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NEW YORK CITY (EmergencyNet News) - Fugitive Saudi millionaire Osama bin Laden and a top aide were indicted on Wednesday in the U.S. Embassy bombings in Africa and accused of conspiring to kill Americans outside the United States. Bin Laden and Muhammad Atef, identified as military commander of bin Laden's organization, were charged in an indictment returned in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. The U.S. State Department announced rewards of up to $5 million for their arrests and convictions. If convicted, both men could face the death penalty.

U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno said in a statement: "This is an important step forward in our fight against terrorism. It sends a message that no terrorist can flout our laws and murder innocent civilians."

Four other men are charged with participating in a worldwide terrorist organization led by bin Laden in a conspiracy to murder American citizens. The targets of the alleged plot included members of the U.S. military in Saudi Arabia and Somalia; and Americans employed at the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Prosecutors said that other goals included setting up front companies, providing bogus travel documents and lying to authorities in various countries.

The indictment alleged that bin Laden and his group, al Qaeda, forged alliances with representatives of the government of Iran, the National Islamic Front in Sudan and an Iranian group, Hezbollah. Prosecutors say that bin Laden's organization acted on its own as well as through other organizations, operating under its umbrella.

Prosecutors identified other organizations as Al Jihad, an Egypt-based Islamic terrorist group led at one time by Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, and a number of Al Jihad groups in other countries, including Sudan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Somalia.

Bin Laden already was indicted by a grand jury in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, but the indictment returned Wednesday directly linked him to the embassy bombings on 7 August.

The indictment said five of the defendants are charged with murdering all the civilians killed in the two embassy bombings. The indictment alleges that bin Laden and a committee of his group's members issued fatwahs or religious edicts urging other members and associates of the group to kill Americans.

The grand jury was convened after 19 U.S. service personnel were killed when a bomb exploded in June 1996 at a military apartment complex in Saudi Arabia. There were suspicions that bin Laden was linked with the attack.

Interestingly, Wednesday's additional indictments against bin Laden came immediately after Saudi Arabian Interior Minister Prince Nayef said that bin Laden did not mastermind the bomb attacks in the kingdom which killed 24 U.S. servicemen.

Prince Nayef said: "It has been reported that the two explosions in Riyadh and Khobar were planned by bin Laden. This is not true. But maybe there are people who adopt his ideas. That is possible."

A slow-moving Saudi inquiry into the Khobar explosion has been a cause of friction between Washington and Riyadh, with some U.S. officials complaining of lack of Saudi cooperation. Prince Nayef appeared not to approve of Washington's handling of bin Laden.

The Saudi interior minister also said: "Those who inflated bin Laden should bear the responsibility. Now we do not know what nationality he carries and we do not want to know if he is Afghani or something else because he means nothing to us. He is no longer a Saudi citizen. He lives outside and we are not concerned with him ... He does not constitute any security problem to us and has no activity in the Kingdom."

It would appear, now, that the working relationship between U.S. and Saudi law enforcement authorities has been severed and the United States will now go ahead on its own to bring bin Laden to justice without the assistance of the Saudi government. There has long been speculation in U.S. intelligence circles that the Saudis were not willing to ahead fully in the investigations of the two bombings in the kingdom because of various political considerations.

On Thursday, an Islamic militant group threatened to retaliate if bin Laden was arrested, and described the terrorist as a "hero" to Muslims worldwide. Omar Warsi, a leader of Pakistan's militant Sunni Muslim group, Sipah-e-Sahaba, or Guardians of the Friends of the Prophet, said: "It is a challenge to the entire Muslim world ... bin Laden is a hero of the Muslim world. If anything happens to him, America will be responsible."

Many Sipah-e-Sahaba followers are fighting in neighboring Afghanistan alongside the Taleban army. Warsi's group is well-armed with everything from machine guns to rocket launchers. In Pakistan, it has been blamed in killings of hundreds of Shi'ite Muslims, whom it reviles as non-Muslims based on a centuries-old dispute over who was the proper successor to the Prophet Mohammed.

Harakat-ul-Ansar, a Pakistan-based organization labeled a terrorist group by the United States, said, however, that foreigners in Pakistan "have nothing to fear from us." Harakat is considered a strong supporter of bin Laden's, and several Harakat followers were killed in the U.S. missile attack on bin Laden terror sites in Afghanistan.

(C) Copyright, EmergencyNet NEWS Service, 1998. All Rights Reserved. Further redistribution without permission is prohibited by law.

The ERRI DAILY INTELLIGENCE REPORT is a subscription publication of the EmergencyNet NEWS Service, which is a part of the Chicago-based Emergency Response and Research Institute. This publication specializes in Security/Terrorism/Intelligence/Military and National Security issues.