Bin Laden Said Behind Gibraltar Plot

Three al Qaeda members told Moroccan officials Osama bin Laden commanded his fighters in December to disperse across the globe and make attacks on Western interests, The Washington Post reported Sunday.

The three men, citizens of Saudi Arabia, told interrogators they escaped Afghanistan and came to Morocco on a mission to use bomb-laden speedboats for suicide attacks on U.S. and British warships in the Strait of Gibraltar, the Post said.

Saudi Arabia has sent investigators to help Moroccan authorities interrogate the suspects, the Saudi interior minister said. Along with bin Laden himself, fifteen of the 19 hijackers who carried out the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington were Saudis.

The men, captured in May in a joint Moroccan-CIA operation, appeared briefly in court in Morocco on Friday, but made no public statements, according to the Post.

Moroccan officials said bin Laden's instructions were behind a string of recent attacks, including Friday's bombing outside the U.S. Consulate in Karachi, Pakistan, that killed 11 people. FBI agents were in Karachi to assist in that investigation.

The New York Times reported Sunday that al Qaeda operatives are suspected to be dispersed throughout Pakistan, among other countries, and that they are being aided by complicit local radicals in cities like Karachi and Lahore.

The Moroccans said that, based on their findings and communication with other intelligence agencies, there is every indication bin Laden is still alive, the Post said.

The accounts provided by the three Saudi captives were related during interviews with senior Moroccan officials who have direct knowledge of the interrogations, the Post reported.

The Saudis were among the al Qaeda members who assembled in the mountainous Tora Bora region after U.S.-backed forces captured Kabul, the Afghan capital, the Post said.

While sneaking out of Tora Bora, a bin Laden lieutenant assembled al Qaeda members for final instructions.

The lieutenant, who said he was carrying direct instructions from bin Laden, ordered the members to flee Afghanistan to whatever areas of the world they had previously operated, including Asia, the Persian Gulf, Africa, Turkey and Europe, according to the newspaper.

Bin Laden's decree directed them to launch terrorist attacks once they had become established in familiar areas.

"Members who were very knowledgeable about one region had to go back to that region to prepare and perpetuate terrorist attacks," a senior Moroccan official told the Post.

The lieutenant noted that operations against European targets could be launched from North Africa, and operations in the Persian Gulf from Yemen, the Post said.

The Saudis were ordered to Morocco to attack the ships.

Moroccan officials said the Saudi prisoners described a final ceremony in which the men pledged allegiance to bin Laden and swore themselves to martyrdom through suicide operations, the Post said.