Posted on 02/19/2003 7:12:17 AM PST by Voronin
Bosnia Raid Yields al-Qaida Donor List
JOHN SOLOMON
Associated Press
WASHINGTON - U.S. authorities recovered a list of 20 financiers they suspect funneled money to Osama bin Laden and others extremist Muslim causes among a cache of documents that provide insight into the financing of terrorism, an unsealed court record shows.
The seized documents are a "treasure trove" and among other things indicate al-Qaida military leaders were at times paid salaries from Muslim charity proceeds and purchased weapons with money from charity leaders, prosecutors said in the once-secret court filing.
Other evidence seized in March 2002 from the Bosnian offices of the Benevolence International Foundation, an Illinois-based Muslim charity, includes handwritten correspondence to and from bin Laden and documents detailing the origins, growth and expansion of his al-Qaida network in the 1980s and 1990s, the filing said.
Though the original documents remain secret, the prosecutor described their contents and English translations for the first time in the filing unsealed this month in the case of the head of the Muslim foundation who reached a plea deal with federal prosecutors in Chicago.
Enaam Arnaout pleaded guilty last week to illegally buying boots and uniforms for fighting forces in Bosnia and Chechnya under a deal in which prosecutors, in exchange for his cooperation, dropped charges that he aided bin Laden.
In a pretrial document known as a "proffer," prosecutors said handwritten documents scanned into computer formats in the Bosnia office included a file titled "Osama's history" that contained "a handwritten draft list of people referred to within al-Qaida as the 'Golden Chain,' wealthy donors to mujahedeen efforts."
"The list contained 20 names, and after each name a parenthetical indicating the person who received the money from the specified donor," the proffer said.
The list suggested at least seven of the donors gave directly to bin Laden, and six of the others were listed as giving to the founder of a Muslim charity, the court document said.
U.S. officials declined to identify any of the 20 donors, but said the list is one of several pieces of evidence the government has obtained since the war on terror began after Sept. 11 that identifies spigots of money that have financed bin Laden and Middle Eastern and Asian terrorists over the past two decades.
U.S. officials estimate they have frozen roughly $124.5 million in financial assets belonging to terrorist groups, including al-Qaida, since the Sept. 11 attacks.
One letter found in the files instructed a charity leader to pay a monthly salary of 4,500 Saudi riyals each - about $1,200 - to two of al-Qaida's top military leaders. The letter establishes "that military commanders were salaried by the support organizations," the prosecutors said in the proffer.
Other documents discuss the purchases of weapons such as missiles, dynamite, fuses, rocket-propelled grenades and bayonets, the proffer stated.
The documents found in the charity's Bosnian office also chronicle the evolution of bin Laden's movement from support of the once U.S.-based muhajedeen warriors fighting Soviet occupation of Afghanistan to a global terror network that posed threats to the United States and rest of the Western world.
In one letter, an unidentified author writes to bin Laden asking for help for followers in the African country of Eritrea. The letter identifies as its top goal "facilitating the travel of the youth to the field of Jihad so they can benefit from the training possibilities, by providing them with tickets and entry visas," according to the government translation.
Another letter from bin Laden "explains the time has come for an attack on the Russians," the court documents said. Other correspondence describe money transfers and weapons purchases showing that al-Qaida often facilitates such transactions with a simple letter from bin Laden or a top lieutenant asking the recipient to provide money to the bearer of the letter.
For instance, one letter instructed the recipient to send 400,000 rupees of Pakistani money - about $7,200 - "to the owner of the weapon for delivery in Parachinar ... for security reasons," the proffer said.
Another used an alias to refer to bin Laden and his request that a charity leader "give 500,000 rupees to the man bearing the letter," the proffer said. That's about $9,000.
While most of the documents were a decade or more older, they provided U.S. authorities with significant insight into al-Qaida and helped confirm many suspicions about its finances, structure and evolution, U.S. officials said. Some details in the documents "were not known to the public," the proffer said.
Handwritten notes detail the original formation of al-Qaida, including minutes of an Aug. 11, 1988, meeting bin Laden held to discuss "the establishment of a new military group." Those notes record bin Laden's own statements on the efforts to recruit members from Saudi Arabia for his network and to raise money.
The notes quote bin Laden as saying "we took very huge gains from the country's people in Saudi. We were able to give political power to the mujahedeen, gathering donations in very large amounts, restoring power," the court document states.
So when's your funeral?
When it was a matter of helping the al Qa'eda funded Bosnians and Kosovars, the U.N. was not to be consulted, NATO would take care of matters on its own, the Christian Serbs would be bombed, their land occupied, even though they had never violated international law, and in the case of the Bosnian Serbs were simply demanding the same right of secession the Bosnian Muslims had exercised, and in the case of Kosovo were fighting an insurgency in the spiritual heartland of their people. Specious charges of "genocide" were invented to justify the action.
When the U.S. proposes action against Iraq, whose regime has launched wars of agression, committed truely genocidal acts, violates international law on a daily basis, the U.N. must be consulted. NATO can't act, . . .
The French and Germans are led by the continental Left, which loathes Western civilization as it loathes Christianity which was that civilization's foundation, and consequently has a soft spot in its shrivelled heart for Muslims. The Clintonistas merrily went along with it. To the extent that the U.S. and Britain are able to patrol the Muslim areas of the former Yugoslavia, it may not have worked out that badly, though I'm sure the Yugoslav army would have done just fine at rooting out al Qa'eda if we hadn't provided the other side with an air force. But, we'd jolly well better soon realize that Milosevic, Karadic, et al. were fighting our enemies, and stop backing the Euro-trash in criminalizing vigorous responses to Muslim terrorism.
Abdullah al Muhajir will do for Chicago, and we've had numerous folks arrested in the North East with ties to Al Quaeda to meet your 'presence' requirement.
I expect to see you in line right behind Destro waiting to see the Krizni Stab WASP Opstine America.
Really Hoplite, you mean these guys were running around beheading US citizens, raping US Women, staging massacres etc...? Wow, new one on me, didn't make the CNN news room priority list I suppose.
I suppose only Afghanistan fullfiills your definition of presnece, American ingenuity took care of that 'presence' problem and it wasn't even on our own soil! You're on a roll Hoplite!
Non-commission of said crimes didn't save the non-Serb inhabitants of Banja Luka from the crisis committee, so it shouldn't save you or yours here in America, should it.
You can be consistent in your position, can't you?
Since when are the opinions of the prospective deportees to be considered?
It is too late to appeal to logic or law - you're destined for a boat trip back to the old country, goaded onto the plank by your own rather dull sword.
Wow - playing the ignorant puke can be fun! No wonder you spend so much time doing it.
And that is, as you point out, a very low road indeed.
So using Hoplite's Golden Rule, Mr. Arnaout would now be justified in forming the Illinois Liberation Army, inventing stories about Muslim genocide and oppression at the hand of Illinoisians, and calling for NATO air strikes on Chicago. Is that about it?
So illegal referendums on independence are not a crime, huh? Wait, wait I know the answer... they're NOT illegal when Muslims hold them, they're only illegal when held by Serbs. Am I right?
KLA Stuck Heroin Needle in Europe's Arm
VRN
Hardly ever, when you're speaking to me, Bob.
Which referendums in particular did you have in mind? The one in Bosnia which was open to all but boycotted by the Bosnian Serbs - Karadzic's counter plebescite which was open only to Serbs, or to any of the Kosovar Albanian referendums on independence, none of which have been recognized by anybody outside of Albania?
I grow bored of our interaction, Bob - I learn nothing from you except how to restrain my sarcasm.
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