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Report Says Africans Harbored Al Qaeda
Source: Washington PostAn aggressive year-long European investigation into al Qaeda financing has found evidence that two West African governments hosted the senior terrorist operatives who oversaw a $20 million diamond-buying spree that effectively cornered the market on the region's precious stones. Investigators from several countries concluded that President Charles Taylor of Liberia received a $1 million payment for arranging to harbor the operatives, who were in the region for at least two months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and the Pentagon. The terrorists moved between a protected area in Liberia and the presidential compound in neighboring Burkina Faso, investigators say. Taylor's a first-class bad boy. At one point he seemed to have the virtue of not being as bad as Samuel Doe, but that turned out not to be the case. I don't find it at all odd to find him consorting with crooks and terrorists, since he's dabbled in both crookery and terrorism himself. I wasn't aware that anything ever happened in Burkina Faso, though... Long accused of sanctioning illicit diamond and weapons trading, Taylor and President Blaise Campaore of Burkina Faso deny the charge, which is included in a summary of the joint intelligence findings. "Nope. Wudn't us." The Washington Post obtained a copy of the military intelligence summary, which offers the clearest picture yet of al Qaeda's secretive business operations in West Africa and an elaborate plot that began in 1998 to hide substantial terrorist assets in diamonds. European and Latin American investigations also found evidence that a group of people buying diamonds on behalf of the terrorists were simultaneously attempting to procure sophisticated weapons, such as missiles that could shoot down aircraft, The Post has learned. Investigators have been unable to trace the diamonds since they left Liberia and Burkina Faso. That's why they put their money in diamonds, because they're so difficult to trace... The diamond-buying operation appears to have been hatched in response to a move by the United States in 1998 to freeze al Qaeda assets after attacks on two U.S. embassies in Africa that were blamed on the organization. Senior European intelligence sources said they have been baffled by the lack of U.S. interest, particularly by the CIA, in their recent findings. The CIA, which in the past has downplayed reports of al Qaeda's diamond connections, declined to comment. "CIA." "Hi! I'm from the Washington Post. I'm calling to ask about one of your intelligence operations..." [Click] In the weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency did try to monitor the two senior al Qaeda operatives supervising the diamond trading, who were known to be hiding in an elite military camp in Liberia. Something in Liberia is "elite"? When did that start? Both men were on the FBI's Most Wanted list of terrorists. The Pentagon prepared a small Special Forces team in neighboring Guinea to snatch the two, but the mission was not carried out because the team could not confirm the targets' identities, according to sources. Being a fastidious people, we hate it when we kill the wrong guys... The European law enforcement investigations, launched soon after Sept. 11, have focused on three people who allegedly served as conduits to the al Qaeda operatives: Aziz Nassour, a Lebanese diamond merchant; his cousin Samih Osailly; and Ibrahim Bah, a Senegalese soldier of fortune who has trafficked for years in diamonds and guns across Africa. All three deny involvement with al Qaeda or in illegal activities. They also deny indulging in lies, deceit, all that sort of stuff. "We deny everyting!" Posted by: Fred Pruitt 2002-12-29 |
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