July 2001. The three, one of whom was identified as Imad El Misri, were Egyptian nationals. The paper said that two of the suspects were holding Bosnian passports. In 1998 it was reported that bin Laden is operating his terrorist network out of Albania. The Charleston Gazette quoted Fatos Klosi, the head of the Albanian intelligence service, as saying a network run by Saudi exile Osama Bin Laden sent units to fight in the Serbian province of Kosovo. Confirmation of these activities came from Claude Kader, a French national who said he was a member of Bin Laden's Albanian network. He claimed he had visited Albania to recruit and arm fighters for Kosovo. In 2000 bin Laden was operating from Kosovo planning the terrorist activities during the Insurgency in the Preševo Valley. Connections between bin Laden and National Liberation Army, an insurgent, guerrilla organization that operated in the Republic of Macedonia in 2001 were also drawn. According to the Washington Times the NLA was fighting to keep control over the region's drug trafficking, which had grown into a large, lucrative enterprise since the Kosovo war and that in addition to drug money, the NLA also had another prominent venture capitalist, Osama Bin Laden. According to a document written by the chief commander of the Macedonian Security Forces, bin Laden was financing the rebel group through a representative in Macedonia. Osama Bin Laden, paid $6 to $7 million for the needs of the National Liberation Army through his representative. Osama Bin Laden was planning to gain control over Macedonia so that he could control the distribution of oil to the United States through the pipeline that was planned to stretch from Bulgaria to Albania ports. In Sudan Assisted by donations funneled through business and charitable fronts such as Benevolence International, established by his brother-in-law, Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, and especially by his stipend from the Bin Laden family business empire, bin Laden established a new base for mujahideen operations in Khartoum, Sudan to disseminate Islamist philosophy and recruit operatives in Southeast Asia, Africa, Europe, and the United States. Bin Laden also invested in business ventures, such as al-Hajira, a construction company that built roads throughout Sudan, and Wadi al-Aqiq, an agricultural corporation that farmed hundreds of thousands of acres of sorghum, gum Arabic, sesame and sunflowers in Sudan's central Gezira province. Bin Laden's operations in Sudan were protected by the powerful Sudanese