Report: al-Qaida funds down but not gone
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-usfund233940000aug23,0,792297.story?coll=ny-nationalnews-headlines
WASHINGTON -- Financial support for al-Qaida and the size of its operating budget have plummeted in the three years since the Sept. 11 attacks, but the network "continues to fund terrorist operations with relative ease," according to new findings by the commission that investigated the strikes.
The report, released Saturday, also says the Saudi government provided lackluster cooperation in the effort to stanch the flow of money to al-Qaida for two years after the attacks, but it began to respond more aggressively after several al-Qaida strikes in the kingdom last year.
Al-Qaida's annual budget appears to have shrunk from about $30 million a year before the Sept. 11 attacks to as little as a few million dollars per year now, the commission reported. Funding for the terrorist network has shriveled during that same period, partly because of the more aggressive stance by Saudi Arabia, the report said.
The financial shortfalls have not caused a commensurate decline in al-Qaida's capabilities, because the attacks it sponsors are relatively inexpensive. Also, the terror organization has shed high-cost obligations, including its prior support for the Taliban government in Afghanistan, and the network still receives funding from its most solid supporters, the report said.
The findings were released in a study of al-Qaida's financing completed by the Sept. 11 commission's investigative staff. The study released this weekend was more detailed than the commission's so-called final report.
The commission also released a comprehensive account of al-Qaida's exploitation of lax U.S. border and immigration security. The report, compiled by the commission's staff and also issued Saturday, documents the entry of the Sept. 11 hijackers into the United States.
The report says 13 of the 19 hijackers applying for visas presented passports that were less than three weeks old, yet their visa applications were met with no increased scrutiny, according to an Associated Press story.
Two of the hijackers, the report said, lied on their applications "in detectable ways" but were not questioned about the discrepancies, and all 19 of the hijackers' applications had data fields left blank or were incomplete in some other way.
The 155-page document on financing examines al-Qaida's methods of raising and distributing money, the financing of the Sept. 11 plot, and the U.S. government's often frustrated efforts to track terrorist financing before and after the attacks.
The report said the United States and other governments have made substantial progress in investigating and curbing the flow of terrorist funds since the Sept. 11 attacks. Even so, the United States "still has not determined with any precision how much al-Qaida raises or from whom, or how it spends its money," the report said.
The report noted that al-Qaida no longer pays out an estimated $10 million to $20 million a year to support the Taliban or millions more running terrorist camps and funding affiliated organizations.
Without those obligations, the terrorist network devotes its remaining resources to operations, which are relatively inexpensive, according to the report.
The 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in East Africa cost approximately $10,000, according to the report, while the October 2002 bombing in Bali cost $20,000. The Sept. 11 attacks have been estimated by the commission to have cost between $400,000 and $500,000.
Canada to be involved in anti-terrorist training exercise
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2004/08/23/598592-cp.html
LONDON (CP) - A major anti-terrorism exercise involving Canada, Britain and the United States will be staged next spring to test the transatlantic reaction to a series of terrorism attacks in the three countries, according to a British newspaper report. The Times said unnamed officials in the British government have told it that the weeklong exercise is expected to start with mock terrorist strikes on the U.S., which would be followed by attacks in Canada and Britain.
A spokeswoman for Britain's Home Office said Monday that the three countries would participate in an "emergency exercise" some time next year, but she wouldn't confirm details about the plan.
The Home Office, which is responsible for law and order in Britain, has set up a team to organize the exercise in the U.K., similar to local preparations that are being done in Canada and the U.S., the government spokeswoman said.
The Times said anti-terror experts in Washington, London and Toronto are completing the scenario that will be used to test emergency responses and could include chemical, biological or radioactive attacks.
Other possible scenarios include plane hijackings that start in the U.S. and spread into Canada and Britain, the Times said. The scenarios are based on intelligence assessments of al-Qaida's threat to large cities.
In Britain, the mock attacks will be used to determine how well emergency organizations handle evacuation plans and react to the injured and dead while maintaining essential services.
Britain conducted a high-profile test of the response of its emergency services to a terrorist attack on its subway system about a year ago.
A report on the simulated terrorist strike found that London was not entirely prepared for the real thing. The simulation was similar to the fatal sarin gas attack on Tokyo's subway system in 1995.
The evaluation of the exercise determined that communication between emergency crews needed to be improved. It also questioned whether ambulance crews administered antidotes to contaminated casualties quickly enough.
The simulation in Britain, Canada and the U.S. slated for next year, which has been in the planning stages since July 2003, is aimed at determining what is the "best practice" for dealing with an emergency, the government spokeswoman said.
It will also test how well the three countries communicate and co-ordinate their reactions to an emergency.