Archive for the 'Terrorists' Category
Benazir Bhutto in 1987 talked to me of concern about Afghan militants and how she dealt with death threats
Dec 28, 2007
Twenty years ago, on a campaign trip in rural Pakistan in October 1987, Benazir Bhutto told me of her concern about the long-term effect of Afghan refugees who had set up safe houses, stored munitions and created networks in her country.
We talked for an hour in an interview I videotaped. It was the day after I traveled with her on a political procession in Sailkot, in the Punjab, northern Pakistan, where she was mobbed by supporters.
She was prescient about the impact of the Islamic Afghanis who had arrived in Pakistan during the war with the Soviet-supported government.
She said “a long-term domestic fallout” would be that “even if Afghanistan today is solved and guaranteed by both superpowers, what about the future? Because the network has been created.”
Questions Linger About Bushes and BCCI
Inter Press Service (IPS), April 4, 2007
Now that the U.S. Congress is investigating the truth of President George W. Bush’s statements about the Iraq war, they might look into one of his most startling assertions: that there was a link between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.
Critics dismissed that as an invention. They were wrong. There was a link, but not the one Bush was selling. The link between Hussein and Bin Laden was their banker, BCCI. But the link went beyond the dictator and the jihadist — it passed through Saudi Arabia and stretched all the way to George W. Bush and his father.
Osama y Saddam, parientes incómodos de Bush
Servicio Inter Press (IPS), 4 de abril 2007
Los legisladores de Estados Unidos que investigan la veracidad de los argumentos del presidente George W. Bush para invadir Iraq deberían analizar una de sus afirmaciones más resonantes: la del vínculo entre Saddam Hussein y Osama bin Laden.
Los críticos de Bush desacreditaron tal aseveración, a la que calificaron de invención. Estaban equivocados. El vínculo existía, pero no era el que el presidente le vendió al público.
El punto de contacto entre el hoy ejecutado dictador de Iraq y el hoy prófugo líder terrorista era el Banco de Crédito y Comercio Internacional (BCCI), cuyas vinculaciones atravesaban toda Arabia Saudita y llegaban hasta el propio presidente Bush y su padre, el ex mandatario George Bush (1989-1993).
Funding Terror: Investigating the role of Saudi banks
In These Times, Dec 20, 2002
Having a quarter of the world’s oil reserves may mean never having to say you’re sorry to Washington. Instead, when Newsweek reported in December that checks from the wife of the Saudi ambassador to the United States had been sent to associates of two of the September 11 hijackers, Saudi and Washington officials revved up their spin machines.
When the reports surfaced, Haifa bint Faisal, wife of Saudi ambassador Bandar bin Sultan, acknowledged that she sent nearly $150,000 to the wife of a Saudi living in San Diego. The recipient, Majeda Ibrahin Dweikat, signed over some of the checks to a friend whose husband, Omar al-Bayoumi (with Dweikat’s husband), helped hijackers Khalid Almidhar and Nawaf Alhazmi find housing in San Diego, open bank accounts, get Social Security cards, pay expenses and arrange flying lessons in Florida.
Police spoke to U.S. terror suspect
MSNBC.COM, Sept 16, 2002
MSNBC exclusive: Document shows Tunisian with alleged al-Qaida links gave information to Italians two years ago
A Tunisian-born terrorism suspect placed two weeks ago on Washington’s list of most-wanted militants confessed two years before to Italian police that he helped run an elaborate arms smuggling ring that aided Islamic militants, but it’s not clear whether Italian and U.S. officials acted on the information. The case, revealed in a confidential document obtained by MSNBC.com, raises new questions about intelligence gathering in the war on al-Qaida.
Explosive Revelation$
In These Times, March 15, 2002
The world’s biggest banks and multinational corporations have set up a shadowy system to secretly move trillions of dollars—a system that can be exploited by tax evaders, drug runners and even terrorists.
In the tax haven of Luxembourg, a little-known outfit called Clearstream handles billions of dollars a year in stock and bond transfers for banks, investment companies and multinational corporations. But a former top official of this “clearinghouse” says Clearstream operates a secret bookkeeping system that allows its clients to hide the money that moves through their accounts.
Shareholders in the Bank of Terror?
Salon, March 15, 2002
A previously unpublished list reveals that backers of a bank that the U.S. says helped fund al-Qaida include prominent members of the Arab world.
According to an unpublished list obtained by the author, the Al Taqwa bank, part of a network of financial companies named by the Bush administration as a major source and distributor of funds for Osama bin Laden’s terrorist operations, has shareholders that include prominent Arab figures from numerous countries in the Middle East. Among the shareholders are the grand mufti of the United Arab Emirates and prominent families in the UAE and Kuwait. Two sisters of Osama bin Laden are also on the list, undermining the bin Laden family’s claim that it separated itself from his terrorist pursuits after he was expelled from Saudi Arabia in 1994.
Enron, Like Al Qaeda, Hid Money Offshore
Pacific News Service, Jan 18, 2002
How did Enron executives cause the world’s biggest bankruptcy while making off with millions? By using the same secret money system used by terrorists and financial swindlers — an offshore financial system that U.S. officials must rein in.
NEW YORK–How did top executives of Enron do it? How did they cause the world’s biggest bankruptcy while making off with millions of dollars?
They used the same financial tools as Osama bin Laden.
Enron’s Offshore Game Bares Sinister System
New York Daily News, Jan 18, 2002
Top executives of Enron caused the world’s biggest bankruptcy while making off with millions of dollars by using the same financial tools as Osama Bin Laden.
The Bush administration knew right where to look when it wanted to shut down Bin Laden’s financial network — offshore secrecy havens. The system moves money for people with something to hide. Sometimes they are terrorists. Sometimes they are financial swindlers.
U.S. investigators had to use muscle to get the Bin Laden information. When a Bahamas bank refused to open its records, the U.S. had it cut off from the world’s wire transfer systems and the bank changed its mind within hours. Offshore revelations on Enron should make the public and policymakers question the continued existence of the world’s financial services system for criminals.
A Book Too Hot For U.S. to Handle? Tracking Terrorist Money
Pacific News Service, Oct 4, 2001
NEW YORK–A controversial European book that might help authorities track terrorist funding sources remains unpublished and relatively unknown in the United States.
”Entitled “Revelation$,”it exposes a secret banking system that might be used by terrorists. At the center is a clearinghouse in Luxembourg called Clearstream, which transfers money for international banks and major companies.
Written by a former high-ranking Clearstream official and a French journalist, its publication last February by Les Arenes in Paris triggered the firing of Clearstream’s top officials, a judicial inquiry in Luxembourg, and invitations to the authors to address members of the European Parliament and the French parliamentary commission on financial crime and money-laundering.
Follow the money — through U.S. banks
Sacramento Bee, Sept 23, 2001)
Terrorist networks all over the world depend on the international bank and corporate secrecy system to hide and move their money. This structure is allowed to exist by agreement of the world’s banks and financial powers. A lot of people make money from it, including the owners and managers of banks that hide customers’ deposits from tax authorities. But an unintended consequence is that it helps worldwide networks of terrorists.
Terrorists need a way to finance operations in dozens of countries around the globe, to pay for houses, salaries, transport, weapons and explosives.
How U.S. Bank Laws Fund Terrorists
Pacific News Service, Sept 21, 2001
For years the banking laws of the United States and its allies have protected money laundering, which makes money for banks and the wealthy, and has even helped Washington fund “freedom fighters.” But the system also provides funds and cover for terrorists; the system must be dismantled with new laws.
The global money-laundering system used by terrorists has also served the U.S. government and banks for years, creating wealth and occasionally supporting U.S. political interests abroad. Changing U.S. bank secrecy laws to pierce that laundering system is as essential to stopping terrorism as military force and diplomatic moves.
Bank Secrecy Gives Terror Safe Haven
MSNBC.com, Sept 19, 2001
Global money laundering made easy by loose rules on secret accounts
Terrorists work the levers of global banking laws to move money that finance their efforts from phony banks to real ones, like Britain’s Barclays Bank, which Osama bin Laden allegedly used.
Terrorist networks all over the world depend on the international bank and corporate secrecy system to hide and move their money. This structure is allowed to exist by agreement of the world’s banks and financial powers. A lot of people make money from it, including the owners and managers of banks that hide customers’ deposits from tax authorities. But an unintended consequence is that it aids and abets worldwide networks of terrorists.
BCCI and the Bushes
Lucy Komisar writes about the criminal offshore bank BCCI and the way it connected the Bushes, the Saudis, Saddam and Osama bin Laden 
in her chapter, “BCCI’s Double Game: Banking on America, Banking on Jihad,” in ”A Game As Old As Empire.”
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