U.K. Freezes Assets of Group Linked With Saudi Exile Al-Faqih

U.K. Freezes Assets of Group Linked With Saudi Exile Al-Faqih Dec. 24 (Bloomberg) -- The U.K. government told its central bank to freeze the assets of an organization it suspects of having links with Saad al-Faqih, a Saudi Arabian dissident living in exile in Britain.

Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown instructed the Bank of England to direct British financial institutions to immediately freeze funds belonging to the Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia, the Treasury said in a statement.

The Treasury said it has ``reasonable grounds'' for suspecting the organization is acting on behalf of al-Faqih, who was listed Dec. 23 by the United Nations as being an associate of al-Qaeda.

The leftwing's favorite UK liberal, Galloway of Oil for Food fame, is associated with this group:

FEBRUARY 1996 : (UK LABOUR MP GALLOWAY FLIES TO MOROCCO ON BEHALF OF AL-FAGIH TO MEET CROWN PRINCE OF MOROCCO) In February 1996, UK Labour MP George Galloway flew to Morocco for a secret meeting with the then Crown Prince of Morocco to explore a deal between the Islamic Saudi dissidents [such as British-based Saudi dissident Saad al-Fagih, an Islamic fundamentalist who purchased a satellite phone used by al-Qaeda in Afghanistan] and the Saudi royal family. - "MP may be tried as traitor (Galloway)," by Antony Barnett and Martin Bright, The Observer (U.K.) , 04/27/03 [Galloway would later be involved in Oil for Food scandal... being paid by Iraq and his opposition to the Coalition war on Iraq of 2003]

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See also :

... Two of the men contacted by Bin Laden in Britain — Khaled al Fawwaz and Ibrahim Eidarous — are now in prison awaiting extradition to the United States for their part in the embassy bombings, which killed 224 and injured thousands.
However, another senior terrorist suspect, Mustafa Nazar, is still on the loose. He spent up to two years in Dollis Hill, north London, recruiting for Al-Qaeda. A key figure in Bin Laden’s terror training camps, he left Britain in 1998 and was last seen in Afghanistan fighting alongside the Taliban.
The telephone records have come to light following the trial last year of four Al-Qaeda terrorists who planned and carried out the bombing of the two American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
According to trial documents, the telephone [the one bin Laden used] was bought in 1996 with the help of Dr Saad al Fagih, 45, a bearded surgeon who heads the London-based Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia. This fundamentalist Muslim group is dedicated to the overthrow of the Saudi Arabian government but is not part of Al-Qaeda.
Al Fagih, who has been regularly used by the BBC as an expert on Bin Laden, has in the past explained that Muslim scholars said the killing of civilians, including children, was allowed by the Koran as “collateral damage” in the holy war.
It was al Fagih’s credit card which was used to help to buy the £10,500 Compact-M satellite phone in the United States and it was shipped to his home in north London, according to American court documents. His credit card was also used to buy more than 3,000 minutes of pre-paid airtime.
Last week al Fagih, who has not been arrested or charged in connection with any of these actions, said: “I am willing to speak to the authorities if they ask me about this or any other issue, but not to the press.” ...------ "Bin Laden called UK 260 times," by Nick Fielding and Dipesh Gadhery, The Sunday Times (U.K.), 03/24/2002

...Al-Faqih, who advocates replacing the Saudi monarchy with a popularly elected government, heads the Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia in London. He claimed in May that he was the real target when the Saudi Arabian government accused British civilians and diplomats of involvement in bombings four years ago.
According to a U.S. Treasury statement on Tuesday, Al-Faqih once shared an office in the late 1990s with Khaled al Fawwaz, who served as an operative for bin Laden in Britain. The exiled Saudi physician also paid for a satellite phone that bin Laden allegedly used to help carry out the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya Tanzania, it said.
While al-Faqih's movement has issued disclaimers warning users not to attribute postings on its website to al-Qaida, the Treasury statement said extremists use the site "to post all al-Qaida-related statements and images." Information available to the U.S. and British governments "shows that the messages are intended to provide ideological and financial support to al-Qaida affiliated networks and potential recruits," it said. ...------- "U.N. asked to punish two Saudi activists," by Edith M. Lederer - AP, Bakersfield Californian, 12/21/04

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In the mid-to-late 90s, Ziyad Khaleel finally ran afoul of federal authorities in the United States for taking his orders not from Musa Abu Marzook, but rather from the top advisors of Saudi exile Osama bin Laden. In November 1996, senior al Qaeda lieutenant Khaled al-Fawwaz instructed Ziyad Khaleel to purchase a $7,500 satellite telephone for personal use by bin Laden. Between 1996 and 1998, Khaleel replenished the phone with more than 2,000 minutes of telephone air time, also at the behest of Fawwaz. Bin Laden's bustling branch office in Columbia, managed by Khaleel and disguised as a low-income housing project, started attracting far too much attention. The FBI secretly raided the nondescript office and collected extensive intelligence information. ...
Ahmed Abu Marzook is the founder and president of Palestinian Internet Services (P-I-S.com), a prominent local Internet provider located in Gaza. P-I-S.com is responsible for hosting both the websites for the Gaza office of the now-banned Holy Land Foundation and HLF's special hospital in Gaza, Dar al-Islam. The enterprising Ahmed Abu Marzook has also spent extensive time in other parts of the U.S., including in Detroit, Michigan, where he incorporated "A&A Intercontinental" at 3167 Hanley Street. Unsurprisingly, the same Hanley Street address has also been linked in public records to Ziyad Khaleel, a U.S. citizen and the webmaster of the official Hamas Internet site.
At the time, Khaleel was a roving jack-of-all-trades in the American underground militant Islamic community. His name and Detroit address both appeared prominently in ledgers taken from the Al-Kifah Refugee Center in 1994, a critical international financial and strategic arm of al Qaeda.
While in Orlando, Florida, Khaleel served as the regional director for the Columbia, Missouri-based Islamic African Relief Agency (IARA), an Islamic charity that had a multimillion-dollar USAID contract cancelled after the U.S. State Department determined that it was not in America's "national-security interests." In Columbia itself, Khaleel operated a remote-branch office on behalf of radical Saudi dissidents based in London who were closely aligned with Osama bin Laden. He even added a digitized copy of an infamous al Qaeda propaganda video titled "The Martyrs of Bosnia" to his own short-lived Internet website, salam.net.
--------- " “Axis of Evil” Indicted Hamas leader linked to al Qaeda activist in Midwest," by Evan Kohlmann, nationalreview.com, January 2, 2003, 9:20 a.m. , http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/815679/posts?q=1&&page=21

... John Sweeney, a journalist working for BBC Five Live, unearthed the fact that an Arab from whom Mr Galloway received thousands of pounds in cash for expenses in the 1990s was the same man who was named in an American court as the purchaser of a satellite telephone used by al-Qa'eda in Afghanistan.
Five years ago, Mr Galloway was investigated by the Commons Standards and Privileges Committee over his financial relationship with Saad Al Fagih, a London based dissident Saudi politician. During the inquiry Mr Galloway identified more than £5,000-worth of items on his credit card bill that had been paid by Mr Fagih.
He said that all were out-of-pocket expenses. He also said that he had been given £1,800 to hand over to foreign nationals living in political exile in Britain, but refused to say who they were.
------- "100 MPs back protest over strikes on Iraq," By Andy McSmith, Chief Political Correspondent, UK Telegraph, (Filed: 15/03/2002)March 15, 2002

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