Bin Laden aide says warned US on embassy attacks
By Gail Appleson, Law Correspondent
 
NEW YORK, Feb 7 (Reuters) - A former aide to Osama bin Laden testified on Wednesday that he told U.S. authorities in 1996 that the Saudi dissident's group was trying to wage war against the United States and this could include attacks on its embassies.

Jamal Ahmed Al-Fadl, the first witness in a trial of four bin Laden followers charged in the August 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa, also testified that as a member of bin Laden's violent group al Qaeda (the Base) he was asked to try to get uranium for the organization and to kill a former Sudanese prime minister.

A key government informant, Al-Fadl began sweeping testimony on Tuesday describing al Qaeda's vast network that stretched from Sudan to Britain and its varied operations including farming and import-export businesses that often served as fronts for such activities as explosives training and weapons sales.

He said the group had received fatwas, or religious decrees, ordering them to kill Americans. Al-Fadl, a Sudanese who was among al Qaeda's first members, said on Wednesday that he fled Sudan after it was discovered he had stolen about $110,000 from bin Laden's group.

He described to the hushed courtroom how he had approached a U.S. embassy in an undisclosed country during 1996 and offered to provide information about al Qaeda in return for American protection.

Speaking in broken English with a thick Arabic accent and the assistance of a translator, he said he told authorities at the embassy that he had worked for a group that was trying to "make war against your country and they train very hard, they do their best to make war against your country."...