SEPTEMBER 2001 : (MILAN, ITALY : NASREDDIN'S HOTEL NASCO OPENS AT THE SAME ADDRESS AS HIS RESIDENCE & ALSO ARAB GULF CHAMBER, A PRECURSOR OF MIGA -- See YOUSSEF NADA {LINKED TO AL QAEDA}, LUGANO/MILAN CELL) And though MIGA's door in Lugano may be locked, and its president and some of his associates posted on the U.N. terror watchlist, none of these figures has been arrested.
Nasreddin, long a resident in Lugano and neighboring Milan, Italy, is believed by Italian investigators to have moved about two years ago [2002] to Morocco. From there, says an Italian state investigator, Nasreddin maintains a global business network that includes some 2,000 links so far identified to businesses and individuals worldwide, some tied to terror, and some not.
It is precisely that mix of legitimate and sinister business that makes it so difficult to prosecute Nasreddin, or shut down his businesses, says this Italian investigator. Among Nasreddin's holdings, for instance, is a four-star hotel in Milan, Hotel NASCO, which opened — ironically enough — in September 2001, at the same address as Nasreddin's longtime residence. That is also the same address used by a precursor of MIGA, an outfit called the Arab Gulf Chamber. Hotel NASCO remains open for business, serving tea and crescent-moon shaped sugar cookies at its non-alcoholic lobby bar. MIGA remains active in the Lugano business registry, and listed in the Lugano phone book. A recent phone call to MIGA's shuttered office in Lugano, Switzerland, was answered by someone who picked up the phone in Milan, Italy — in the Hotel NASCO. MIGA's network, it seems, migrates as needed.
Nasreddin's longtime partner, Al Qaeda-linked Youssef Nada, still lives in his plush hillside villa in a small Italian enclave on Lake Lugano, just a short drive from MIGA's office. Right next door to MIGA's Lugano office, on the same floor of the same building, is the Lugano Islamic Community Center, founded by Nasreddin in 1992 — and operated initially out of his former Lugano residence a few blocks away. The community center later moved next door to MIGA.
----- "Possible Saddam-Al Qaeda Link Seen in U.N. Oil-for-Food Program," Friday, September 17, 2004 By Claudia Rosett and George Russell http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,132682,00.html
1984 : (LUGANO, SWITZERLAND : CHIEFLY FOUNDED BY THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD'S AHMED IDRIS NASRUDDIN, MALAYSIAN SWISS GULF AND AFRICAN CHAMBER aka MIGA IS REGISTERED -- SEE AL QAEDA, UN / IRAQ OIL FOR FOOD PROGRAM) ...the Sept. 11 Commission has shown a tracery of contacts between Saddam and Al Qaeda (search) that continued after billions of oil-for-food dollars began pouring into Saddam's coffers and Usama bin Laden (search) declared his famous war on the U.S.Now, buried in some of the United Nation's own confidential documents, clues can be seen that underscore the possibility of just such a Saddam-Al Qaeda link — clues leading to a locked door in this Swiss lakeside resort. Next to that door, a festive sign spells out in gold letters under a green flag that this is the office of MIGA, the Malaysian Swiss Gulf and African Chamber (search). Registered here 20 years ago [1984?] as a society to promote business between the Gulf States and Asia, Europe and Africa, MIGA is a company that the United Nations and the U.S. government says has served as a hub of Al Qaeda finance: A terrorist chamber of commerce. ...AL TAQWA IS PART OF THE FALLS CHURCH VIRGINIA INVESTIGATION.
...As is typical of terrorist financial webs, the details surrounding MIGA quickly become bewildering — part of the point being to camouflage the illicit flow of funds with legitimate business. Part of the problem in finding the truth is that cross-border transactions out of such financial havens as Switzerland are smothered in banking secrecy.
But even with that secrecy — and shortly after the Sept.11, 2001, attacks on the United States — both MIGA and its chief founder and longtime president, Ahmed Idris Nasreddin, landed on the U.N. watchlist of entities and individuals belonging to, or affiliated with Al Qaeda. Nasreddin is a member of the terror-linked Muslim Brotherhood.
------- "Possible Saddam-Al Qaeda Link Seen in U.N. Oil-for-Food Program," Friday, September 17, 2004 By Claudia Rosett and George Russell http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,132682,00.html
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MIGA had other founders as well. One of them, who does not appear on the U.N. terror list, is an Arab businessman now in his early 60s, Abdul Rahman Hayel Saeed. Described by an acquaintance as urbane, polite and fluent in English, Hayel Saeed was born into one of Yemen's most prominent business clans, owners of a family-held global conglomerate based in the Yemeni capital of Taiz and named for its founding patriarch: the Hayel Saeed Anam Group of Companies, or HSA.
From Yemen, the HSA Group (search) boasts a far-flung business empire, including a Yemen-based Islamic bank, and a host of business subsidiaries, affiliates and regional trading offices in places ranging from the United Kingdom to Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Malaysia, Indonesia, Russia and China. Abdul Rahman Hayel Saeed sits on the HSA board of directors, and ranks high in the management — he is currently running HSA's regional office in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. In MIGA, Hayel Saeed holds a prominent spot, as one of four co-founders who back in 1984 delegated power of attorney to the terrorist-linked Nasreddin, giving him authority to run the company. Swiss registry documents show that Hayel Saeed has never resigned from MIGA, nor revoked that power of attorney. Queried about this link to MIGA, neither Hayel Saeed nor the HSA Group's chairman of the board, Ali Mohammed Saeed, has made any response.
------- "Possible Saddam-Al Qaeda Link Seen in U.N. Oil-for-Food Program," Friday, September 17, 2004 By Claudia Rosett and George Russell http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,132682,00.html1996 TO 2003 : (MIGA COFOUNDER ABDUL RAHMAN HAYEL SAEED'S YEMEN-BASED HSA GROUP SELLS AT LEAST $400 MILLION IN GOODS TO SADDAM HUSSEIN VIA THE UN OIIL FOR FOOD PROGRAM IN THIS PERIOD-- See ALI MOHAMMED SAEED, HAYEL SAEED ANAM GROUP, OIL FOR FOOD SCANDAL, A I NASREDDIN) Hayel Saeed was born into one of Yemen's most prominent business clans, owners of a family-held global conglomerate based in the Yemeni capital of Taiz and named for its founding patriarch: the Hayel Saeed Anam Group of Companies, or HSA. From Yemen, the HSA Group boasts a far-flung business empire, including a Yemen-based Islamic bank, and a host of business subsidiaries, affiliates and regional trading offices in places ranging from the United Kingdom to Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Malaysia, Indonesia, Russia and China. Abdul Rahman Hayel Saeed sits on the HSA board of directors, and ranks high in the management — he is currently running HSA's regional office in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. In MIGA, Hayel Saeed holds a prominent spot, as one of four [MIGA] co-founders who back in 1984 delegated power of attorney to the terrorist-linked Nasreddin, giving him authority to run the company. Swiss registry documents show that Hayel Saeed has never resigned from MIGA, nor revoked that power of attorney. ...
....HSA is unquestionably a company involved in legitimate business. But given the involvement of Abdul Rahman Hayel Saeed, it is striking that between 1996 and 2003, while the United Nations ran its oil-for-food relief program in Iraq, the HSA Group — via U.N.-approved oil-for-food contracts — sold at least $400 million worth of goods to Saddam.
------- "Possible Saddam-Al Qaeda Link Seen in U.N. Oil-for-Food Program," Friday, September 17, 2004 By Claudia Rosett and George Russell http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,132682,00.htmlDECEMBER 1997 : (AL TAQWA CHAIRMAN YOUSEF NADA SAYS AL TAQWA [ aka NADA MANAGEMENT] TRANSACTIONS ARE UNDER THE CONTROL OF SHEIKH YUSSEF AL QARDAWI --SEE AL QARDAWI [ISB {BOSTON CELL}], AHMED HUBER, MILAN/LUGANO CELL {See A I NASREDDIN}) Youssef M. Nada, chairman of al-Taqwa, told the Arab daily newspaper al-Hayat in December 1997 that since its inception, al-Taqwa has ``placed all its transactions under the control of Sheik Yussef al-Qardawi.'' -----------Radical Islam: Outspoken cleric, jailed activist tied to new Hub mosque [Boston] Boston Herald ^ | October 28, 2003 | Jonathan Wells, Jack Meyers, Maggie Mulvihill and Kevin Wisniewski
2001 fall : (ANSAR AL ISLAM PERSONNEL SMUGGLED VX NERVE GAS THROUGH TURKEY IN 2001, WASHINGTON POST SAYS -- See JUND AL ISLAM, AL QAEDA-IN-IRAQ) The Washington Post reported that the group smuggled VX nerve gas through Turkey in fall 2001. - "Ansar Al-Islam: Iraq's Al-Qaeda Connection, " By Jonathan Schanzer, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, via FrontPageMagazine.com , Friday, January 17, 2003