Pubdate: Fri, 21 Sep 2001
Source: Traverse City Record-Eagle (MI)
Copyright: 2001 The Traverse City Record-Eagle
Contact:  http://www.record-eagle.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1336

U.S. BELIEVES CHARITIES, DRUGS, WEAPONS AMONG SOURCES OF BIN LADEN'S FINANCES

WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. officials believe Osama bin Laden's terrorist 
network is financed largely through charities and a variety of businesses. 
Government experts also suspect illegal drugs and weapons trafficking are 
enriching bin Laden's group.

There are strong indications bin Laden's al-Qaida network has profited 
handsomely from the opium trade, with fighters used as smugglers and to 
protect smugglers, said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., a member of the Senate 
Foreign Relations Committee.

Al-Qaida's part in drug trafficking likely continued at least until 
Afghanistan's ruling Taliban cracked down on opium production last year, 
Kerry said.

Opium, used in the manufacture of heroin and morphine, has an added 
attraction for terrorists because such drugs head to the United States and 
lead to problems such as addiction and crime, he said.

"That's part of their revenge on the world," Kerry said. "Get as many 
people drugged out and screwed up as you can."

Jonathan Winer, deputy U.S. assistant secretary of state for international 
enforcement in the Clinton administration, said those who deal in drugs 
usually also traffic in guns, although the extent to which bin Laden is 
profiting from the gun trade is unknown.

The world is now awash in light weapons, making their sale less profitable, 
Winer said. The question then becomes whether bin Laden is trafficking in 
higher-powered weapons, he said.

U.S. investigators are tracking the money behind bin Laden and al- Qaida, 
prime suspects in last week's terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center 
and the Pentagon.

A new multiagency task force pursuing terrorist finances will go beyond bin 
Laden's group, Deputy Assistant Treasury Secretary Rob Nichols said.

"Our mission is threefold. One, deny terrorist groups access to the 
international financial system. Two, impair the ability of terrorists to 
raise funds. And three, expose, isolate and incapacitate the financial 
holdings of terrorists," Nichols said.

Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill said the government is investigating 
whether terrorists tried to profit from stock and options trading before 
the suicide hijackings of commercial airliners on Sept. 11. Tracing such 
transactions to people behind the hijackings could be very difficult, he 
told the Senate Banking Committee.

The United States believes bin Laden is tapping several sources of finance, 
but not his own fortune. Whatever is left of an estimated $300 million he 
inherited from his family, it is considered unlikely that bin Laden is 
using it for al-Qaida's activities.

Instead, government officials believe he is drawing much of his cash from 
charities and wealthy individuals, including some in the United States.

The U.S. government believes all the money raised here is sent abroad. How 
it gets there is a key part of the investigation. Islamic charities, as 
religious organizations, do not have to disclose the sources or 
destinations of their fund raising.

Kerry said U.S. efforts to track bin Laden's finances may be complicated by 
his network's use of the "hawala" system, an underground money system that 
in part lets people in different countries swap cash, eliminating the need 
for cross-border transfers and avoiding exchange laws.

According to testimony in this year's trial of men charged in the 1998 
bombing of U.S. embassies in Africa, during bin Laden's years in Sudan he 
ran several businesses that served the dual purposes of raising cash and 
procuring equipment needed by al-Qaida.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom