Germany says several secret services finger Bin Laden, expects U.S. retaliation
BERLIN -- The German, French, British and Israeli secret services view Osama bin Laden as the prime suspect behind the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, a senior German government official said Wednesday.
''The way it was carried out, the choice of targets, the military approach, the highly professional preparation and the presumably large financial resources ... (all) mean there are many points that indicate we should look for the perpetrators among those around Osama bin Laden,'' Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's chief of staff Frank-Walter Steinmeier said.
The four intelligence services were all in agreement, he said, adding that Germany expects the United States to retaliate for the attacks Tuesday on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
''I expect that the United States will not leave these attacks unanswered,'' Steinmeier told a Berlin news conference.
Bin Laden, a millionaire Saudi exile who is living in Afghanistan, is a key suspect in the bombing of two U.S. embassies in East Africa in August 1998 that killed 224 people, including 12 U.S. citizens.
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