Posted on 03/15/2002 1:16:42 AM PST by glorygirl
The FBI is investigating how the Islamic militant group Hamas has siphoned millions of dollars from the United States to fund its terrorist activities, officials say.
In moves that predate Sept. 11, the FBI activated several terrorist tracking units that are monitoring, intercepting and disrupting financial transactions from U.S. supporters to Hamas overseas, the officials said.
The FBI and prosecutors are moving closer to building criminal cases against some of the players, officials told The Associated Press.
The broad financial assault originated with a 1998 investigation that uncovered a Hamas fund-raising operation in Chicago and now points to an elaborate network of businesses and charities reaching from Texas to Detroit to New York.
``One of things we are trying to do is to track the funding mechanism and flow and really try to eradicate an entire flow of money to Hamas,'' said Dennis Lormel, chief of the FBI's terrorist financial review group. Hamas has claimed responsibility for some of the recent attacks against Israelis. Last month the spiritual leader of Hamas called on Muslims around the world to launch a holy war, or jihad, to liberate their countries from U.S. influence
A handful of suspected Hamas supporters have been raided, such as the Holy Land Foundation in Texas, and officials caution several other suspected front companies are still under intense scrutiny.
The Muslim foundation in Richardson, Texas, denies financing terrorism, and has sued the government claiming it has been falsely accused.
An FBI memo used by the government to freeze Holy Land's assets and raid its office, claims a leader of the charity attended a mid-1990s event where $207,000 was raised for Hamas and the keynote speaker urged the crowd to ``finish off the Israelis; kill them all.''
Officials say their conservative estimate is that Hamas has raised several million dollars in the United States over the last decade as its Hamas members have launched numerous attacks on Israel. They added they have developed no evidence to date that Hamas has sent money back to fund terrorist strikes in America.
Officials said the investigation is complicated because the elaborate network of U.S.-based Muslim charities also engage in many legitimate humanitarian efforts such as assisting Palestinians in refugee camps.
``There also is a legitimate side. If you really look at the services, some do a lot of good,'' Lormel said. ``Then there are obvious monies that go to nefarious purposes. That co-mingling of a sort is a challenge for us.''
Information developed during and after the Chicago case has resulted in the execution of several national security warrants permitting electronic intercepts of key suspects here and overseas, the officials said. In several instances, the FBI and other U.S. agencies have decided to forego arrests or indictments and instead have secretly disrupted Hamas activities so that agents could continue to monitor suspects and the flow of their money, officials said.
The officials said, however, the effort has not made any connection between Hamas fund-raising and Osama bin Laden's terrorist network or the Sept. 11 hijackers.
``No information has been uncovered, either before or after Sept. 11, that tied any of the 19 hijackers to the subjects and activities of the Chicago investigation,'' Assistant FBI Director John Collingwood said. Separate investigations have identified some potential sources of U.S. money for al-Qaida, such as the al-Barakat network of money transfer stores that were raided by U.S. authorities last fall.
The disclosure of the broad, ongoing FBI operation to disrupt Hamas fund-raising comes as one of the counterrorism agents instrumental in the Chicago case is taking on the agency in a rare public dispute. Robert Wright, an agent in the Chicago office, alleges he was prevented from pursuing leads that might have disrupted bin Laden's network before Sept 11.
Wright has filed a complaint with two Justice Department offices that investigate internal wrongdoing and has hired former House impeachment counsel David Schippers and Judicial Watch, a conservative legal group.
Officials say Wright was part of the successful FBI team that in 1998 helped freeze more than $1 million in assets of suspected Hamas fund-raisers in the Chicago area.
But he was subsequently removed from counterrorism work and none of the intelligence he developed points directly or indirectly to the Sept. 11 hijackings.
``If Bob Wright is saying that had he been able to conduct an unfettered investigation he somehow could have predicted Sept. 11, that is absolutely ludicrous,'' said Walter Stowe, former FBI assistant special agent in charge of Chicago.
Judicial Watch declined to provide a copy of Wright's complaints, but said they detail interference and mishandling of terrorist investigations and allege he endured retaliation when he pressed to pursue certain avenues of investigation.
``His position is he was obstructed from doing his investigation, and if he had been allowed to do that, Sept. 11 may have been averted,'' Judicial Watch lawyer Larry Klayman said.
Wright wrote an affidavit used by the government to freeze the assets of two Chicago area men and their related entities in 1998. The affidavit said Hamas fund-raising inside the United States dated to at least 1989.
FBI officials said Wright was removed from counter-terrorism work and that he disagreed with how to pursue additional investigations.
The officials said FBI supervisors and Justice Department prosecutors jointly decided to forgo some actions, such as prosecutions of smaller players, so that agents would not jeopardize ongoing counter-intelligence gathering operations authorized under sensitive national security warrants.
"The officials said, however, the effort has not made any connection between Hamas fund-raising and Osama bin Laden's terrorist network or the Sept. 11 hijackers."
OKC Bombing: Precursor to 9-11?
"On March 20, 2001, Fox TV’s Bill O’Reilly interviewed Jayna Davis, providing the first major national coverage of her OKC-Mideast research. Subsequently, Mr. O’Reilly has focused his program, "The O’Reilly Factor," on a related aspect of the OKC-Mideast connection, achieving some very positive results. His September 26th broadcast entitled "What is Going On at the University of South Florida?" asked some piercing questions of USF Professor Sami Al-Arian and his connections to the Islamic Jihad terrorist group. We had asked similar questions in a detailed article ("America the Vulnerable," September 14, 1998) about Al-Arian, Ramadan Shallah, Khalil Shikaki, and others at USF connected to Islamic Jihad and Hamas. That article pointed out that Al-Arian and company were operating through USF-affiliated "think tanks" such as the World Islam Studies Enterprise (WISE) and the Islamic Committee for Palestine (ICP) to give terrorist leaders access to the U.S. and to radicalize American Muslims for recruitment into the extremist networks. We noted therein that an ICP/WISE speaker, Kamal Helbawi, a Hamas leader based in Pakistan, was one of several militants who had addressed Muslims in a very inflammatory speech at a conference in Oklahoma City.
"Oklahoma City has played host to other leaders associated with Hamas, ICP, WISE, and other suspected terrorist fronts," we reported. "And evidence developed by this magazine and other investigators indicates that locally based and foreign individuals associated with these long-established terrorist networks were involved in the April 19, 1995 bombing. Unless officials are pressured to conduct an honest and thorough investigation, more atrocities and tragedies are sure to follow."
Thanks to Bill O’Reilly’s coverage on Fox, USF announced last December 19th that Dr. Al-Arian was being dismissed from employment at USF. That will be a rather empty victory, however, if federal immigration, intelligence, and law enforcement officials do not follow up with an intensive investigation into the vast terrorist support network within this country, of which Al-Arian’s USF band appears to be a significant part.
Many people held high hopes that the important OKC-Mideast evidence that the Clinton-Reno regime had suppressed would be acted on under the new Bush-Ashcroft management. But the Department of Justice under Ashcroft is thus far following the Reno script on OKC. On October 29th, Oklahoma Judge Ray Dean Linder ruled that, because of objections from the Bush-Ashcroft Justice Department, retired FBI Agent Dan Vogel would not be allowed to testify about evidence he had received concerning Mideast connections to the OKC bombing. Vogel, an Oklahoma City FBI Special Agent, had volunteered to testify in the upcoming state trial of Terry Nichols, who has already been convicted on federal charges as an accomplice with Timothy McVeigh in the bombing. Among the things that Mr. Vogel could testify about is that he received 22 affidavits and more than 30 witness statements describing sightings of Middle Easterners with McVeigh. The information was transmitted to him at the FBI’s Oklahoma City office on January 28, 1999 by reporter Jayna Davis, accompanied by her husband, Drew Davis, and her attorney, Dan Nelson. Mr. Vogel has said that he is willing to testify before a congressional committee if he is subpoenaed to do so.
Last November 17th, Indianapolis Star writer James Patterson wrote a story on the Davis-Vogel-OKC-Ashcroft developments that was picked up nationally by the Associated Press. In the article, entitled "Missing evidence from Oklahoma City," Patterson wrote: "The FBI doesn’t want to talk about it, but the evidence keeps mounting. Critical evidence that several Middle Eastern men may have been connected to the Oklahoma City bombing appears to have been kept from the public by the FBI."
The FBI has known about GWBush and CLinton associations with major Saudi backers of Hamas terror operations in the US including Saudi Khalid Mahfouz. CLinton and Bush attorneys represented Holy Land Foundation for years.
The FBI has known the OKC Hamas group in OKC (still operational) helped in the OKLC bombing and the 1993 and 9/11 WTC attacks. The FBI has known about and has been tracking ALQaueda and Abu Nidal terrors cells in Dallas since at least 1997 including Bin Laden's secretary elHage and terror advisor(and FBI informant double agent) ALi Mohammed.
The FBI took know actions against Holy Land or Hamas or AlQaeda in the US until after 9/11 when the FBI knew to do so (had more than enough evidence) well before 9/11.
THe FBI is lying when they say that the 9/11 attacks could not have been potentially averted and that Robert Wright's allegations are meangingless (the FBI is wrong about Wright who is right!). The FBI always claims when caught in a bind, you can't prove it in court. The FBI are masters of deceit and play COngress, the press and AMerican opinion and the justice system like harps!!
The FACT is that the FBI policy has been and still is to deliberately allow and in some cases help known ME terrrorists to come into the US so the FBI can track them for years (Freeh testimony to COngress in May 1995) while they set up more cells (AlQaeda & Abu Nidal& Hamas by ALi Mohammed), train more terrorists(including pilots ) and raise more money for terror operations and lose them just before terror attacks(ALi Mohammed and Mohammed Atta).
Hamas and Abu NIdal and Alqaeda cells in the US that the FBI knew about beforehand were able to help in the 9/11 and OKC bombing attacks because the FBI knew about them in detail for years and never tried to seriously break up their operations when the FBI knew to do so (had more than enough evidence)with arrests before April 19, 1995 or before 9/11/2001.
The FBI is still to this very day not moving against some of these same cells of Hamas, Abu Nidal and AlQaeda in the US and the FBI is still following them arround-stupid ,very stupid according to what one veteran ABC Pentagon reporter told me recently when he agreed with my complaints about FBI failed policies.
I call it more than stupid , more than negligent or incompetent , I call FBI & DOJ misconduct and failed policies , lying, perjury, intimidation of witnesses, falsification and with holding of evidence- I call it all Criminal and tantamount to treason.
Unless the FBI repents, it is my opinion that God will allow the FBI to be severely judged (by bringing down a hedge of protection for ME terror attacks agasint the FBI) because of the FBI evil committed against innocent AMerican people.
That won't happen. It can't happen. Each "New" Administration needs the convienient lie available of placing blame on previous administrations for continued movement toward more power. It's the Nature of the Beast.
WHY can't these people be ARRESTED, CONVICTED and JAILED, for ASSAULT, CONSPIACY to COMMIT MURDER, INCITING RIOTS and HATE CRIMES????? They are CONSTANTLY COMMITTING CRIMES when they advocate such things, yet our government does NOTHING! These directives are happening on OUR soil!
You KNOW, that if it were the other way around and WE started advocating COLD-BLOODED MURDER of Muslims, WE'D be ARRESTED, CONVICTED and JAILED, for ASSAULT, CONSPIACY to COMMIT MURDER, INCITING RIOTS and HATE CRIMES!!!
Information developed during and after the Chicago case has resulted in the execution of several national security warrants permitting electronic intercepts of key suspects here and overseas, the officials said. In several instances, the FBI and other U.S. agencies have decided to forego arrests or indictments and instead have secretly disrupted Hamas activities so that agents could continue to monitor suspects and the flow of their money, officials said.
<<< snip >>>
The officials said FBI supervisors and Justice Department prosecutors jointly decided to forgo some actions, such as prosecutions of smaller players, so that agents would not jeopardize ongoing counter-intelligence gathering operations authorized under sensitive national security warrants.
Is that better than the < /sarcasm > thing?
someone "profits" when crimes go down. if there weren't as much crime, gee whizz, wouldn't be much use for the hundreds of thousands of cops, would there be? Lotta judges playing checkers like the maytag repair guy, lotta lawyers might actually have to do something besides talking for a living, lot of cops might have to pound nails or something like that for a living. Whattashame if the actual criminals were actually arrested, and if the stupid laws were removed and terrorists weren't allowed into the country. We might not need the patriot act, or the war on terrorism, if there just wasn't any terrorism from the actual badguys getting arrested and stopped from using the US as their biggest base..
Further on it's mentioned about the Jackson Stephens/Riady connection, and I've got a question to pose.
Bush Family and Clinton Family are by outward appearances strange Bedfellows. So how does a novice in the interconnections of these political Families make a simple linkage to them being tied in many ways?
You may have read some recent discussions I've had on another thread with Nita Nupress. Many just plain aren't Willing to mentally connect them. So they stay confused about what's occurring.
I have my opinions on this, but it would be interesting to many if a simplified version were available. Otherwise we leave many folks with Glazed Eye Syndrome.
As a typical example, let's just try ---"Why isn't the Bush Administration Prosecuting the Clintons for Crimes?" and if the consensus is that there isn't enough "REMAINING" evidence to pursue it through the Court System, "Why isn't it being done in the Court of Public Opinion?" GWBush has the Bully Pulpit, and Hillary is still an effective Communist, and Slick CAN and possibly WILL run for office again. So why not minimize that potential, and Garner more Conservative Support?
All Rhetorical questions to you, me and some others, but a Large Confusion to Many.
Ahhh, this is his job.
The only reason for disallowing evidence in a trial is to speed up the trial.
Actually, it is to comply with the federal rules of evidence. We have decided (rightly or wrongly -- as you can argue) that certain forms of evidence (e.g. hearsay) is inherently unreliable and should not be admitted except under certain conditions (e.g. statement by party/opponent).
Let's say you are charged with a crime that's borderline whether the punishment for guilt is jail for a first timer. You are clean, except in high school (say, 10 years ago) you were extremely wild, reckless, and a dope smoker, but you didn't get caught doing anything illegal. If the prosecution can produce credible witnesses attesting to your high school behavior, evidence that might make a jury more likely to convict you of something you didn't actually do, are you really saying that the evidence should be admitted, even though highly prejudicial and irrelevent? Or are you talking about rules for others and not yourself?
Keating was on Fox a little while ago.
Did you see him waltzing around the ME connection ?
We will all be paying for our politicinas BS!
There isnt enough time in our daily lives to combat it all!
No matter who we vote for, we get **cked!
And as the old saying goes "There's the Rub".
Those of us that are tied down to working for a living don't have the luxury of the amount of time necessary to get visible, align support, get the common sense messages out to our peers, and just generally "Run for Office".
You must be born into the "electable chosen" with nothing much to do except become visible, and hone your politically necessary skills. That's why we're seeing the equivalent of Dynasties now. And Professional Politicians who are Sponsored as Fronts. They HAVE the Time, and the Money,
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