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Islamic SocialismFrom the CIA factbook: Following a 1969 military coup, Col. Muammar Abu Minyar al-QADHAFI began to espouse his own political system, the Third Universal Theory. The system was a combination of socialism and Islam derived in part from tribal practices and was supposed to be implemented by the Libyan people themselves in a unique form of "direct democracy.[1] The "Green Book" - Arabism, Islam & socialism, with Islam the main line Author John L. Esposito: Under Qaddafi three interrelated ideas were woven into Libya's ideological identity: Pan-Arabism, socialism, and Islam. Qaddafi's appeals to Islam were influenced by his...

Two Israelis have been arrested on suspicion of smuggling rough diamonds from Zimbabwe into Israel, news outlets report. Last week, customs officials at Ben-Gurion International Airport reportedly stopped one man for a random check as he was leaving the airport through the "nothing to declare" lane and found a number of rough diamonds in his clothing pockets. When questioned, the man reportedly told authorities that he was employed in Zimbabwe as a water consultant and had been instructed to bring the diamonds – which do not carry Kimberley Process certification – to Israel by a diamond trader. When the diamond...

West Africa is a well known transit center for smuggled diamonds, especially for Lebanese traders, with many sales funding criminal and terrorist groups. European and American intelligence sources have long known that Hezbollah has raised significant amounts of money in West Africa through the largely Shiite Muslim Lebanese communities in Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso and Togo. There are an estimated 120,000 Lebanese in West Africa, mostly involved in import-export businesses.

It's a safe bet that most of those surprised with diamond jewelry over the holidays did not pause long, if at all, to consider where their new gemstones came from. "Santa's elves" is a good enough answer for most people, and even those who are aware that some diamonds have been known to come from African war zones may not have given the matter much thought this year. "Conflict diamonds," also known as "blood diamonds," are rough stones mined at gunpoint by slaves and prisoners for the enrichment of those holding the weapons. They were a cause célèbre at the...

BANGKOK, Thailand - A Russian dubbed the "Merchant of Death" for allegedly supplying weapons to Africa's bloody conflicts over power and diamonds was arrested Thursday in Thailand on suspicion of conspiring to smuggle guns to Colombia's leftist rebels. Viktor Bout, 41, whose dealings reportedly inspired a 2005 movie about the illicit arms trade, was arrested at U.S. request in his hotel room in Bangkok, said police Lt. Gen. Pongpat Chayapan. Bout had eluded arrest for years and was finally seized after a four-month sting organized by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. In New York, federal authorities unsealed a criminal complaint...

Not for commercial use. Solely to be used for the educational purposes of research and open discussion. Arrest of Kenyan Exposes Massive Global Arms Trade The East African Africa News February 25, 2002 Monday Kenya L AST WEEKEND'S arrest of Kenyan-born Sanjivan Ruprah, who is alleged to be a part of a major arms smuggling operation to Africa, has brought into the open the extent of the multi-million dollar illegal business. The whereabouts of Bout remain unknown. Some media reports say he is in Moscow, while others say he is in the Congo or the United Arab Emirates. An international ...

Gems, al-Qaida and murder. Mystery over killing of Osama Bin Laden's friend · Saudi man's death was political, say his family· US secret service was monitoring his activities Nick Fielding Friday March 2, 2007 The Guardian (UK) Pallbearers carry the coffin of Muhammad Jamal Khalifa at Ivato airport in Antananarivo, in Madagascar. Photograph: Jasleen Sethi/Reuters When Muhammad Jamal Khalifa was found dead at a remote gemstone mine in south-eastern Madagascar at the end of January, local police quickly put the murder down to a business deal gone wrong. The Saudi businessman, 49, had had to call in local police to...

Taylor 'had billions' in US banks Liberia's ex-President Charles Taylor had transactions of about $5bn in two US bank accounts during his presidency, his prosecutor has told the BBC. Mr Taylor is being tried by a UN-backed war crimes court for backing rebels in Sierra Leone while in office. He denies trading arms for diamonds and challenged the international community when he stood down in 2003 to trace and seize any monies they alleged he had. If any was found he would "turn them over to the Liberian people". During Sierra Leone's decade-long civil war, which officially ended in...

- Ahmed Khalifan Ghailani, a/k/a "Foopie," is a diminutive Tanzanian with an Uzbeki wife, six children and a deep hatred of America and Western culture in general. A devout Muslim who plays a mean game of soccer but never learned to drive a car, Ghailani is also believed to be a key al Qaeda player who U.S. agents think is involved in a percolating terror plot aimed at disrupting America's upcoming elections. He had a $25 million price on his head as the FBI's No. 7 most-wanted terrorist - the same amount as the bounty for the capture of Osama...

KINSHASA, Congo -- A U.N.-backed body assigned to curb the sale of conflict diamonds suspended the Republic of Congo from the legitimate diamond trade on accusations the African nation sent millions of dollars in smuggled gems onto the world market. The suspension followed a May 31-June 4 mission to Republic of Congo that found the country was dealing in millions of carats of smuggled diamonds from other African countries. The West African country was sending the gems through the lesser diamond centers of Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates to avoid rigorous controls at the world's diamond hub, Antwerp, Belgium,...

Jefferson linked to Africa diamonds caseBy CAIN BURDEAU Associated Press Writer NEW ORLEANS --Rep. William Jefferson, facing a federal trial on corruption charges, has been linked to the prosecution of a former diamond executive in Botswana, opening a new window onto the congressman's dealings in Africa. The New Orleans Democrat and his family allegedly were the recipients of illegally funded trips to Botswana in 2001 and 2002, according to charges Botswanan prosecutors have filed against the former director of the Debswana Diamond Co. Ltd., a partnership between diamond giant De Beers SA and the Botswana government. Jefferson has not been...

Botswana: Senator Jefferson Graces Nchindo Charge SheetMmegi/The Reporter (Gaborone) 10 January 2008 Posted to the web 10 January 2008 Tshireletso Motlogelwa The embattled United States Senator, William Jefferson has turned up in the charge sheet brought by the prosecution against former Debswana chief executive, Louis Nchindo and other senior members of the company. Jefferson, who late last year was served with a 95 page long indictment by the US department of justice on a wide range of criminal charges relating to his various trips to Africa, visited Botswana a few years ago on two occasions. Late last year, the media...

A partnership Rudy Giuliani forged with a wealthy diamond-trading family from Israel helped his effort to expand his fledgling consulting business in Japan, and generated more than $600,000 in speaking fees for the Republican presidential candidate. The former New York mayor's previously undisclosed relationship with the Sage Capital Growth -- a medium-size private equity firm associated with the diamond-trading Steinmetz family of Israel -- shows how money came his way after he earned international acclaim leading the city through the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. It offers a peek at Mr. Giuliani's closely held five-year-old consulting business, New York-based Giuliani...

A SEBEGALESE Muslim cleric deported from Italy as a danger to state security was quoted today as telling a pan-Arab newspaper that he had met three times with Osama bin Laden, leader of the al-Qaeda terrorist network. The cleric, Abdel Qadir Mamour, told the London-based Asharq Al-Awsat in an interview by telephone from Dakar, Senegal, that he had the meetings with bin Laden in Sudan from 1993 to 1996. Mamour said bin Laden had provided money to finance his trading in diamonds between Africa and Belgium, but did not say how much money was involved or if bin Laden was...

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) - A series of witnesses place six top al-Qaida fugitives in Africa buying up diamonds in the run-up to the Sept. 11 attacks, according to a confidential report by UN-backed prosecutors obtained by The Associated Press. The first-person accounts detailed by the prosecutors add to long-standing claims that al-Qaida laundered millions of dollars in terror funds through African diamonds before launching its deadliest offensive. Al-Qaida figures, including some already wanted in pre-Sept. 11 attacks on U.S. targets, dealt directly with then-president Charles Taylor and other leaders and warlords in the West African country of Liberia from 1999...

Nairobi, Kenya (CNSNews.com) - The international community should speed up efforts to prevent terrorist groups from using the proceeds from illicit diamond trade to finance their activities and launder their funds, campaigners say. A Nairobi-based African affairs analyst, Adan Mohamed, said it was "very likely" that groups like Hizballah still use the trade to raise additional revenue. "Nothing much has happened in putting mechanisms in place to prevent diamond trade from being used to clean dirty cash or finance conflicts," he said.Investigations by researchers, human rights groups, the United Nations and media organizations have revealed how Hizballah exploited weakness in...

Diamond-producing countries and the diamond industry agreed yesterday to take unprecedented measures to stop the smuggling of "conflict diamonds" from West Africa. A resolution on Ivory Coast was unanimously approved at the Moscow plenary meeting of the Kimberley Process, the UN-backed international scheme to stop the illegal trading of gems. Recognising that millions of dollars' worth of conflict diamonds were being smuggled out of the rebel-held areas of Ivory Coast, members of participating countries agreed to put in place practical measures to stop the flow. "Intervention on the trade side will impose specific controls for diamonds in the whole West...

W. Post reporter says Liberia's Taylor protected Al Qaeda, Hezbollah activities Washington Post Reporter Douglas Farah told the House Africa Subcommittee April 2 that two of the world's most violent terrorist networks -- al Qaeda and Hezbollah -- "have an interest in the regional diamond trade [in West Africa] that extends at least back to the mid-1990s." The illicit trade in what are called "blood diamonds" -- because they are used to purchase arms that fuel conflicts -- came naturally to West Africa, where instability and weak governments have long attracted criminals and terrorists, Farah told Subcommittee Chairman Ed Royce...

As Rwandans begin the formal remembrance of the victims of the genocide that began 10 years ago today, President Paul Kagame has denounced the world's "deliberate failure" to stop the slaughter of ethnic Tutsis. "When genocide takes place, the international community should not shy away from its responsibilities ... How could the lives of one million Rwandese be considered so insignificant?" he asked, speaking for many of his countrymen who lived through the 100 days of terror.   "Do the powerful nations have a hidden agenda? I would hate to believe that this agenda is dictated by racist considerations or...

France accused of genocide role Kagame denies ordering the shooting down of the Rwandan president's plane in 1994 Rwandan President Paul Kagame has accused French people of "direct involvement" in the 1994 genocide. He told the French state-owned RFI radio that they provided weapons and training, and gave orders to those who killed some 800,000 people. He said the "French elements" were acting on government orders. The president was speaking a week after a French daily reported a police report that blamed him for a rocket attack that precipitated the massacre. "Sooner or later they will have to account for...