Former Bin Laden friend denies terror ties

Mohammed Jamal Khalifa is cross-legged on the ground, picnicking on a feast of fish and rice. He is upbeat as he points out the features of the restaurant he runs with his brother Abdullah, built into a park-like setting near the Red Sea coast north of Jeddah.

Yet Mr. Khalifa is unsure how long he will enjoy these freedoms. He is a wanted man, believed by analysts and intelligence agencies, including the FBI and CIA, to have links to the heart of Al Qaeda. Using charities in the Philippines as a cover, Khalifa is alleged to have funded the radical Islamic group Abu Sayyaf. He is also said to have spearheaded plots including a foiled 1995 plan to hijack planes and crash them into the Pentagon and CIA headquarters - widely seen as a blueprint for the Sept. 11 attacks.

The victims of Sept. 11 have named Khalifa in their multibillion dollar lawsuit for damages.

"Had the US followed the Khalifa case in the Philippines ... I believe Sept. 11 could have been averted," says Rohan Gunaratna from the University of St. Andrews Center for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence in Scotland.

In his first interview with the US media since 1994, Khalifa rejects the allegations that have led to his interrogation in prisons in the US, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia.

"I want a chance to prove that I am clean because I know there is nothing," he says. "If I did anything wrong then come and punish me."

Khalifa refutes allegations that he founded Asian terror groups by explaining that as a businessman and the head of a large Islamic charity he met many people. "People came and met me and I gave them my card. I have fully documented evidence that I was working with the Filipino government, not the rebels."

Yet Khalifa admits he looks suspicious. He was Osama bin Laden's best friend and married his sister. His business card was found in the office of 1993 World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef and he knew many of those known to have links to Al Qaeda.

"I was Osama's best friend for 10 years," he says. "I really loved Osama and we were almost never apart. He was very humble, very simple, very polite. I never heard him say a bad word against anybody."

The pair met at university in Jeddah in the late 1970s and shared a house for two years.

"I am surprised to hear about what Osama is doing now because it's not in his personality [to lead]," says Khalifa. "He doesn't have the capacity to organize something as simple as a 15-minute trip. Even at prayer time he would say: 'You lead the prayers.' "

In their free time the two went swimming in the Red Sea or took off to the bin Laden family's property outside Jeddah. "We talked about horses, cars, the normal things youths talk about," Khalifa remembers.

They also talked about jihad. In the early 1980s Khalifa and bin Laden became influenced by Abdullah Azzam, an Islamic scholar who Khalifa describes as his "spiritual leader." Azzam, a Palestinian, promoted jihad and was, according to Gunaratna, the true founder of Al Qaeda.

Azzam, who was killed in 1989, encouraged Khalifa and bin Laden to go to Afghanistan to fight the Soviets.

Khalifa moved from Afghanistan to Pakistan where he ran an Islamic charity delivering aid to Afghan refugees. Meanwhile bin Laden set up a rudimentary military training camp that grouped the Arab jihadis flocking to Afghanistan. This is where Khalifa's version of events diverges from those of analysts like Gunaratna. Far from masterminding Al Qaeda together, Khalifa says he and bin Laden had a falling out that ended their friendship.

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