Posted on 11/04/2001 12:14:56 PM PST by WIMom
A small Yemeni honey shop, a German appliance dealer, and a Middle Eastern bakery that churns out sweet pastries are being added to the same State Department terrorist list that includes Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network - making them the first overseas businesses to be branded as foreign terrorist organizations.
Experts say the additions to the list will make it easier to disrupt terrorist funding, but that success would require complete cooperation from foreign governments that so far have turned up little evidence to shut down the businesses.
On Wednesday, Attorney General John Ashcroft designated 46 terrorist groups, including overseas businesses and charities, whose members and supporters will be banned from entering the United States. The names were forwarded to the State Department to be added to its list of foreign terrorists.
Those on the list of 46 have been linked to terrorism, some directly to al-Qaida. In many cases, the government has moved to freeze the assets of groups on the list.
Some on the list have been linked to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network, some have had assets frozen by presidential order and others were determined by U.S. authorities to have engaged in terrorist activities.
Among them is the import-export company of Syrian-born Mamoun Darkazanli, a small business dealing in ``industrial appliances and leftover stock,'' run out of his apartment in Hamburg, Germany.
Darkazanli first caught the attention of German investigators in 1998 when they learned he had power of attorney over a German bank account opened by bin Laden's suspected financial chief, Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, who was arrested that year.
Darkazanli told investigators then that the extent of his dealings with Salim involved a failed business venture. He was placed under surveillance but no charges were filed.
Two days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, German authorities searched Darkazanli's apartment but found nothing that would warrant a formal investigation.
President Bush then included Darkazanli's company in a Sept. 23 executive order freezing the assets of those linked to terrorism.
In an interview with The Associated Press shortly afterward, Darkazanli denied any connection to the Sept. 11 attacks but acknowledged that he was at a wedding with suicide hijacker Mohamed Atta and Said Bahaji, a fugitive authorities believe was part of the Hamburg cell that planned the attacks on the United States.
A week later, German prosecutors opened a full-scale criminal investigation against him.
Calls to Darkazanli's home went unanswered Saturday and German officials have yet to comment on Ashcroft's designation.
The attorney-general said Wednesday that the 46 names would be brought under the provisions of a new anti-terrorism law that can be used to deny aliens entry to the U.S. ``if they provide material support to a designated terrorist organization, even if they don't specifically intend to support this terrorist activity.''
Some intelligence experts say adding businesses and charities to the same list as groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad - which have claimed responsibility for dozens of suicide attacks against Israel - can be an effective way of cutting off terrorist funding.
``What is good about this is that it gives the government a chance to disrupt terror operations and confiscate the assets of those organizations,'' said L. Paul Bremer, ambassador-at-large for counterterrorism.
Bremer said the unprecedented designations of businesses as terror groups will probably lead to an ``intense exchange of information between U.S. intelligence agencies and their foreign counterparts.''
As part of the anti-terrorism campaign, the Bush administration said on Friday that 22 organizations, including anti-Israel groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah, would also be subject to tougher regulations blocking their financial assets.
The Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah has said it has no assets in the United States. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said Sunday it was an ``honor'' to be on a U.S. list of terrorist organizations.
Last week, two Yemeni honey shops and a bakery that the Bush administration had previously identified as fronts for al-Qaida, were also added to the State Department list.
According to the State Department Web site, a foreign terrorist organization includes those that provide ``any type of material support, including a safe house, transportation, communications, funds, false documentation or identification, weapons, explosives, or training, to any individual the actor knows or has reason to believe has committed or plans to commit a terrorist activity.''
It also includes those involved in ``the soliciting of funds or other things of value for terrorist activity or for any terrorist organization.''
After the U.S. Treasury froze the assets of the three Yemeni companies, Yemen's government clamped its own asset freeze.
U.S. officials have said the Al-Nur Honey Press, Al-Shifa Honey Press and Al-Hamati bakery apparently were part of a broader network of concerns stretching to Sudan that provided bin Laden with cover and funds.
But the shops, which sell incense, perfumes and painted jars of amber-colored honey, scoffed at the accusations. They were open for business on Saturday although employees refused to talk about the latest designation and said the owners were out of town.
In an Oct. 15 interview in Yemen, Nabil al-Hitad, an Al-Nour Honey Press employee, said: ``We don't have any suspicious money or funds located abroad. And if they have proof of suspicious funds, let them freeze it. We don't have any ties to bin Laden and don't know him.''
Patrick Clawson, research director with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said the addition of businesses to the list of groups the United States considers terrorist organization was meant to send a signal to people to ``find out who they are doing business with.''
``No one should suggest that you're going to have the same kind of focus on the honey shops as on some of the other groups on the terror list,'' Clawson said. ``But there are lists of people who are tax delinquent and you're on it if you owe $1 or $1 million.''
When are we going to label some domestic companies as terrorist backers. Do we honestly believe there are none?
I think Hormel and Disney need some scrutiny for starters.
Just like we are supposed to believe Hezbollah? I would hope that John Ashcroft et al can see right through these lies and are putting some type of plan in place. Quite possibly, once the foreign terrorist's money is dried up, it might lead to the US and sources of income here.
I don't know. Maybe that was what was behind
the raid on the California medicinal marijuana clinic. <g>
Yeah, I feel so much safer now </ sarcasm>
Bingo. The Soviets may have lost their conventional
war with the Afghans, but we could sure use the
KGB now with the Muslims. I think we have two
choices.
1. Fight a conventional, neverending war
against nations accused of harboring
terrorists.
2. Or fight a terroristic war against
terrorism using their own tools.
Infiltrate, assassinate, kill their
families, kill their supporters, kill
everyone in the network. Wage
a covert war so horrible that the
desire to commit a terrorist act
will be stopped in the cerebral
cortex by cold fear.
I don't think so. We would be hearing
shrieks from the sheiks. We would not
necessarily want the news to remain
secret, plus it takes time to organize
and staff something like this. Besides
which, I don't think we feel sufficiently
threatened to do what really must be
done.
That is a very good point. We have progressed from
the firebombing/nuclear attacks of WWII to a country that,
pace our Yugoslavia tactics, was unwilling to take casualties, to a country
that is now unwilling to alienate the enemy. Too polite to fight?
I just hope our leaders have reconized this and will act accordingly.
If the State Department reflects
The leadership's thinking,
The great Ship of State's
In danger of sinking.
State Department Spokesman Richard Boucher explains why
blowing up Israelis different than blowing up Americans
Richard Boucher, Spokesman
Washington, DC; September 27, 2001
...
QUESTION: To what extent does this campaign -- as you constantly review your Middle East policy, what --
how much influence does this campaign against terrorism have in that? What's the input? How does it weigh
in here? See what I mean?
MR. BOUCHER: No, I don't.
QUESTION: It's obviously a factor --
MR. BOUCHER: We have talked about this on and off over the last few days. We recognize that there is an
influence. Some have said it affects the atmosphere, the Palestinian/Israeli issues affect the atmosphere of
cooperation. But, essentially, there are, on some planes, two different things. One is that there are violent
people trying to destroy societies, ours, many others in the world. The world recognizes that and we are
going to stop those people.
On the other hand, there are issues and violence and political issues that need to be resolved in the Middle
East, Israelis and Palestinians. But we all recognize that the path to solve those is through negotiation and
that we have devoted enormous efforts to getting back to that path of negotiation.
And we have called on the parties to do everything they can, particularly in the present circumstance, to make
that possible.
I guess that's about as close as I can come to the kind of sophisticated analysis I'm sure you will want to do
on your own. But they are clearly issues that are different, not only in geography but also, to some extent, in
their nature.
--------------------------------------------
IMRA - Independent Media Review and Analysis
Website: www.imra.org.il
Thanks for that. Now, since you seem to know more about this than I, and I really want to understand it better, what is Mr. Boucher's position a month later and how does that relate to Bush, Rumsfeld, et al's current position?
The position is the same, if not worse. Can you imagine
what we would have done if the Secretary of Labor
had been assassinated in Washington? Well, that is
what happened in Israel. In reaction, Sharon sent
troops into wherever to find the killers. And we
protested.
As this relates to the DOD and the
President, we are encouraging the Palestinians
to continue their acts of terror ; showing the
Arabs that we can be pushed a lot farther then
they have pushed us so far in handling
terrorism with kid gloves; and encouraging
further uprisings in Indonesia and, even,
the US by excusing acts of internal terror.
This all comes from the State Department
policy of negotiation, accomodation, and,
dare we say appeasement? Granted, we
do not want war with billions of Muslims.
That is why I believe this war should
not be fought with conventional means.
Not only can it not be won that way,
but we are fighting with half-measures to keep
from angering our 'allies.' Antiterrorism
is much more precise, with less
collateral damage, then open warfare.
And it can win.
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