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“Computer held by Khadr’s sister contains al-Qaeda files, RCMP say”
COLIN FREEZE
From Thursday’s Globe and Mail
May 15, 2008 at 4:48 AM EDT

ARTICLE SNIPPET: “The RCMP say they have uncovered a treasure trove of al-Qaeda files from a computer once held by Abdullah Khadr’s sister, including “some sort of military operational plan to infiltrate Burma,” according to court files seen by The Globe and Mail.

In February, 2005, Zaynab Khadr left Pakistan to return to Canada, where she has never been arrested or charged with a crime. Still, the Mounties claim she left behind “two large metal containers” in Pakistan that they searched once they were shipped to Canada on June 15, 2005.

Court documents filed in one of her brother’s cases show the Mounties say they found a hard drive that includes “material dealing with bomb making, ricin, techniques of assassination, chemicals, poisons, silencers, etc; incoming and outgoing e-mails of Zaynab Khadr.”

The once-secret RCMP memo of August, 2005, then goes on to describe other seized files, including “some sort of military operational plan to infiltrate Burma and establish an al-Qaeda base, curriculum for religious studies at al-Faruq training camp, techniques to invade prisons, contract for immoral acts; administrative letters from [Osama bin Laden], ETC.””

http://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/credit-cards-terrorism-1282.php

“The credit card-terrorism connection
How terrorists use cards for everyday needs and to fund operations”
By Jeremy Simon

ARTICLE SNIPPET: “Fraud techniques

Account information from legitimate credit cards becomes a valuable commodity for terrorists. “Terror groups and criminal organizations use credit card cloning and skimming to fund themselves,” says Loretta Napoleoni, author of “Terror Incorporated: Tracing the Money Behind Global Terrorism.” “Cloning is done primarily via the Internet. Skimming requires use of the actual card, so it is done in restaurants and stores,” she says. “It is a very popular and easy technique.” Experts also note that the theft of a laptop or computer database security breaches can produce a treasure trove of credit card information for fraudsters.

“It happens that various terrorist organizations engage in credit card fraud and related crimes (e.g. phishing), as do individuals and groups of so-called ‘homegrown’ terrorists,” says Aaron Weisburd via e-mail. Weisburd is director of the Web forum Internet Haganah, which tracks pro-terrorist online activity. “Regarding the latter, we are in an age of ‘do-it-yourself’ terrorism and this is a kind of fundraising activity that such people can engage in on their own, freeing them from any need for financial support from a formal organization such as al-Qaida.”

“It is worth noting that often the perpetrator is not the terrorist himself, but rather the individuals or small businesses who are providing services such as hosting a Web site for terrorists,” he adds.

“What I can say is that in the course of investigating online activity of terrorist groups and their supporters, I uncover signs of credit card fraud frequently, and have done so for at least six years,” Weisburd says. Still, “I would not say that it is happening more often now than before,” Weisburd says.”

(Published May 15, 2008)