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| Terror Networks |
| Microsoft funded sham charities, money went to bin Laden |
| 2003-02-02 |
| This is from Pravda, so use the usual grain of salt. Corporation Microsoft and its president Bill Gates are still haunted with troubles. This time the troubles donât concern accusations of monopolization of the operating systems market. As it turned out, the corporation sponsored bin Laden. Microsoft is not the only company blamed for financing terrorists, even popular PC producer Compaq sponsored terrorists as well. It is clear that both companies didnât even suspect that money transferred to the charitable organization Benevolence International Foundation is spent on training of al-Qaeda terrorists. The companies transferred not very large sums of money, Microsoftâs transfer made up 20 thousand dollars. But as is known, many hands make light work. Certainly true that lots of money donated to what people thought were charitable organizations ended up being funneled to terrorist organizations. That Microsoft and Compaq got suckered as well isn't surprising. Activity of the âcharitableâ foundation was organized on a wide scale. Itâs enough to say that when activity of the foundation and its chairman Arnaout was investigated by the FBI, it turned out that within the four first months of 2002 Benevolence International Foundation transferred 685 thousand dollars to bank accounts in Azerbaijan, Georgia, Latvia and Russia allegedly for support of Chechen refugees. But in fact the money was sent to terrorists. American authorities paid special attention to activity of the Foundation right after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In May 2002, an arrest warrant was issued for chairman of the Foundation Arnaout, native of Syria (by the moment of arrest Arnaout had dual citizenship, American and Bosnian). The scale of Islamic âcharitableâ organizationsâ activity is demonstrative on the whole. It was well known long before September 11 that money they collect is spent on supporting terrorist activity. But up to that moment they could operate quite legally. For instance, Benevolence International Foundation was based in Chicago since 1992, and American authorities laid no claims to activity of the organization. Goes to show that Binny and his associates started early and took the long view. As it is clear now, sources financing terrorist activity can be different. At that, special services are unlikely completely aware of the scale of this âvarietyâ. As it turns out, bin Laden and his organization were sponsored by universally known corporations. It is not ruled out that they are still financing terrorists even now. But this time this activity is carried out not through Islamic foundations which reputation is now undermined. There are too many charitable organizations. God knows, probably money transferred to accounts of some society for animal protection is further forwarded directly to bin Laden. Wouldn't be surprising if Binny's associates have found new ways to move the cash and hide the transactions from the authorities. That's one of the problems of a free society. |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #1 Just a thought... I wonder if United Way was involved with any of these charities? |
| Posted by: Kathy K 2003-02-02 10:51:48 |