Al­Qaida warns slain US soldiers will be dragged through Afghan streets

Osama bin Laden's military commander has reportedly said US troops will suffer the same fate in Afghanistan they did in Somalia, where bodies of slain soldiers were dragged through the streets.

Meanwhile, the same London–based Islamic group that passed on the military commander's warning Thursday reported the first word of a fatality among the top ranks of bin Laden's al–Qaida network.

The Islamic Observation Center said in an e–mailed statement to The Associated Press that an Egyptian militant, identified by his nom de guerre Abu Baseer al–Masri, was killed by a bomb on Sunday near Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan. It said two of his comrades, a Chinese Muslim and a Yemeni, were injured. No details were given.

In a separate statement, the center relayed by e–mail a threat by Mohammed Atef, the military commander and the No. 3 leader of al–Qaida.

Yasser al–Sirri, the spokesman for the center, said Atef sent the statement from Afghanistan. He refused to say how.

The center acts as a public relations outfit for Islamic fundamentalist groups. It has been regularly reporting war news from Afghanistan since U.S. strikes began Oct. 7.

"America will not realize its miscalculations until its soldiers are dragged in Afghanistan like they were in Somalia," Atef, an Egyptian, was quoted as saying.

In October 1993, guerillas reportedly trained by bin Laden shot down two U.S. helicopters over Mogadishu, Somalia, killing 18 soldiers who were trying to capture a Somali warlord. Jeering mobs then dragged the bodies of some of the soldiers through the streets.

The incident prompted the United States to pull out of a U.N. peacekeeping operation in Somalia.

The Ated statement was the first written statement by al–Qaida since the start of the U.S. attacks on Afghanistan. Al–Qaida has released three videotaped statements vowing to attack Americans, one in which bin Laden appeared and two in which only his spokesman, Sulaiman Abu al–Ghaith, appeared.

According to evidence released by the British government, Atef traveled to Somalia several times in 1992 and 1993 to organize violence against U.S. and U.N. peacekeeping troops. On each occasion he reported back to bin Laden, who was based at the time in Khartoum, Sudan.

Other intelligence reports suggested that he also supervised the slaying and dragging of the bodies of the American soldiers in Mogadishu.

In the statement issued Thursday, Atef scoffed at U.S intelligence abilities, saying the Sept. 11 hijacking of the planes and their subsequent use for attacking the World Trade Center and the Pentagon proved that.

"Despite American propaganda, which says that American surveillance can observe a bird flying, one of the hijacked planes landed in the office of the minister of defense," said Atef, whose daughter is married to bin Laden's son.

Atef is believed to be a former police officer. His association with bin Laden started in the early 1980s when he helped him recruit fighters for the Afghan war with the Soviet occupation forces. He is now principally responsible for training al–Qaida members in terrorism.

In October 1999, the FBI charged Atef and other al–Qaida members in a conspiracy to murder U.S. nationals. The FBI's indictment pointed to the Aug. 7 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania as being part of the conspiracy.