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| Terror Networks |
| Al-Zawahiri came to US to raise funds |
| 2001-10-11 |
Osama bin Laden's chief deputy visited the United States at least twice in the last decade to raise money for terrorism, according to federal court records. Ayman al-Zawahiri made the trips in the early 1990s to help raise funds for the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, Ali Mohamed said on Oct. 20, 2000, as he pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges stemming from the deadly bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa. "I helped him to do this,'' Mohamed told Judge Leonard B. Sand. The sworn statement was highlighted in a San Francisco Chronicle story detailing how two members of a Silicon Valley terrorist cell had admitted bringing al-Zawahiri to the United States to raise money for terrorism. The newspaper said he traveled with a stolen passport supplied by the two men and used a fake name. It said he visited mosques in Santa Clara, Stockton and Sacramento during a nationwide fund-raising mission. The Chronicle said he may have raised as much as $500,000 in the United States, mostly donations from U.S. Muslims who were told the money would support refugees of the Afghanistan war with the Soviet Union in the 1980s. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |