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| Africa: Subsaharan |
| More on Taylor and al-Qaeda |
| 2004-08-12 |
| Editting out what we already know ... Until recently, Charles Taylor's direct links with the notorious al-Qaeda terrorist movement was considered part of international conspiracy to discredit and topple his government. Taylor himself alluded to such scheme and did not only call for proof from his accusers but also proffered to help the Bush administration bring al-Qaeda suspects to justice. "Top al-Qaeda terrorists were sheltered by former Liberian warlord Charles Taylor while he built up a war chest from trading in diamonds," UN prosecutors in Sierra Leone claimed in a recent report that is yet to be released. The report said al-Qaeda paid Taylor for protection and lived under his shield for more than five years, at a military camp near the border with Sierra Leone, in government-run hotels in the capital of Monrovia and at one of Taylor's residences in Congo town. Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, one al-Qaeda operative who hitherto had a US$25 million bounty on his head and only recently arrested in Pakistan, according to the report, was hidden out in Liberian military camps from late 1998 until shortly before Taylor was forced to step down. The Associated Press, in a dispatch Tuesday this week, quoted a "confidential report" by UN-backed prosecutors in Sierra Leone as saying that a series of witnesses placed six top al-Qaeda fugitives in Africa buying up diamonds before the September 11 attacks on the United States. It said during al-Qaeda's operations in Liberia, millions of United States dollars were laundered in terror funds before launching its deadliest offensive that rocked the heart of America's security citadel - the Pentagon. "Al-Qaeda figures, including those already wanted in pre-September 11 attacks on U.S. targets, dealt directly with Liberia's former President Charles Taylor and other leaders and warlords in what was then a rogue West African nation from 1999 onwards, according to witness accounts of meetings and sightings in the blighted Liberian capital's seedy hotels and safe-houses," the AP dispatch said. "Witnesses say Liberia's former President Taylor himself gave al-Qaeda operatives entry to the shady West African world of guns, cash and diamonds before September 11, according to the dossier," the AP dispatch noted. It said having paid for protection, ex-president Taylor allegedly brought rebels, state leaders and Islamic extremists under the common goal of cash and introduced them to rebels controlling fine-gem mining next door, in diamond-rich Sierra Leone, it quoted sources as telling investigators. The dispatch however noted that those that were making the link between Taylor and al-Qaeda charged that the US government had turned its back on the case in part over discomfort over the CIA's own alleged Cold War-era links to Taylor. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #1 Taylor was ousted because we refused to make his ouster an American priority... making it OK for everyone else to admit he was bad. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2004-08-13 12:24:30 AM |