- Bin Laden joins Arafat
Arafat-bin Laden link cited
Is U.S. hiding Arafat murders? - Ex-NSA op blows whistle in ’73 killings of American diplomats in Sudan embassy - Ali Khamenei
- Bashar al-Assad
- Moammar Gadhafi - "We are capable of destroying America and breaking its nose."
- Fidel Castro
NOTE: The Cuban Connection in Puerto Rico; Castro's Hand in Puerto Rican and U.S. Terrorism
NOTE: A VISA FOR CASTRO'S TERRORISM CHIEF IN WASHINGTON - Kim Jung II
- Umar Hasan Ahmad al-BASHIR
Cuban President Fidel Castro is accompanied by Hajj Seyed Hassan Khomeini, the grandson of the late Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran, as he leads more than 1.2 million Cubans in the largest anti-U.S. protest in four decades of hostilities, July 26, 2001. The march was billed by the ruling Communist Party as a protest against all U.S. "aggressions and crimes' since Castro's 1959 revolution. Khomeini is in Cuba as part of an Iranian delegation visiting on Castro's invite.Osama bin Laden - We Will Free Our Brothers
From Here To Eternity
Electronic Telegraph Issue 799
August 2, 1997A leading associate of a sworn enemy of the West is now in custody in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where he is providing information about his former boss's Islamic fundamentalist activities. Details have been passed to MI6 and to the CIA at Langley, Virginia. United States intelligence sources yesterday named the informant as Abu Fadel, the terrorist alias for Sidi Tayyib. He handled the distribution of Osama bin Laden's vast wealth as the "godfather" of anti-American terror groups. Just how he ended up in Riyadh is uncertain. US officials, who have found the Saudis difficult to deal with in the matter of terrorism, will not say if he was captured or was working as a double agent for the desert kingdom. All they will disclose is that he has been in Saudi hands since the middle of May. There is also a report that a second aide to bin Laden, said to go by the name of Jallud, is helping the Saudis after being arrested. Exiled from Saudi Arabia, bin Laden, 44, who has an inherited fortune estimated at £154 million, is zealously committed to striking at American interests. He is a towering figure in Islamic circles, where he gained heroic status in the Eighties, fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan. Reporters who have interviewed him say he is a tall and elegant figure in a gold-trimmed white robe and red-and-white keffiyeh. He lives with his three wives at Hadda in Afghanistan, beyond the reach of the West and under the protection of the Taliban, who captured Kabul almost a year ago. He is especially feared because of his ability to fund many diverse operations. Britain has a special interest in him because he has been linked to the transfer of funds two years ago to a London-based Algerian group suspected of seven bombings in France. He has also been connected to the London-based Saudi opposition group, the Committee for the Defence of Legitimate Rights. Egypt wants to question him for allegedly funding a plot to assassinate President Mubarak in December 1995. Cairo believes that in association with the blind sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, he was behind some of the murders of Western tourists in Egypt. America believes that bin Laden was the patron of Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, the 28 year-old Pakistani on trial in Manhattan for allegedly masterminding the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing for which the sheikh is serving a prison term. A State Department report labels him as "one of the most significant financial sponsors of Islamic extremist activities in the world today". It is thought to be no coincidence that two alleged suicide bombers, Abu Mezer, 23, and Lafi Khalil, 22, carrying Jordanian passports, were captured two days ago making pipe bombs in a flat in Brooklyn, New York. They were apparently plotting to blow up a subway train. American sources say the information being given in Riyadh by Tayyib relates to the distribution of money to Arab communities in Brooklyn, Jersey City in New Jersey, and Detroit. Tayyib has apparently given details of bin Laden's bank accounts in Pakistan and Afghanistan from which money has been sent to London and Detroit for passing on to individuals. His information is thought to have been the reason a federal grand jury has been secretly convened in New York to examine the financing of terrorism in America. The CIA believes that bin Laden had advance knowledge of two Saudi bombings that killed 24 US servicemen. He is thought to have provided the money, with Iran supplying the muscle through Hizbollah.
- TRACKING THE TERRORIST MONEY TRAILS
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Business/Economy Miscellaneous Keywords: BIN LADEN, TERROR, FINANCIAL ASSETS
Source: APB News Website
Published: 17 Sept 2001 Author: *
Posted on 09/17/2001 15:36:54 PDT by BlueDogDemo
Report: Bin Laden Getting Financial Support Money Allegedly Funneled Through Front Accounts Oct. 29, 1999
AP
Osama bin Laden
ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) -- Osama bin Laden continues to receive help from businessmen in Saudi Arabia who are transferring tens of millions of dollars to bank accounts linked to the accused terrorist, U.S. intelligence officials told USA Today.
The money was deposited into accounts of Islamic charities, including Islamic Relief and Blessed Relief, that serve as fronts for bin Laden, the newspaper reported today.
A Saudi government audit obtained by U.S. intelligence shows that five top Saudi Arabian businessmen ordered the National Commercial Bank, the kingdom's largest, to transfer personal funds and $3 million from a Saudi pension fund to New York and London banks.
Bin Laden, whose family runs the largest construction company in Saudi Arabia, has called for the overthrow of the Saudi government. USA Today quoted the further unidentified U.S. intelligence officials as saying the payments are "protection money" aimed at staving off attacks on the businessmen's properties.
Indicted for embassy bombings
The money transfers were discovered in August after the Saudi royal family ordered an audit of the National Commercial Bank and its founder and former chairman, Khalid bin Mahfouz, the U.S. officials said.
Mahfouz is now under house arrest in the Saudi city of Taif. His successor, Mohammad Hussein Al-Amoudi, also heads the Capitol Trust Bank in New York and London, which is being investigated by U.S. and British officials for allegedly transferring money to bin Laden, USA Today said.
The newspaper said Amoudi's Washington attorney, Vernon Jordan, who also is a confidant of President Clinton, could not be reached for comment.
Bin Laden has been indicted by a U.S. grand jury on charges of ordering the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224 people. Bin Laden, believed to be living in Afghanistan, has denied the charges.
Just a portion of his holdings-
- El Hijrah for Construction and Development LTD/Co-owned with Natl. Islamic Front - Click Here
- Wadi al Aqiq Company--Import/Export - Click Here
- Al Hikrah LTD(Note:"Al Hikrah Construction and Development Ltd" - Click Here
- Taba Investment Company - Click Here
- Tabo Investment Company - Click Here
- Laden International-Khartoum - Click Here Click Here [Need Translation]
- Hunting Surveys LTD (UK) Prefab construction - Click Here
- Dutch Pander Projects - Click Here
- Evered Holdings - Click Here [Brockhouse Corporation acquired by Evered Holdings PLC & name changed to Brockhouse Holding USA]
- Saudi Investment Company (SISCO)--flowing out to American Daniels Realty Company (DUSPIC), another branch to Fluor Corp.
- Click Here - [First Arabian Real Estate and Tourism Investment Co., a joint Egyptian/Saudi Investment company established , is the proud developer of the Project. First Arabian Hotels and Resorts Co., a joint Egyptian/Saudi Investment company established by the same Owners, is the proud owner of The Four Seasons Hotel, Cairo at The First Residence as well as The First Mall at Giza.]
- Click Here - [Saudi Oger is headed by former Lebanese premier Rafik al-Hariri and is run by his son Saad. It is joined in the consortium by Dallah al-Barakah, a financial group owned by Saudi billionaire Saleh Kamel, the Bin Laden construction group and the First Saudi Investment Company, owned by Syrian businessman Wafic Said.]
- Banque Al Saoudi (75% ownership) - Click Here
- AlbidLahn Company (shareholders)
- Al-Shamall Islamic Bank (account) $50 million startup deposit. - Click Here
************** This is what is confronting our nation
Regards,
Stmoritz.
Saudi Money Aiding Terrorist bin Laden
USA TODAY
By Jack Kelley
10/28/99- Updated 11:12 PM ETWASHINGTON - More than a year after the U.S. Embassy bombings in East Africa, prominent businessmen in Saudi Arabia continue to transfer tens of millions of dollars to bank accounts linked to indicted terrorist Osama bin Laden, senior U.S. intelligence officials told USA TODAY.
The money transfers, which began more than five years ago, have been used to finance several terrorist acts by bin Laden, including the attempted assassination in 1995 of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Ethiopia, the officials said.
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright is expected to raise the issue with Prince Sultan, the Saudi defense minister, during his visit to Washington next week. Saudi Arabia, the main U.S. ally in the Persian Gulf, has pledged to fight terrorism.
According to a Saudi government audit acquired by U.S. intelligence, five of Saudi Arabia's top businessmen 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.
The businessmen, who are worth more than $5 billion, are 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.
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, U.S. officials say. 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 Capital Trust Bank in New York and London, which U.S. and British officials are investigating for allegedly transferring money to bin Laden. Amoudi's Washington lawyer, Vernon Jordan, could not be reached for comment.
Mahfouz's son, Abdul Rahman Mahfouz, is on the board of Blessed Relief in Sudan. Suspects in the Mubarak attack are linked to the charity.
Bin Laden faces U.S. criminal charges for allegedly masterminding the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224 people. Bin Laden, who is in Afghanistan, denies the charges.
Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar bin Sultan declined to comment on the reports.
[End of Transcript]Bin Laden Funneled Money Through UAE Bank
Bin Laden Getting Financial Support - Links
Osama Bin Laden’s International Terror Network
CIA PROBE: MILLIONS OF SHARES SOLD ON EVE OF DISASTER; DID BIN LADEN PULL OFF THE SICKEST SHARE DEAL EVER?
DAILY MAIL - [VIA DRUDGE REPORT]
September 18, 2001The CIA has asked the City regulators in London to investigate suspicious sales of millions of shares before last Tuesday's attacks in America in the belief that the paper trail will lead to the terrorists.
Osama Bin Laden could have pulled off a sick financial coup shortly before the attacks that devastated America.
Britain's City watchdog, the Financial Services Authority, has launched an inquiry into unusual share price movements in London before last week's atrocities.
Other investigations have been launched in the U.S., Germany, Japan and Italy. The authorities fear that the Saudi-born multi-millionaire's followers might have used a technique known as 'short selling' shares in commodities such as insurance companies, airlines and tourism which they knew would plunge after the attack.
Short selling involves borrowing shares from a broker, then selling them.
You use the money raised to buy the shares when the price has gone down, give them to the broker and pocket the difference.
So if you sold a million shares at GBP 8 each, and they then went down to GBP 5, you could make a quick GBP 3million less the broker's fees and commission.
'It would be a particularly ghoulish kind of insider dealing,' said one source.
'But if we find anyone profiteering out of the tragedy it could be a good lead for the investigation into exactly who is responsible.'
The authorities are also looking for any unusual buying activity in sectors likely to go up, such as building or arms manufacturers.
Germany's security watchdog has launched an inquiry into 'suspect' share price movements in the run-up to the atrocities.
It is expected to home in on Munich Re, the world's biggest reinsurer, which lost 13 per cent of its value in the week before the attacks.
Fellow reinsurer Swiss Re and the French insurance giant Axa also suffered price falls before the outrage.
In cases of widespread short selling, the brokers start to follow the trend to cover themselves and this can force the market down.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill said: 'We are going to track down every terrorist and confiscate their money wherever it is in the world.
'And I think we'll have the co-operation of every financial institution in every civilised society.
'We're going to shut these people down.'
A similar investigation is under way in Japan, where it is believed to be focusing on dealings in futures contracts.
In the futures market, investors bet on the future price of shares or commodities and can make enormous gains if their gambles prove correct.
Bin Laden comes from a wealthy Saudi business family and is believed to have financial tentacles reaching across the globe.
He is reported to have used a Milan brokerage to invest in European stock markets.
The Swiss authorities are also looking closely at his links with their country's notoriously secretive banking system.
FROM OKCSUBMARINER: Almost a year ago I uncovered info on the Vernon Jordan and Clinton and Saudi banks connection for money laundering for Bin Laden. I reported my finding to the FreeRepublic in an article which is reprinted in part below.
I also sent all my investigative work (docs, articles,etc) to former KFORTV reporter Jayna Davis who provided my information to the appropriate government authorities. I am glad that BlueDog is posting another article which supports the article I quoted almost a year ago. It is a very important reminder.
I have been trying to tell my Congressmen and Senators and COngressional COmmittees about this for several years but they like the FBI have ignored me.
Note the connections to the OKC bombing and the terror network responsible for the WTC attacks on 9/11/01 in the US and OKC mentioned in my article posted on FreeRepublic(please read again):
Gore and Clinton and Some of Their Associates Linked to Terrorist Groups?
Crime/Corruption Breaking News Opinion Keywords: GORE, TERRORISM
Source: OKCSubmariner
Published: October 19, 2000 Author: Patrick B. Briley
Posted on 10/19/2000 13:13:04 PDT by OKCSubmariner
excerpt:
Jack Kelly reported in an October 29, 1999, article of U.S.A. Today, entitled “Saudi Money Aiding Bin Laden,” that Capitol Trust Bank of New York and London was being investigated by U.S. and British officials for allegedly transferring millions of dollars to terrorist Bin Laden from five top Saudi Arabian businessmen. It is very disturbing that the banker who heads up Capitol Trust Bank, Mohammed Alamoudi, has legally been represented in Washington D.C., by Vernon Jordan, a close confidante of Clinton with ties to Gore.
Furthermore, note that Alamoudi is the same last name of the individual Timmerman reported had ties to Ed Gabriel, Arab terrorists and Al Gore and those who had arranged questionable if not illegal contributions to the Gore/Clinton campaign in 1996. It is not known whether or not Mohammed and Abdulrahuran Alamoudi are related or unrelated or know each other.
Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher accused the US State Department and its Assistant Secretary, Karl Inderfurth, of withholding key documents from Congress that Rohrabacher claimed would show that the Clinton and Gore administration had supported the Taliban militia in Afghanistan. This story was reported by the UPI and author Joe Warminsky on October 20, 1999.
The Taliban has widely been acknowledged as hiding and protecting the terrorist Bin Laden.Steve Emerson, a noted terrorism expert and producer of “Jihad In American” for PBS, wrote an editorial for the Wall Street Journal on March 13, 1996 entitled “Friends of Hamas In the White House.” Emerson said “the contacts between the White House and Islamic radicals began on November 9, 1995, when President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore met with Abdulrahman Alamoudi, executive director of the American Muslim Council (AMC), as part of a meeting with 23 Muslim and Arab leaders.”
Emerson quoted Seif Ashmarvy, the American Muslim publisher of the Voice of Peace in New Jersey. Ashmarvy said “the American Muslim Council is a radical group that supports radical Islamic terrorist movements.” Ashmarvy also said he felt “totally betrayed by the Clinton administration.”
Emerson reported that Abdulrahman Alamoudi in an April 1995 press conference denounced the counter terrorism legislation in Congress and angrily dismissed suggestions that Hamas was a terrorist group.
The AMC responded to Emerson’s article in April 1996 in a press release “Reading Between the Lines, AMC’s Rebuttal to Steve Emerson’s Charges.” In rebuttal, AMC asserted that Hamas should not be condemned for extreme actions by those in the military front of Hamas. AMC President Dr. Mohammed Cheema is also quoted in the AMC rebuttal as saying “Israel must talk to Hamas” since Cheema believed Palestinians were following Hamas.
Janice Roberts, staff director for a Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism told me there has been a well established Hamas terrorist cell in OKC for more than ten years. Governor Frank Keating’s brother, Martin Keating, told me on KTOK radio that Hamas had a well established terrorist cell in OKC. Martin Keating’s book, “the Final Jihad”, contains a story line of a Middle Eastern attack on a Federal building in Oklahoma and his book was written before the OKC bombing.
excerpt:
There is even more information pertaining to Lenzner’s possible role in the OKC bombing case. Lenzner was part owner of a Tulsa, Oklahoma company once called Hawkins Oil. Hawkins employed a Pakistani (M. Cheema) who was a member of the Islamic Society of Tulsa and who has worked with militant Arab students on the campus of Tulsa University.
The Hawkins Oil employee made one or business trips to Pakistan and the region near Afghanistan where the terrorist Bin Laden resides. An Arab informant has told an OKC police officer that the Pakistani employee of Hawkins Oil was placed together with the employer of the Iraqi, Al Husseini, who sued KFORTV. According to the OKC police officer, the FBI intervened directly with the informant to shut down the investigation of the Hawkins Oil employee’s connections by the OKC police officer.
Also, recall that Dr, Mohammed Cheema, a Pakistani, is president of the AMC connected to Edward Gabriel and Gore by Timmerman and Emerson. It is not known whether or not the Hawkins Oil employee and Dr. Mohammed Cheema are related or know each other.
Also, an Indian newspaper, NewsToday, reported in June 2000, that Mohammed Arshad Cheema of Pakistan had helped Pakistani and Mujahideen (connected to Bin Laden) terrorists hijack an Indian plane, flight IC-814.
It is not known whether or not the Hawkins Oil employee (M. Cheema), Dr. Mohammed Cheema, and Mohammed Arshad Cheema are relatives or know each other. However, all three are Pakistanis. And it was reported on Freerepublic.com by Free Vulcan on October 11, 2000 that Clinton has had longstanding connections with Pakistani terrorists, drug and gun runners, and hit men associated with BCCI.
Also recall earlier in this article the story about FBI agent and CIA operative Floyd Zimms deliberately giving out false information about the getaway car of two Pakistani suspects detained at the Dallas airport on April 19,1995, an action that caused their premature release. p> Was there a connection between any of the Pakistanis, Terry Lenzner, Vernon Jordan, Clinton, Gore or Bin Laden with the OKC bombing case and with campaign contributions from Arab groups associated with Arab terrorists??
..............................
Three Pakistanis were arrested and then released in OKC and Dallas on the day of the OKC bombing. One of them Asad Siddiqy was a suspect in the first World Trade Center bombing. Janet lied when she told the public that these men were arrested. She never expalined why they were released when they were seen in their blue Cavalier by witness Debbie Burdick with McVeigh, his Mercury Marque and a brown pickup truck just moments before the Murrah building ws bombing.
Also, Vincent Cannistraro, the former ME CIA operations chief, told the FBI that Saudi intelligience had informed him on the day of the OKC bombing that Sadam Hussein had hired seven Pakistanis to help McVeigh do the OKC bombing. Jayna Davis has over twenty afafadavits describing seven ME men who helped McVeigh construct the truck bomb in OKC on April 18, 1995, the day before the bombing.
- Al Gore's Arab Moneyman
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Crime/Corruption News Keywords: AL GORE, ARAB, CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS, EDWARD M. GABRIEL, CRIMINALS
Source: The American Spectator
Published: November, 1997 Author: Kenneth R. Timmerman
Posted on 03/28/2000 01:09:44 PST by Uncle Bill
Al Gore's Arab Moneyman The American Spectator
by Kenneth R. Timmerman
November, 1997The story of a suspended ambassadorial nomination. Clinton-Gore hubris knows no bounds. In the thick of the campaign finance hearings on Capitol Hill, the White House has nominated a controversial DNC fundraiser, Edward M. Gabriel, to become United States Ambassador to Morocco, a key country to the Middle East peace process.
Gabriel's name was formally submitted to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on September 8, before the FBI had completed its background investigation into Gabriel's finances, business connections, or personal life. Perhaps the White House was hoping Jesse Helms and his staff would be contrite for blocking ex-Massachusetts governor William Weld from becoming ambassador to Mexico, or that Gabriel's tobacco-lobbyist wife, Kathleen "Buffy" Linehan (who works for Phillip Morris), would suffice to woo tobacco-stater Helms.
As it turned out, the moment was ill-timed, and the candidate ill-starred. A scant ten days later, as we reported on The American Spectator's web site on September 18, the White House was forced to turn over Gabriel's file to the Justice Department for further investigation of allegations tying him to murky Arab campaign donations to the DNC and the Clinton-Gore re-election campaign.
A few hours before Lebanese financier Roger Tamraz was to testify before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, committee staffers received a mysterious call from someone claiming to be Tamraz who alleged that Tamraz had been solicited by Gabriel to donate $50,000 to the DNC through the Arab American Institute, a Washington-based non-profit group. Gabriel called the allegation "science fiction," and in his public testimony later that day, Tamraz said he had not made the phone call and didn't know Gabriel. Nevertheless Jesse Helms announced he was postponing Gabriel's confirmation hearing "indefinitely."
Two things are certain about this curious case: Ed Gabriel has powerful enemies, and he made them by hitching his wagon to two highly controversial Arab-American lobbyists in Washington: James Zogby and Abdulrahman Alamoudi. In the "bad old days" when the State Department and Congress still considered the PLO a terrorist organization, both men were staunch backers of Yasir Arafat. More recently, Zogby has called on Arab states to reinvigorate the secondary boycott against Israel, which aims to deter U.S. companies by threatening to ban them from contracts in the Arab world if they do business with Israel.
Meanwhile, Alamoudi, who heads the American Muslim Council that was invited to the White House by Hillary Rodham Clinton during the Muslim Eid holidays, has been raising funds for "charitable" organizations whose branches in Gaza and the West Bank were closed down in late September by none other than Arafat. The PLO chairman accused them of supporting the military wing of Hamas, the radical Islamic group that has claimed responsibility for recent suicide bombings in Israel. Zogby, Gabriel, and Alamoudi sat together on the steering committee of Arab Americans for Clinton/Gore '96 and frequently appear at functions organized by Zogby's Arab American Institute.
Given these connections, one could easily suspect the pro-Israeli lobby of seeking to sabotage Gabriel's nomination. Not only has Gabriel supported radical Arab causes, but if confirmed would serve in a moderate Arab country whose ruler, King Hassan II, has long been an "honest broker" between Israel and its Arab neighbors and protected Morocco's Jewish community.
TAS was itself tipped off to Gabriel by an anonymous source who called several days before Gabriel's nomination became public knowledge. Claiming to be a former DNC employee, the caller made detailed allegations about Gabriel's activities as a fundraiser for Clinton-Gore and ties to former Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary and Vice President Al Gore, his biggest backer at the White House. None of the pro-Israeli organizations and lobbyists we contacted was aware of Gabriel's pending nomination, nor did any have him on their radar screen.
In subsequent conversations, the anonymous "former DNC employee" alleged that Gabriel served as a conduit for campaign contributions to the DNC from Arab businessmen in Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, and Syria. The source claimed the funds were solicited by Gabriel, and occasionally by Zogby, and were deposited into accounts controlled by Zogby's Arab American Institute, which then paid out the moneys to Arab Americans who could legally contribute to the campaign. "These are people who have no resources, who are not on the board of any organization," the source said about these nominal donors. "They sent in checks of $1,000, $5,000, occasionally $10,000, but never more. We're talking about several hundred thousand dollars in soft and hard money."
According to FEC records, Gabriel, Zogby, and board members of such groups as the Arab American Institute contributed more than $180,000 to Democratic campaigns during the 1995-1996 cycle. (Other AAI members contributed to Arab-American Republican candidates.) But if our source is correct, this is just the money that appears on the surface.
In telephone interviews Zogby admitted to having solicited money for his institute from Arab businessmen, but denied serving as a conduit for donations to the DNC. "Our PAC does not support Democratic causes. It supports Arab-American candidates, both Democrats and Republicans," he said. In a letter to the September 20 Washington Times, he called allegations that he was funneling foreign Arab money into the Clinton-Gore campaign "anti-Arab bigotry." "There are Arab businessmen who have contributed to the institute -- that's true," he told TAS. "But there was no money-for-favors. That's an unfair allegation, because it's just not true. I go to Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Kuwait, Lebanon, the West Bank regularly. And there are people over there who have contributed. But I haven't gone there specifically to solicit contributions."
But Zogby clearly seems to be hiding something. Three times we went to his offices to request a copy of his institute's tax forms -- as a nonprofit group it is required by law to make them available on its premises -- and each time Zogby refused to show them to us. Zogby claims his institute operates on a $700,000 annual budget, but the "former DNC employee" who called us said AAI distributed between $1 and $2 million in 1996. Without the tax forms, which Zogby has illegally withheld, there is no way to determine who is telling the truth. At least three congressional committees are now investigating Gabriel and Zogby and the possibility of an "Arabgate" at the DNC.
It turns out that Gabriel and Zogby's most determined enemies are not American Jews, but Lebanese-Americans bitterly opposed to Syria's illegal occupation of Lebanon and the U.S.'s acceptance of this state of affairs. Last July the State Department, following a major lobbying effort on behalf of the Syrian-controlled Lebanese government of billionaire Rafic Hariri, lifted its ban on travel to Lebanon. Gabriel and Zogby played central roles in this effort. The lifting means U.S. business is now free to invest in projects controlled by Hariri and his Saudi and Syrian partners.
Gabriel used his position as a founder and executive committee member of a Hariri-supported nonprofit, the pro-Syrian American Task Force for Lebanon (ATFL), to lobby Congress and the administration to have the travel ban lifted. In this activity he was aided by Zogby, who serves with Gabriel on the ATFL board, just as Gabriel served on the governing board of Zogby's Arab American Institute.
As George Cody, executive director of the ATFL and one of Gabriel's biggest supporters, told TAS: "Ed Gabriel has been very instrumental on the travel ban. He has raised this at every opportunity, including during meetings with Vice President Gore and with President Clinton." Cody went even further: "Gabriel is being supported in this nomination [as ambassador to Morocco] by Gore. He has an excellent relationship with the VP and with the president." Though Cody personally recalled paying three visits to the White House with Zogby and Gabriel, other sources tell TAS that Gabriel logged in to visit the vice president at the White House no fewer than seventeen times. Neither the vice president's office nor the White House Counsel's office would respond to questions about Gabriel, his ties to Gore, his fundraising activities, or his business and lobbying activities, despite repeated requests. Nor would they authorize Gabriel to comment before his nomination hearing.
Gabriel's ATFL has received two grants from the Clinton administration: $100,000 from the Agency for International Development in 1993 to host a conference on Lebanon, and another $25,000 in 1995 to conduct a symposium on Lebanon's capital markets -- a topic of great interest to Hariri, who has single-handedly floated several hundred million dollars in Lebanese government bonds on the international market to support his construction projects.
What may finally do in Gabriel's nomination, however, could have little to do with Lebanon. For one thing, there are his ties to Al Gore. Zogby and Cody both acknowledge that Gore was the driving force behind Gabriel's nomination, and that Gabriel was a regular White House visitor as both DNC fundraiser and board member of Arab-American organizations. Said one White House source, "Zogby came in here and pounded on the table in front of the vice president, and said you've got to appoint this guy." When we asked Zogby whether he'd lobbied Gore on Gabriel's behalf, Zogby called Gabriel "as qualified as anybody else I've seen." Although Gabriel is Lebanese American, he does not speak Arabic, or any other foreign language, and has no foreign affairs experience.
Also under scrutiny are Gabriel's links to former Energy Secretary Hazel O'Leary, who's already the subject of a Justice Department preliminary probe that could lead to the appointment of an independent counsel. Gabriel, a long-time friend of O'Leary's, invited her to be guest of honor at a $100,000 DNC fundraiser that he held at his Washington home in the summer of 1996. On the résumé distributed by the White House, Gabriel is listed as an "energy consultant." But the background bio that's being circulated by the ATFL in support of his nomination states he worked as an "adviser to Secretary of Energy Hazel O'Leary."
The most explosive of Ed Gabriel's many explosive contacts may be with the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein. In late 1993 or early 1994, TAS has learned, a Gabriel associate named Tracy Chamoun, along with Lebanese businessman Charles Chidiac, approached Iraq's U.N. ambassador Nizar Hamdoon with an indelicate proposition. According to one of the participants, as well as other sources with knowledge of the meeting, the pair told Hamdoon they were so plugged into the Clinton administration they could "guarantee" a lifting of the U.N. oil embargo on Iraq. Chamoun's lobbying partner in this effort, the sources said, was to be Edward M. Gabriel himself. The asking price for this very special service: $5 million! The Iraqi ambassador reportedly laughed off Chamoun's presumptuousness and dismissed the offer out of hand. Conveniently for Gabriel, Chamoun's husband told us she was out of the country and could not be reached for several weeks -- perhaps not until after Gabriel's confirmation hearing? That is, if Jesse Helms ever puts it on the calendar.
Kenneth R. Timmerman is the publisher of Iran Brief and a frequent contributor to The American Spectator.
- "Jihad in America" (PBS) 5 minute video clip on-line - The tape can be ordered here also. [Real Player Required]
Friends of Hamas in the White House
Reading Betwwen The Lines: AMC's Rebuttal To Steve Emerson's Charges
Terry Lenzner's CIA Connection
NOTE: Micro$oft under attack by IGIClick Me:
