Posted on 12/02/2001 8:46:14 PM PST by American_Patriot_For_Democracy
The US is planning to confront Saudi Arabia with evidence that funds from the country are flowing to terrorist organisations.
Despite pressure from the US, the Saudi Government is believed to have done little to stanch the flow of funds to the al-Qaeda terrorist network.
Washington has till now not presented evidence to merit a crackdown but US diplomat Bill Burns would soon go to Saudi Arabia taking with him intelligence data linking some of the kingdom's leading money-men and charities to Osama bin Laden.
The data will include sensitive intercepts, human intelligence and wire transfers to back up American demands that Saudis freeze assets of suspected bin Laden financiers.
One Saudi in Burns' list cited by the Time magazine is wealthy businessman Yasin al-Qadi, who is alleged to have raised millions of dollars for a charity named by the US as a possible bin Laden front.
Al-Wadi has repeatedly protested his innocence and is challenging a freeze on his assets in a court in Britain. However, the US last week shipped to London a hefty package of intelligence data to strengthen the British case, American sources said.
Al-Qadi says his charity Blessed Relief has long been dormant, a contention echoed by a senior Saudi official. But the US sources say that intelligence shows movements of people, money and weapons to Muslim fighters in Bosnia financed by the charity as recently as 1999.
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