 GMT"This was the first time ever that the arch-terrorist's name was mentioned as a risk factor by an intelligence body, but the Americans did understand what this was about, until it blew up in their faces on September 11," he added.
The name Bin Laden became familiar to the Israeli Mossad in the years 1986-1987, Bar said. At that time Israel had been gathering written material in Gaza and the West Bank, and came across the name of Bin Laden, who was described in one of the documents as a Saudi millionaire who joined Sheikh Abdullah Azzam's Mujahidin that ventured to Afghanistan to aid in the war against the Soviets.
The document referred to Bin Laden's preaching and his fatwas (Muslim law rulings). Mossad investigators realized at that point that Azzam's movement represented a problem, and that anyone involved in it could represent a threat to the western world.
The information was presented by the Mossad to the CIA, which practically ignored the report.
"It's no wonder the Americans did not realize the menace," Dr. Bar said. "Until September 11, or worse, until the London bombings, the Americans and the western world as a whole failed to comprehend the threat."
"While in Israel, alarm bells rang in the 1980's and the local intelligence community warned of the great danger of the Mujahidin and Bin Laden in particular, the western intelligence communities realized it only after the big catastrophe," he added.