Posted on 03/06/2003 11:38:32 AM PST by Indy Pendance
THE al-Qaeda financier nabbed with terror mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in Pakistan on Saturday bankrolled flying lessons for the September 11 hijackers, officials said yesterday.
Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, captured in Rawalpindi on Saturday with al-Qaeda number three Khalid, was "a key finance guy" behind the attacks on September 11, 2001 when four airliners were hijacked, a US official said.
US investigators said al-Hawsawi, using bank accounts in Dubai, had provided cash to Mohammed Atta, leader of the attacks on New York and Washington that killed 3000 people.
Jean-Charles Brisard, lawyer and author of Forbidden Truth: US Taliban secret oil diplomacy and the failed hunt for bin Laden, considered the capture "a major arrest".
"Khalid Sheikh Mohammed may have been the main planner of the attacks, but al-Hawsawi was the financial mastermind through the multiple transactions he carried out with the terrorists from the United Arab Emirates," Brisard said. Quoting German and US police, Brisard said al-Hawsawi financed an al-Qaeda cell in Hamburg, Germany, and paid for flying lessons for the 19 hijackers in the US.
He said al-Hawsawi, 34, was a long-time associate of bin Laden and had helped pay for bin Laden's operations in Sudan from 1991 to 1996.
Using different names, al-Hawsawi transferred money to four of the September 11 hijackers in 2000, using the Sun Trust Bank in Florida, Brisard said.
In June 2001, al-Hawsawi moved to the United Arab Emirates, from where he made bank transfers to Ramzi bin al-Shibh, co-ordinator of the Hamburg cell, who was detained in Pakistan last year.
Brisard said al-Hawsawi had transferred $US500,000 ($814,500) to the terrorists in Germany and the US.
The FBI warned yesterday that Khalid's arrest could speed up terrorist attacks in the US that were in the planning stages.
An FBI memo to law enforcement agencies says Khalid's capture "deals a severe long-term blow" to al-Qaeda.
"However, in the short term, the apprehension may accelerate execution of any operational planning already under way."
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