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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 12, 2001)
lit down Tues&jdfents gather to pray for victims and family members by dust and st th< se affected by the attacks in New York City and buildings. is|ington, D.C., at Reed Area. Consumers feared an increase of gasoline prices after the attacks. Increases were negligible in Bryan-College Station Tuesday night. Sympathetic students posted pleas for prayer around campus Tuesday to encourage others to join them in the vigil at Rudder Fountain. Aggies react to tragedy “The hearts of the entire Texas A&M family are heavy, and our prayers are with the victims of this morning's tragedies and their loved ones.” — A&M President Dr. Ray M. Bowen across b aged Hu8« .mled Airii 1)T fort that tumetb a s ( o the U ad. w hich a nuclear .•ars ago, W so hd oomsdav pW ■ciaHy equtl mg White™ nuclear war. .■ his returntj dusk. Bush# to any appefl it the helm, j her said Bits shington, wttf, risis operatii e House, bit! tat at a littl mist be taket first report k\ World It I his Sarasota idience thatl 5 i k to ^ash y n unidentified sdiately chat; New York City woman reacts emotionally to the scene of Manhattan from across the river, while smoke billows upward from the two World Trade Center Towers that were struck by hijacked jetliners Tuesday. ■rted to l Bush administration confirms Osama bin Laden y al-Qaeda as prime suspects Diane slants and Wa r attack oitol Hill.tb ||WASHlNGTON (AP) — From the outset, the o was to hafulprit seemed obvious. Who else but Osama bin ifying befois-iflen had the means, the organization and the ion. tried tos anaticism required to pull off the terrorist acts at on. he World Trade Center and the Pentagon? is need to re- “ 'And indeed, by late afternoon Tuesday, the Bush verywherein idministration confirmed that bin Laden and his al- e safe." shf Qaeda organization were prime suspects, she and Sr Me is widely regarded as the world’s most dan- D-Mass., serous man. He is thought to have been behind the ng was postp;win bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa in lush and a 199X that claimed the lives of 224 people, including ■ whisked by 12 Americans. location arr Those numbers pale alongside the anticipated )use, which ;oll from Tuesday’s attacks on symbols of but for the American commercial and military might, i policy ad' Sen. Orrm Hatch, R-Utah, the top Republican ie basemeni^n Senate Judiciary Committee, said FBI and ntelligence officials told him the attacks were er said | well-planned over a number of years, planned nira at Tk 3 y rea i p ros ant | experts. ... Their belief is, at least at the ' initially, that this looks like Osama bin Laden’s tm, also we«« nature; , itions. Rep. Bob Barr, R-Ga., when asked whether bin Laden’s group is the likely perpetrator, said, “I don’t know if there’s any other organization that had the capability to carry out such a coordinated series of attacks.” Bin Laden’s obsessive anti-Americanism has never been in doubt. “Fm fighting so I can die a martyr and go to heaven to meet God. Our fight now is against the Americans,” bin Laden was once quoted as saying. He has declared all U.S. citizens to be legitimate targets of attack. CIA Director George Tenet has said bin Laden has demonstrated an ability to plan “multiple attacks with little or no warning.” His road to international pariah status has been helped along by his strong organizational skills and a warchest inherited from the family construction company. Born in Saudi Arabia in 1957, bin Laden drew inspiration from Iran’s Islamic revolution in 1979. He had dreams of similar revolts in other Muslim countries. Less than one year later, the Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan provided another turning point. He despised the notion of people he considered to be infidels controlling a Muslim country and joined forces with the Afghan resistance. Ironically, this commitment put him on the same side as the United States, which shared bin Laden’s contempt for the Soviets and spent millions of dol lars trying to liberate Afghanistan from them. The Afghanistan experience enabled bin Laden and the many followers he recruited to hone the skills they needed for future struggles once the Soviets were evicted in early 1989. His disdain for the monarchy in his Saudi home land turned into outright opposition in 1990 when the kingdom invited hundreds of thousands of American and other foreign troops into the country after the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq. Saudi Arabia was betraying the faith by accepting help from Western infidels, bin Laden believed, and he set about to drive the United States from the Middle East. He lived a nomadic existence for several years, having been deported by a number of Islamic countries before finding a haven in Afghanistan. President Bush .said Tuesday the United States “will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them.” Operating from damp caves infested with scor pions and rats, he plotted against the world’s only superpower. Aside from the 1998 embassy bomb ings in Africa, he also is believed by U.S. officials to be responsible for the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center and last year’s bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen. He has proved to be an elusive target. President Clinton was so eager to liquidate bin Laden that he ordered more than 70 sea-launched Tomahawk cruise missiles at his hideaway in Afghanistan in 1998. All fell wide of the mark. A $5 million FBI bounty on his head has yet to produce results. And despite two rounds of U.N. Security Council sanctions, the Taliban rulers in Afghanistan refuse to turn him in. internal diverted' r. 10:29 a.m. ET Second World Trade Center tower collapses 11:04 a.m. ET UN headquarters New York evacuated 11:18 a.m. ET American Airlines confirms 2 jets lost, 150 aboard 11:59 a.m. ET United Airlines confirms 2 crashes, 110 lost A&M administrators decide not to cancel classes Tuesday By Jon Niven THE BATTALION While government agencies around the world were taking precautions and closing for the day, Texas A&M, along with other state universities, kept its doors open. Administrators met at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday after the ter rorist attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C., and decided that keeping a regular schedule was the best solution to the tragedies. William Perry, executive associate provost of A&M, said the events surrounding the 1999 Aggie Bonfire col lapse prepared the staff to deal with this situation. Perry also said that several groups on campus were quick to act on news of the terrorist attacks. Dr. J. Malon Southerland, vice president for student affairs at A&M, said professors may use their own dis cretion to determine whether to cancel classes. According to Southerland, approximately 50 A&M stu dents are interning in Washington, D.C., and New York City this semester and all have been accounted for. CHAD MALLAM • THE BATTALION