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CHICAGO: A federal judge in Illinois on Thursday approved a request for a trip to Disney World by a man who the government had once accused of aiding Palestinian militants, brushing aside prosecutors' claims that he may instead flee. "I'm confident that he will come back," U.S. District Judge Amy J. St. Eve said in giving former Chicago grocer Muhammad Salah permission to make the trip to the Florida vacation spot.

A congressional committee has included a local Islamic charity in a new round of inquiries into suspected ties between not-for-profit groups and terrorists. The U.S. Senate Finance Committee has requested the financial records of 25 Islamic charities, including the Columbia-based Islamic American Relief Agency, or IARA. In particular, the request included donor lists that are reported to the IRS but protected under a privacy statute. The request comes two years after FBI, Department of the Treasury and other federal agency investigations into charities suspected of having ties to international terrorists. Since 2001, the United States has frozen more than $136...

‘Quake money’ used to finance UK plane bombing plot * Funds given to two British citizens of Kashmiri origin and an Islamabad-based Kashmiri builder * ‘Earthquake relief’ money remitted to individuals alarmed British agenciesBy Sarfaraz Ahmed and Maqbool Ahmed KARACHI: A UK-based Islamic charity organisation remitted a huge amount of money to three individuals in three different bank accounts in Mirpur, Azad Kashmir, in December last year with the sole purpose of helping its recipients and their organisations carry out the aircraft bombing plan in the UK, insider sources told Daily Times yesterday. An investigation carried out by Daily Times...

SADDAM HUSSEIN'S REGIME PROVIDED FINANCIAL support to Abu Sayyaf, the al Qaeda-linked jihadist group founded by Osama bin Laden's brother-in-law in the Philippines in the late 1990s, according to documents captured in postwar Iraq. An eight-page fax dated June 6, 2001, and sent from the Iraqi ambassador in Manila to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Baghdad, provides an update on Abu Sayyaf kidnappings and indicates that the Iraqi regime was providing the group with money to purchase weapons. The Iraqi regime suspended its support--temporarily, it seems--after high-profile kidnappings, including of Americans, focused international attention on the terrorist group. The...

Terrorists, drug dealers and smugglers are using a global system as old as the Silk Road to finance their operations. And there's not much we can do about it. Between 1995 and 2003 the Yemeni immigrant and a group of family members, friends and associates sent $22 million by way of a JPMorgan Chase bank account to countries all over the world, including Pakistan, Thailand and Yemen. Among the alleged recipients: Mohammed Ali Hassan al-Moayad, a Yemeni sheikh who boasted of his ties to Osama bin Laden and was sentenced in July to 75 years in federal prison for conspiring...

Ottawa pulls Saudi group's charity status Tax violation: Muslim World League being sued by 9/11 families Stewart Bell National Post Monday, December 01, 2003 TORONTO - Federal regulators have revoked the charity status of the Canadian branch of a Saudi organization that has faced longstanding allegations of ties to terrorism. A notice in the government publication Canada Gazette said the Muslim World League (MWL) is one of several charities that "have not met the filing requirements of the Income Tax Act." The revocation came into effect on Nov. 15, but the organization, dedicated to promoting Islam, was still calling itself...

U.K. Freezes Assets of Group Linked With Saudi Exile Al-Faqih Dec. 24 (Bloomberg) -- The U.K. government told its central bank to freeze the assets of an organization it suspects of having links with Saad al-Faqih, a Saudi Arabian dissident living in exile in Britain. Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown instructed the Bank of England to direct British financial institutions to immediately freeze funds belonging to the Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia, the Treasury said in a statement. The Treasury said it has ``reasonable grounds'' for suspecting the organization is acting on behalf of al-Faqih, who was listed...

The Islamic organization poised to build the largest mosque in the Northeast on a site in Roxbury has long-standing ties to an Egyptian cleric who praises suicide bombings and a Muslim activist indicted last week in a terrorism financing probe. The Islamic Society of Boston, which has city approval to build a sprawling $22 million Islamic cultural center and mosque on Malcolm X Boulevard, has had a long association with Dr. Yusuf Abdullah al-Qaradawi, whose vocal support of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas prompted the State Department to bar him from entering the U.S. four years ago. The local religious...

Italian intelligence officials who secured the release of two hostages in Iraq are working with their British counterparts to try to free Kenneth Bigley, the captive Briton. They believe that Sunni Muslim insurgents who kidnapped Simona Pari and Simona Torretta, the aid workers freed last week, have links with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of Tawhid wal Jihad, the group holding Mr Bigley. The engineer, 62, was captured 16 days ago with two American colleagues, who have been beheaded. An Italian diplomat said: "Italy's intelligence is working very closely with Britain's to lend every assistance to free the hostage. It has...

Gianfranco Fini, the Italian Foreign Minister, increased a diplomatic row with the United States today by demanding that Washington identify and punish those responsible for the shooting of Rome’s top intelligence agent in Iraq. Signor Fini dismissed the American version that a lack of communication was responsible for the death of Nicola Calipari, who died in a hail of gunfire from US troops as he escorted a freed Italian hostage to Baghdad airport on Friday. Signor Calipari had made "all the necessary contacts" with US authorities in Baghdad, the minister said. In his account to parliament of the shooting, which...

Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman (California) is reported to have given a letter to antiwar activists to facilitate their delivery of aid to the 'other side' in Fallujah, Iraq.The leftist online publication Peace and Resistance, in an article published January 1, said that Rep. Waxman had written a letter addressed to the American ambassador in Amman, Jordan to help ease transit through Customs of $600,000 worth of medical supplies and cash collected by the anti-American groups Code Pink and Global Exchange. According to the groups' leader, Medea Benjamin, the aid is destined for the "other side" in Fallujah.The letter was being...

Saddam, the ATM of Al Qaeda By Christopher S. Carson FrontPageMagazine.com | November 15, 2004 The Report of the 9/11 Commission has been digested, and the news media outlets have seized upon it as confirmation of their view that al Qaeda is a kind of purely stateless entity that never had "operational links" with rogue states like Iraq. Somehow, goes the thrust of the Report, Osama bin Laden was for years able to finance, train and supply an international terrorist corporation that had ongoing jihad operations in fifty countries - by himself, on no more than a $30 million personal...

The Link Between Iraq and Al-Qaeda Posted Sept. 29, 2003 By Scott L. Wheeler Nada formed the al-Taqwa group, a shadowy organization suspected of providing cover for Saddam Hussein’s personal fortune and Iraq’s funding of al-Qaeda operations. Senior investigators and analysts in the U.S. government have concluded that Iraq acted as a state sponsor of terrorism against Americans and logistically supported the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States - confirming news reports that until now have emerged only in bits and pieces. A senior government official responsible for investigating terrorism tells Insight that while Saddam Hussein may not...

<p>A chaplain at Rikers Island has been banned from counseling inmates because of his ties to a Brooklyn mosque linked to al Qaeda fund-raising.</p> <p>Amin Awad, who was named president of the board of trustees at Al-Farooq mosque earlier this month, cannot have contact with inmates and has been reassigned to administrative duties, Tom Antenen, a spokesman for the city Department of Correction, said yesterday.</p>

<p>November 17, 2003 -- A Yemeni cleric who allegedly boasted of giving Osama bin Laden millions of dollars collected at a Brooklyn mosque could be hauled into federal court as soon as today, after more than 10 months spent fighting extradition from Germany, a law enforcement source said. Sheik Mohammed Al Hasan Al-Moayad and his alleged assistant, Mohammed Mohsen Yahya Zayed, are expected to be arraigned in Brooklyn Federal Court immediately upon their arrival in the U.S. on charges they gave material support to al Qaeda and Hamas.</p>

FBI and INS Raid Dozens of Jewelry Stores in Search for Terrorist Financiers and Immigration Violators WASHINGTON (AP) - Federal investigators are conducting raids nationwide on jewelry stores owned by Pakistanis and others from the Middle East, hoping to break up fronts for terrorist groups or their financial backers, U.S. officials say. The raids have taken place in several cities over the past two weeks, including Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Atlanta and New York. About 75 jewelry stores have been raided, said a law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity. Tariq Hussain, 27, a recently discharged U.S. Army mechanic whose Intrigue...

NEW YORK (AP) - An FBI informant who set himself on fire in front of the White House played a role in at least three terror investigations, court documents show. Defense attorneys said Wednesday they are re-examining Mohamed Alanssi's role in the cases against their clients, who are accused of helping fund Osama bin Laden, al-Qaida and the Palestinian group Hamas. "Ultimately what I'm heading for is a motion for dismissal," said Frank Hancock, the lawyer for Abad Elfgeeh, a Yemeni-born man accused of illegally sending millions of dollars overseas. A spokesman for U.S. Attorney Roslynn Mauskopf, who filed the...

Feds raid Saudi-based organization in N.Va. The Associated Press Jul 2, 2004 FAIRFAX - Federal agents raided the Fairfax offices of a Saudi-based institute yesterday. No arrests were made. A task force of federal agents, including the FBI, raided the offices of the Institute of Islamic and Arabic Sciences. Earlier this year, 16 Saudi diplomats affiliated with the institute had their passports revoked. State Department officials said the diplomats were teaching at the institute rather than serving as diplomats. The institute, in the Merrifield section of Fairfax County, also served as a meeting point for a group of Islamic men...

Originally posted Sept. 29, 2003; reposted June 18, 2004 Senior investigators and analysts in the U.S. government have concluded that Iraq acted as a state sponsor of terrorism against Americans and logistically supported the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States - confirming news reports that until now have emerged only in bits and pieces. A senior government official responsible for investigating terrorism tells Insight that while Saddam Hussein may not have had details of the Sept. 11 attacks in advance, he "gave assistance for whatever al-Qaeda came up with." That assistance, confirmed independently, came in a variety of...

Mar 2, 2003 New York Suspends Muslim Prison Chaplain Accused of Sending Money to Iraq The Associated Press AUBURN, N.Y. (AP) - A state prison chaplain charged with helping to illegally send money to Iraq was suspended from his job indefinitely Sunday. Corrections Department spokesman James Flateau said Osameh Al Wahaidy returned to work Sunday at Auburn Correctional Facility, reported his arrest on the federal charges and was immediately suspended without pay from his $57,140-a-year job. Al Wahaidy, 41, a Jordanian citizen, has been a prison chaplain since 1997. Federal prosecutors charged Al Wahaidy and three other men on Wednesday...

Man pleads guilty to providing support to Hezbollah The Associated Press 9/18/2003, 4:42 p.m. ET DETROIT (AP) — A man who the government says funneled contraband profits from cigarette trafficking to the Islamic-militant group Hezbollah pleaded guilty Thursday to providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization. Hassan M. Makki, 41, of Dearborn, also pleaded guilty to a racketeering conspiracy charge, according to a plea agreement filed in U.S. District Court. Under the agreement, he faces up to 5 years and 11 months in prison and a fine up to $250,000 when sentenced Dec. 16. If the sentence is greater,...

March 11, 2003, 9:20 a.m. Terror ToolsSaudi-funded front in Michigan.By Rita Katz and Josh Devon he Saudi-funded, al Qaeda propaganda machine is in full effect behind the Islamic Assembly of North America (IANA), an ostensibly mainstream organization that had five of its members arrested and indicted at the end of February. Four of the men were running an IANA spin-off charity, Help the Needy, and funneling money illegally through it to Iraq. The fifth, Samih Al-Hussayen, a student at the University Idaho, was arrested for knowingly neglecting to list his affiliation with IANA on his visa application when he...

SPANISH police yesterday arrested another suspected al-Qaida member who is believed to be a key figure in the financing of the terrorist organisation's operations in various countries. Interior Minister Mariano Rajoy said Syrian-born Spaniard Ghasoub al- Abrash al-Ghalyoun was seized yesterday morning. He gave no more details. Only a day earlier, police in Madrid arrested another Syrian- born Spaniard, who was described as a key figure in financing terrorist operations of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network in various countries including the United States. Rajoy said the man held yesterday, together with another person arrested some time ago in Spain, "made...

ZURICH, Oct 31, 2001 (AFX-UK via COMTEX) -- Switzerland has blocked 24 banking accounts suspected of funding terrorist network, said the Swiss federal prosecutor's office. The amounts found on the accounts and the names of the accounts holders were not disclosed. The account holders are part of the second list of names published by the US authorities on Oct 11 suspected of having links with the Sept 11 attacks. A presumed 29-year old islamist activist of Tunisian or Algerian origine was also extradited to Italy on Monday, after having been arrested in Zurich on September 24, said the Swiss ministry ...

WASHINGTON - As the United States searches the earth for links between the Al Qaeda terrorist network and its sources of financial and logistical support, reports from West Africa are connecting Osama bin Laden to the collapsed states of Liberia and Sierra Leone. Earlier this month, The Washington Post reported that Al Qaeda has raised and laundered tens of millions of dollars through the purchase and sale of illicit diamonds mined by rebel forces in Sierra Leone. The mining and sale of these gemstones - known as "conflict diamonds," because of the financial incentive they provide to combatants - have ...