Posted on 09/13/2001 4:55:08 AM PDT by Lexington
Business executives in Saudi Arabia continue to transfer tens of millions of dollars to bank accounts linked to Osama bin Laden, accused of the U.S. embassy bombings in East Africa.
Senior U.S. intelligence officials say the money transfers began more than seven years ago and have been used to finance several attacks by bin Laden, including an attempted assassination in 1995 of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Ethiopia.
The United States Thursday said it would continue to meet Afghanistan's Taliban rulers to discuss demands for the expulsion of Saudi-born bin Laden, but officials cautioned that they expected no dramatic moves soon.
The United States accuses bin Laden, who lives in hiding in Afghanistan, of being behind explosions at U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in August 1998 which killed 224 people. Washington also believes bin Laden is implicated in a number of other planned attacks.
Bin Laden has denied the charges.
USA Today said Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was expected to raise the issue with Saudi defense minister Prince Sultan during his visit to Washington next week.
It cited a Saudi government audit acquired by U.S. intelligence which showed that five of Saudi Arabia's top business executives ordered the National Commercial Bank (NCB), the kingdom's largest, to transfer personal funds, along with $3 million diverted from a Saudi pension fund, to New York and London banks.
The money was deposited into the accounts of Islamic charities, including Islamic Relief and Blessed Relief, that serve as fronts for bin Laden, according to the report.
Intelligence sources said the businessmen, who are worth more than $5 billion, were paying bin Laden ``protection money'' to stave off attacks on their businesses in Saudi Arabia, intelligence officials said.
Bin Laden, whose family runs the largest Saudi construction firm, has called for the overthrow of the Saudi government.
USA Today said the money transfers were discovered in April after the royal family ordered an audit of NCB and its founder and former chairman, Khalid bin Mahfouz.
Mahfouz is now under ``house arrest'' at a military hospital in the Saudi city of Taif, intelligence officials said.
His successor, Mohammad Hussein Al-Amoudi, also heads the Capitol Trust Bank in New York and London, which U.S. and British officials are investigating for allegedly transferring money to bin Laden, USA Today reported.
Amoudi's Washington lawyer, Vernon Jordan, could not be reached for comment. Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar bin Sultan declined to comment on the report, USA Original article: http://www.healthandenergy.com/osama_bin_laden.htm
In other words, we're not yet prepared to invade.
From your own post:
"Intelligence sources said the businessmen, who are worth more than $5 billion, were paying bin Laden ``protection money'' to stave off attacks on their businesses in Saudi Arabia"The Saudi businessmen are not against us or for Ben Laden. They're just under blackmail and are cowardly trying to save their own ass.
The Saudi businessmen are not against us or for Ben Laden. They're just under blackmail and are cowardly trying to save their own ass. ......"
Makes sense. Why shouldn't our first target be the Bin Laden construction company in SA?
No need to invade. Just drop enogh nukes, and we'll get the bastard eventually.
FYI, this article was from 1999. I think it is poste just to show how long this funding has been going on and that nothing substantial was done to stop it in the previous administration. We've known all along that we were going to pay for the incompetence that was in the WH for 8 long years.......
I ALWAYS consider unsourced news reports as propaganda.
Question: Who bombed Khobar Towers?
Question: Who got the contract to rebuild Khobar Towers?
You need to read the book "1984." Pay attention to the "two minute hate."
DO IT NOW. WE MUST USE THIS OPPORTUNITY TO STABILIZE THE MIDEAST AND NEUTRALIZE TERRORISM.
BUMP
Need I say more?
IMHO, the U.S. and other developed nations should give the Gulf Arabs an ultimatum. Turn over the oil fields to a joint commission of the major oil using countries and receive a modest income. Or have them taken by force and receive nothing.
We as a nation should be the last to criticize the business dealings of others. They are doing what they do for profit and not necessarily for political reasons as some of our own businesses have done by selling security sensitive equipment to communist regimes in violation of US law during the Clinton administration and other administrations as well. These money whores have no loyalty to anyone except profit and they will sell their mothers to the devil if they can make a dollar.
Our own government even contributes to our potential enemies by time and again arming them with weapons, courtesy of US taxpayers, which then later are used against our interests.
Afghanistan was the USSR's Vietnam. And regarding the British, I can still remember a Kipling line:
"When you lie dyeing on the Afghanistan plainsIn the early 80s, I once helped manage a large marine combined arms operations in Twenty-nine Palms. It's a very "Afghan-like" environment. The Marines are very skilled in small unit desert operations supplemented by air and artillery. They can adjust to the unexpected very rapidly. They're much more capable than the Russians in that regard. I agree, no one wants to invade Afghanistan, but we are capable of successfully doing so.
and the women come out to cut up what remains,
just pick up your rifle and blow out your brains
and go to your death like a soldier."
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