Last update - 14:27 20/10/2002 By Sharon Sadeh, Ha'aretz Correspondent, and Ha'aretz Service

Osama bin Laden was involved in the financing of the Bali island attack and his men planned a series of attacks against Israel and Israelis in Asia, the British weekly The Sunday Times reported Sunday.

The information was revealed during testimony given to the CIA by one of bin Laden's senior assistants, Omar Farouk, and in documents seized by the American intelligence services.

Farouk has been described as bin Laden's envoy in south-east Asia. He was arrested in Indonesia in June and extradited to CIA investigators in Afghanistan. He told investigators that thousands of dollars from a bank account controlled by bin Laden were transferred to the extremist Islamic organization, al-Jama'a al-Islamiya, for buying explosives.

Al-Jama'a al-Islamiya is thought to have been behind last week's bombing in a Bali nightclub, in which over 180 people were killed, most of them Western tourists.

Farouk said that bin Laden, together with al-Qaida militants, had a variety of plans to kill Westerners, Indonesians and Israelis, including a plan to shoot Americans and Israelis staying in hotels in Indonesia. The plan was abandoned as it would not have a large-scale impact. Another plan was to hijack a passenger airplane and to crash it into an Israeli target.

Osama bin Laden's rhetoric has often centered on Israel and the support it receives from the United States. In a speech aired on the Al-Jazeera satellite channel in December 2001, bin Laden claimed that his network was targeting American interests in order to end this support.

"Our terrorism is a good accepted terrorism because it's against America," bin Laden said. "It's for the purpose of defeating oppression so America would stop supporting Israel, who is killing our children."

-- Anonymous, October 20, 2002