The counterterrorism division of the Justice Department is investigating whether a private equity firm in Boston that manages hundreds of millions of dollars for Muslim investors overseas violated tax laws.
The investigation of Overland Capital Group was disclosed in a filing with U.S. District Court in Boston and reported by the Wall Street Journal yesterday. The filing makes no mention of a terrorism investigation, only that Overland and a subsidiary of Dar Al-Maal Al-Islami Trust (DMI), a financial group in Geneva, conducted acts "that implicate potential violation of the Internal Revenue Code." It was submitted by a U.S. attorney who works in counterterrorism.
Subsidiaries of DMI, an umbrella organization for Islamic financial institutions, have been named as suspects in probes by U.S. counterterrorism agencies. DMI also is a defendant in a civil lawsuit brought by families of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, who claim that it funded al-Qaeda. DMI has denied those claims and noted that none of its officials has been charged with terrorism-related crimes.
Excerpted
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/31/AR2007013101900.html
Libyan Islamist group vows to fight regime
Wed Jan 31, 2007
DUBAI (AFP) - A Libyan Islamist group vowed to fight the regime of the country's leader Moamer Kadhafi in a message posted on a web site typically used by Al-Qaeda-linked militants.
"The regime of Kadhafi, the apostate, pretends that Jamaa al-Islamiya al-Muqatila (the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group) is on the path to reconciliation... and that the group will give up its armed jihad (holy war)," the message said. "This apostate regime has a habit of lying... we are going to pursue jihad against the regime which has monopolised power for more than 37 years."
The LIFG was formed in the 1990s in Afghanistan by Libyan militants who were fighting Soviet influence and officially announced its presence in 1995. Its aim is to install an Islamic state in Libya and overthrow Kadhafi. The group is considered a "terrorist" group by the United States. Several dozen of its members are behind bars.
Bryan Preston looks at the latest example of US mainstream media disseminating the propaganda of Islamic terrorists: Lara Logan and her terrorist footage: It is too important to ignore.
If you’re not familiar with it, here’s the gist: CBS News reporter Lara Logan, currently the network’s correspondent in Baghdad, used clips in a story about fighting on Haifa Street in Baghdad that apparently came from a video that Al Qaeda’s media arm also used. In her story she didn’t attribute the video to Al Qaeda, but described it as “gruesome pictures obtained by CBS.”
They’re gruesome indeed, depicting slain Iraqi Army soldiers after the battle, and showing people walking around the room where the dead men are laying and even apparently picking through their uniforms.
In looking at both the Logan report and the video that Al Qaeda released after the January 7 battle, I’ve come to the conclusion that not only did Logan use the same video that Al Qaeda used, but that she worked from the same source tape as well. That means that in all likelihood her source and the source from which Al Qaeda obtained the video (which may be someone actually in AQ or merely connected to it) are one and the same.
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=24235&only&rss
Yemen probes whether al-Qaida behind killing of alleged informant
January 31, 2007
SAN'A, Yemen: Yemen has launched a probe into whether al-Qaida is behind the killing of a man who may have led security officials to an associate of Osama bin Laden, a Yemeni security official said on Wednesday.
Alsayed Ali al-Hajeri, a 50-year-old father of two, was stabbed and shot to death Tuesday night when masked gunmen broke into his home in an upscale suburb of the Yemeni capital, the official said. Al-Hajeri is believed by locals to have informed on Qaed Salim Sunian al-Harethi, an associate of bin Laden, the leader of the al-Qaida terror network.
Al-Harethi died in a 2002 U.S. missile strike on terror suspects in Yemen, the United States first such operation outside Afghanistan against suspected al-Qaida members.
Excerpted
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/01/31/africa/ME-GEN-Yemen-al-Qaida.php