Posted on 09/16/2001 6:41:17 PM PDT by freedomnews
Revealed: British bank’s links to bin Laden’s global empire
JASON ALLARDYCE AND FRANCIS ELLIOTT
ONE of Britain’s biggest banks has been named as holding money belonging to Osama bin Laden, the wealthy Saudi dissident blamed for last week’s terrorist attack.
Barclays is among a string of international banks said to have handled funds belonging to Al Qaeda, bin Laden’s shadowy terrorist group, which has been accused of attacks against US citizens over the past decade.
The link to a London bank account, and other British connections to Al Qaeda, was uncovered by a Scotland on Sunday investigation into the global business empire - reaching more than 50 countries - which funds bin Laden’s terrorist activities.
It has also emerged the paymaster is using a transnational network of up to 80 ‘front’ companies in shipping, financial services, real estate, agriculture and investment banking to conceal his terrorist activities.
These firms, which are largely run by trusted aides of bin Laden, are used to build on the terror chief’s estimated $300m personal fortune and to launder drugs money from Afghanistan, where he is a major player in the opium trade.
Our investigation also uncovered links between Al Qaeda and the Russian mafia. The mafia bought weapons for bin Laden in the Ukraine and secretly shipped them into the Gulf and the Horn of Africa. US officials believe the Russians are laundering Al Qaeda funds in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. It has also emerged that money gifted to relief charities has been syphoned off to the organisation and that wealthy Saudis have paid him protection money.
And the investigation revealed evidence that up to 17 members of an Al Qaeda cell are operating in the UK, where they are being pursued by police.
Prime Minister Tony Blair is known to have read intelligence reports this summer about bin Laden and has stressed the need to tackle the question of the terrorist’s funding. A senior government source said: "One of the key areas that these groups exploit is the difference between countries’ financial regulations: that’s why we believe that it is important to look at this issue nationally and internationally."
The link to Barclays was made by Jamal Ahmed Al-Fadl, a Sudanese man who describes himself as a former bin Laden paymaster who helped found Al Qaeda. Giving evidence in Manhattan earlier this year to a trial into US embassy bombings, he described himself as a founding member of the group. He disclosed details of several bank accounts in Europe, Asia and Sudan containing Al Qaeda funds, including one at a London branch of Barclays.
A spokesman for Barclays said that the bank was well aware of its legal obligations under the Money laundering and Anti-terrorism Act.
There is no suggestion the bank has acted improperly but growing concerns about the extent to which terrorists may be using bank accounts without the bank’s knowledge is behind pressure for more powerful scrutiny of bank accounts.
In response, the US Treasury Department has created a Foreign Terrorist Asset Tracking Centre. The special team to fight terrorism will focus on tracking down sources of finance in the wake of Tuesday’s attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Some law enforcement agencies already currently try to identify assets and track terrorists’ money trails. But the new Treasury team will co-ordinate those activities and eventually be transformed into a permanent fixture in the Treasury’s office of foreign asset control.
Bush Gives Taliban $10 Million To Fight Opium
Run Date: 05/26/01
(WOMENSENEWS)—The Bush administration has given Afghanistan $43 million including $10 million for “other livelihood and food security programs,” a reference to the ruling Taliban's ban on poppy cultivation that dramatically changed the economy of the war-torn nation. The poppy is the source of opium and the crop had provided significant revenues to Afghan farmers. The aid was described as humanitarian.
In addition to being an ally in the U.S. war against drugs, the Taliban also has banned the education of girls and women. It has banned women from professions and from most outside-the-home employment, even with international relief agencies. It has banned women from seeing male doctors and it prevents women from practicing medicine.
Colin Powell, in announcing the gift, said the administration hoped that the Taliban "will act on a number of fundamental issues that separate us: their support of terrorism, their violation of internationally recognized human rights--especially their treatment of women and girls--and their refusal to resolve Afghanistan's civil war through a negotiated settlement." He also called on other nation's to join the U.S. with “dispatch and energy.”
Isn't it time for some of our best hackers to empty his bank accounts?
We also need to publicize all the front companies he has that we know about. God forbid Mr. bin Laden should think that his transactions involving industrial shipping that flow through Deutsche Bank are going unnoticed. Let's make sure he knows that we know what he's up to. I'd take these "Scotland Sunday" journalists and throttle 'em |
WASHINGTON -- Warning that Afghanistan is "on the verge of a widespread famine," Secretary of State Colin Powell Thursday announced a $43 million package in humanitarian assistance for the Afghan people.
Powell also called on other nations to send aid to the Central Asian nation.
"If the international community does not take immediate action, countless deaths and terrible tragedy are certain to follow," Powell said.
The package includes $28 million worth of wheat from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, $5 million in food commodities and $10 million in "livelihood and food security" programs, both from the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Powell called the crisis a "looming catastrophe," and said that he was working with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to press upon potential donors the need to respond to the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan "with energy and dispatch."
Almost 4 million at risk A nation of 26 million, Afghanistan has been hit by three consecutive years of drought. The nation has also endured more than 20 years of civil strife. The Taliban religious militia, which imposes a harsh brand of Islam, captured Afghanistan's capital, Kabul, in 1996 and now controls an estimated 95 percent of the country.
The Thursday aid announcement follows the return of a U.S. delegation last month from a visit to Afghanistan, where it found the population on the verge of a famine due to a devastating drought.
Leonard Rogers, the deputy assistant administrator of USAID's Bureau for Humanitarian Response, estimated that Afghanistan is nearly 2 million tons short of what the country needs to feed its people, a deficit two times more than last year. According to U.N. figures, 3.8 million people in the country are at risk of famine.
Powell said the United States expects to announce additional assistance to Afghan refugees, and would continue to look for ways to provide more aid to Afghanistan, especially for farmers feeling the crunch from a ban on poppy cultivation, a decision by the ruling Taliban that the U.S. welcomes.
The United Nations estimates that the drought has forced more than 700,000 people to flee their homes, landing at camps for internally displaced citizens.
The team visiting Afghanistan found the conditions of the camps woefully inadequate, and said that the shelter facilities, water and sanitation was very poor.
Officials were especially concerned about refugees leaving Afghanistan for bordering countries, such as Pakistan and Iran, and expressed concern that those countries might send the refugees back to Afghanistan.
One "holding facility" on the Pakistani side of the border in Jalozai was described as inappropriate for holding refugees.
Alan Kreczko, acting assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of Population, Refugee and Migration Affairs, said that while the United States "understands the frustration" felt by the border countries who have acted as "generous hosts," he cautioned "this is not the time" to send the refugees back.
U.N. to distribute aid While U.S. officials cited the drought as the major factor for the deepening humanitarian crisis, the members of the delegation said that Afghanistan's ruling Taliban's regime and the security problems it presents, hinders access and contributed to the situation.
The U.N. Security Council imposed sanctions against the Taliban in an effort to pressure the militia to hand over Saudi exile Osama bin Laden, who is accused of bombing two U.S. embassies in Africa. Humanitarian aid is allowed.
Powell said the U.S. aid is administered by the United Nations and non-governmental organizations, and bypasses the Taliban, "who have done little to alleviate the suffering of the Afghan people, and indeed have done much to exacerbate it."
The sum brings U.S. assistance to $124.2 million for this year, making the United States the largest Afghan donor for the second year in a row
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- By Frank Langfitt Sun Foreign Staff
Originally published September 16, 2001
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Afghanistan's ruling Taliban regime said yesterday it would wage war on any nation that helped the United States retaliate against it after Tuesday's terrorist attack in New York and Washington.
The warning, issued by the Taliban embassy here, appeared designed to intimidate other Islamic states into refusing to aid the United States, especially Afghanistan's neighbor and longtime ally, Pakistan.
"If neighboring or regional countries, particularly Islamic countries, gave a positive response to American demand for military bases, it would spark off extraordinary danger," said the ambassador to Pakistan, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, reading from a statement.
"Similarly, if any neighboring country gave territorial way or airspace to U.S.A. against our land, it would draw us into a war."
Osama bin Laden's protector
American officials have said the prime suspect in last week's attack, which left thousands dead, is wealthy Saudi exile Osama bin Laden, whom Afghanistan's Taliban have protected for years.
The Taliban have refused to turn him over, saying that he didn't have the technological means to organize such a coordinated strike with trained pilots and hijacked planes.
In yesterday's statement, Taliban leaders insisted that they were not singling out Pakistan for potential punishment, but were threatening "any" country.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar tried to gloss over the Taliban threat. "We have had a very strong relationship of solidarity with Afghanistan," Sattar said at a news conference.
Pakistan's role unclear
His statement could not obscure the fact that Pakistan must at some point explain who it will back in the looming confrontation between the United States and Afghanistan. So far, all signs point to the United States.
Sattar said his government would comply with all United Nations resolutions to combat "international terrorism," but refused to say whether it would agree to Washington's list of demands.
"The situation is clearly complex," he said. "Pakistan will discuss the matter with the government of Afghanistan to clarify this matter."
The United States has reportedly asked Pakistan to allow flights over its territory. It also wants Pakistan to close its 1,500-mile border with Afghanistan and shut off the fuel supply to Afghanistan.
If the United States attacked Afghanistan, it would be practically impossible for Taliban soldiers to effectively attack another nation with a conventional force.
The greater risk is that Afghanistan would respond with terrorism. Pakistan is home to more than 2 million Afghan refugees, who could carry out attacks inside Pakistan out of anger and frustration.
"Who can stop the Taliban?" said a telecommunications worker last week, who asked that his name not be used. "If they can attack the safest nation in the world, Pakistan will be a piece of cake."
Yesterday, the Taliban told the few foreigners still there to leave for their own safety. Most foreign aid workers have already fled from Afghanistan, fearful of being targeted by the population
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Let's be sure to come down hard on these bankers. We don't want any of bin Laden's money moving through banks where we have friends. We want all of it going through banks in countries that won't tell us squat. That'll show him.