RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - Kuwait has custody of a member of al-Qaida who has confessed to planning the attack against a French supertanker off the coast of Yemen last month and a car bomb attack that was to have been carried out against a hotel in the Yemeni capital, San'a, a senior Kuwaiti security official said yesterday.
The official, who spoke by telephone from Kuwait City, identified the senior al- Qaida member as Mohsen al-Fadhli, 21, a Kuwaiti citizen who was arrested with two other alleged Kuwaiti members of al-Qaida on Nov. 4. The official said Fadhli began talking Monday, detailing both the planning of the tanker attack, which crippled the French-registered Limburg and killed one Bulgarian crew member, and an attack on a hotel used by U.S. military officials that was to have been carried out this month.
"Everything was ready," the Kuwaiti official said of the attack on the hotel.
The disclosure that the Yemeni attack originated in Kuwait comes as a blow to the tiny emirate, which only reluctantly conceded the presence of active al-Qaida cells among its citizens after an attack by two young Kuwaitis against U.S. troops last month left one Marine dead. Kuwait State Security has concluded the two were linked to Muhammad Mansur Jabarah, 20, a Canadian citizen born in Kuwait who was arrested in Oman earlier this year.
Fadhli's confession traces a network of al-Qaida activity in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Yemen - a further suggestion that Osama bin Laden's terrorist network remains active across the Arabian Peninsula. Last month, a missile fired from a CIA Predator drone near the no man's land that forms the sketchy Saudi-Yemeni border killed a senior al-Qaida leader, Qaid Senyan al-Harthi, a suspect in the bombing of the U.S. destroyer Cole in the Yemeni port of Aden two years ago, which killed 17 sailors.
A statement attributed to al-Qaida threatened more attacks in New York and Washington unless the United States stops supporting Israel and converts to Islam, according to a reporter for Al-Jazeera television news who said he received the unsigned letter.
The reporter, Yosri Fouda, told the Associated Press that he received the six-page letter Wednesday, a day after Al-Jazeera broadcast an audiotape supposedly made by bin Laden. He said the statement called on Americans to stop supporting Israel and other governments that "oppress" Muslims or face more attacks. It also called on all Americans to convert to Islam, he said. The statement also demanded that American troops leave the Arabian Peninsula and justified the killings of American civilians because they pay taxes that finance the military, Fouda said.
According to the Kuwaiti security official, early last year Fadhli made contact with another alleged al-Qaida operative in Saudi Arabia, identified as Moedi al-Khatani, who put Fadhli in touch with Abu Assam al-Makki, also known as Muhammad al-Hamati, a bakery owner and al-Qaida member who is wanted in the planning of the Cole bombing. Fadhli offered to help plan and finance an attack if Makki could identify potential targets, the Kuwaiti official said.
Makki chose the tanker and a hotel as targets, and Fadhli raised $127,000 to buy materials for the attacks and passed the money to Khatani in Saudi Arabia, who forwarded it to Yemen in April this year.
The Kuwaiti official said both the CIA and the Saudi authorities had been notified of Khatani's involvement, but he did not know whether any arrests had been made. He said Kuwaiti security forces had arrested Yusuf Bu Haimed, a former Kuwaiti army officer who had fought in Afghanistan, for contributing funds for the attacks. He said there might be more arrests in the case.
Two young Yemenis were chosen to carry out the suicide attacks, the Kuwaiti official said. One, Shehab al-Yemeni, 23, apparently died after he rammed an explosives-packed fishing boat against the French oil tanker on Oct. 6.
The other would-be suicide attacker was identified as Osama al-Yemeni, 25. The Kuwaiti official said that his name had been passed to the CIA and the Yemeni authorities but that he did not know whether the man had been arrested.
He said that the two men were not related but that both had fought with the Taliban in Afghanistan and were believed to have lost relatives in the U.S. bombing of that country last year. According to Fadhli's account, the money was used to buy a black GMC Suburban with tinted windows that was to have been used to blow up the San'a hotel used by U.S. military and intelligence officials. The Kuwaiti official did not know the name of the hotel but said U.S. intelligence officials involved in the case had identified it.