Peter Bergen on Bin Laden

Terrorism expert Peter Bergen, author of the recent book The Osama bin Laden I Know, talks about recent developments in an interview with Adla Massoud of Aljazeera, Bergen: War on terror has shifted to Europe 02/02/06:

Many say that the CIA gave Bin Laden his start in Afghanistan in the 1980s jihad against the Soviets. Is Bin Laden an American creation that has come back to haunt them?

The real story is that the CIA did not know about Bin Laden until 1995. Often people say that Bin Laden was a CIA creation, but there's never been any evidence.

Was there ever a link between Saddam Hussein and Bin Laden?

No link.

Iraqi intelligence played footsie with al-Qaida in Sudan in the mid 1990s. At some point in the early 1990s there may have been some meetings. Bin Laden hated Saddam. He told his childhood friend Batarfi "this guy can never be trusted". ...

Has the war in Iraq diminished in any way the threat of al-Qaida?

No, quite the reverse. ...

If you look at the terrorism figures of 2004, they are three times worse than 2003 and if you look at the terrorism figures for 2003, they are the worst yet significant attacks since 1982.

There's a lot of terrorism happening around the world and some of it has got to do with the Iraq war which has energised al-Qaida and its affiliates.