The bin Mahfouz and Al-Amoudi clans... the bin Laden and Bush families linked to terrorism
Laurent
families, in conjunction to Big Oil, are all clearly linked to
terrorism. Like it or not!
--
Laurent
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The Press on the BCCI-bin Mahfouz-bin Laden Intelligence Nexus
Boston Herald , December 11, 2001
A powerful Washington, D.C., law firm with unusually close ties to
the White House has earned hefty fees representing controversial
Saudi billionaires as well as a Texas-based Islamic charity fingered
last week as a terrorist front.
The influential law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld has
represented three wealthy Saudi businessmen - Khalid bin Mahfouz,
Mohammed Hussein Al-Amoudi and Salah Idris - who have been
scrutinized by U.S. authorities for possible involvement in
financing Osama bin Laden and his terrorist network.
In addition, Akin, Gump currently represents the largest Islamic
charity in the United States, Holy Land Foundation for Relief and
Development in Richmond, Texas.
Holy Land's assets were frozen by the Treasury Department last week
as government investigators probe its ties to Hamas, the militant
Palestinian group blamed for suicide attacks against Israelis.
Partners at Akin, Gump include one of President Bush's closest Texas
friends, James C. Langdon, and George R. Salem, a Bush fund-raiser
who chaired his 2000 campaign's outreach to Arab-Americans.
In addition to the royal family, the firm's Saudi clients have
included bin Mahfouz, who hired Akin, Gump when he was indicted in
the BCCI banking scandal in the early 1990s. In 1999, the Saudi's
placed bin Mahfouz under house arrest after reportedly discovering
that the bank he controlled, National Commercial Bank in Saudi
Arabia, funneled millions to charities believed to be serving as bin
Laden fronts.
A bin Mahfouz business partner, Al-Amoudi, was also represented by
Akin, Gump. When it was reported in 1999 that U.S. authorities were
also investigating Al-Amoudi's Capitol Trust Bank, Akin, Gump
released a statement on behalf of their client denying any
connections to terrorism. One year earlier, the firm had
co-sponsored an investment conference in Ethiopia with Al-Amoudi.
Akin, Gump partner and Bush fund-raiser Salem led the legal team
that defended Idris, a banking protege of bin Mahfouz and the owner
of El-Shifa, the Sudanese pharmaceutical plant destroyed by U.S.
cruise missiles in August 1998.
.Speaking of Akin, Gump partner Kress' office in the White House,
Lewis added: "That's not appropriate and frankly it's potentially
troublesome because there is a real possibility of a conflict of
interest. Basically you have a partner for Akin, Gump . . . inside
the hen house."
But another longtime Washington political observer, Vincent
Cannistraro, the former chief of counter-intelligence at the Central
Intelligence Agency, said the political influence a firm like Akin,
Gump has is precisely why clients like the Saudis hire them.
"These are cozy political relationships . . . If you have a problem
in Washington, there are only a few firms to go to and Akin, Gump is
one of them," Cannistraro said.
Cannistraro pointed out that Idris hired Akin, Gump during the
Clinton presidency, when Clinton confidante Vernon Jordan was a
partner at the firm. "He hired them because Vernon Jordan had
influence . . . that's a normal political exercise where you are
buying influence," he said.
Akin, Gump is not the only politically wired Washington business
cashing in on the Saudi connection.
Burson-Marsteller, a major D.C. public relations firm, registered
with the U.S. government as a foreign agent for the Saudi embassy
within weeks of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
Boston Herald , December 10, 2001
Two billionaire Saudi families scrutinized by authorities for
possible financial ties to Osama bin Laden's terrorist network
continue to engage in major oil deals with leading U.S.
corporations.
The bin Mahfouz and Al-Amoudi clans, who control three private Saudi
Arabian oil companies, are partners with U. S. firms in a series of
ambitious oil development and pipeline projects in central and south
Asia, records show.
Working through their companies - Delta Oil, Nimir Petroleum and
Corral Petroleum - the Saudi families have formed international
consortiums with U. S. oil giants Texaco, Unocal, Amerada Hess and
Frontera Resources.
These business relationships persist despite evidence that members
of the two Saudi families - headed by patriarchs Khalid bin Mahfouz
and Mohammed Hussein Al-Amoudi - have had ties to Islamic charities
and companies linked financially to bin Laden's al-Qaeda
organization. So far, bin Mahfouz and Al-Amoudi, who have denied any
involvement with bin Laden, have been left untouched by the U. S.
Treasury Department, which has frozen the assets of 150 individuals,
companies and charities suspected of financing terrorism.
According to a May 1999 report by the U. S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia,
Delta Oil was created by 50 prominent Saudi investors in the early
1990s.
The prime force behind Delta Oil appears to be Mohammed Hussein
Al-Amoudi, who is based in Ethiopia and oversees a vast network of
companies involved in construction, mining, banking and oil.
Al-Amoudi also owns Corral Petroleum.
The Al-Amoudis' business interests, meanwhile, are enmeshed with the
bin Mahfouz family, which owns the third privately held Saudi oil
company, Nimir Petroleum.
Nimir was established by the Mahfouz family in Bermuda in 1991,
according to the U. S. Embassy report.
The closeness of the two clans is underlined by their joint oil
venture, Delta-Nimir, as well as by their partnership in the Saudi
firm The Marei Bin Mahfouz & Ahmed Al Amoudi Group of Companies &
Factories.
Meanwhile, information continues to circulate in intelligence
circles in the United States and Europe suggesting wealthy Saudi
businessmen have provided financial support to bin Laden.
Much of it revolves around a 1999 audit conducted by the Saudi
government that reportedly discovered that the bin Mahfouz family's
National Commercial Bank had transferred at least $ 3 million to
charitable organizations believed to be fronts for bin Laden's
terror network.
U. S. and British authorities also reportedly looked at Al-Amoudi's
Capitol Trust Bank in London and New York for similar activities.
After the audit, bin Mahfouz was placed under house arrest in Taif,
Saudi Arabia, and Al-Amoudi reportedly replaced him as head of
National Commercial Bank.
Some of the Saudi money transferred from National Commercial Bank
allegedly went to the Islamic charity Blessed Relief, whose board
members included bin Mahfouz's son, Abdul Rahman bin Mahfouz.
In October, the U. S. Treasury Department named Blessed Relief as a
front organization providing funds to bin Laden.
"Saudi businessmen have been transferring millions of dollars to bin
Laden through Blessed Relief," the agency said.
In 1999, Al-Amoudi's lawyers in Washington, Akin, Gump, Strauss,
Hauer and Feld, issued a statement saying, "Al-Amoudi did not know
bin Laden and never had any dealings with him" and that the
businessman "was unalterably opposed to terrorism and had no
knowledge of any money transfers by Saudi businesses to bin Laden."
Despite officials' suspicions, the bin Mahfouz and Al-Amoudi oil
companies continue to profit from their working relationship with
America's own oil elite. For example:
-- The Mahfouz family, through Nimir Petroleum, joined forces
recently with Texaco to develop oil fields in Kazakhstan estimated
to contain as many as 1.5 billion barrels of oil.
-- The Al-Amoudi family, through Delta Oil, teamed up with Amerada
Hess three years ago to develop oil fields in Azerbaijan. Delta-Hess
is also part of a consortium hoping to build a $ 2.4 billion oil
pipeline from Azerbaijan to Turkey.
-- In the mid-1990s, Delta Oil formed a partnership with Unocal in a
failed bid to build oil and gas pipelines from Turkmenistan to the
Arabian Sea.
-- In 1994, Delta-Nimir, a joint venture of the Al-Amoudi and bin
Mahfouz families, joined with Unocal in a consortium to develop
three oil fields in Azerbaijan. In 1996, Delta-Nimir and Unocal
closed a second oil development deal in Azerbaijan.
(For more info about banking connections, go to bankersalmanac.com.)
Daily News (New York) , November 10, 2001
U.S. officials allege that Yasin Al-Qadi, a wealthy Saudi
businessman whose assets have been frozen by the Treasury
Department, funneled money from National Commercial to Al Qaeda
through a charity called Muwafaq Foundation.
Because of suspected terrorist links, the Treasury Department has
seized assets and barred numerous banks and financial entities from
doing business in the United States.
A banking official who asked not to be identified said new
anti-terror legislation is flawed because it gives the government
great leeway in determining which business gets blacklisted.
The official said political considerations could favor institutions
associated with crucial allies like Saudi Arabia, paving the way for
terrorist funds to continue to flow through U.S. banks.
White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan acknowledged that the Treasury
consults the President before freezing assets or barring trade with
specific people or organizations.
Two Saudi government agencies bought 50% of National Commercial in
1999. The other half is owned by several shareholders, including
members of the Mahfouz family, which gave up its majority ownership
to the government.
New York Times , October 15, 2001
The 11th floor aerie from which Yasin Abdullah al-Qadi shepherds his
investments is a seemingly endless stretch of plush white carpet
barely interrupted by a white leather couch and a spotless desk. The
Red Sea dominates the view, sparkling azure in the bright October
sunshine.
But the placid surroundings were shattered on Friday when Mr. Qadi
found himself on a new list of 39 individuals and groups accused by
the United States Treasury Department of financing Osama bin Laden
and his organization, Al Qaeda. The citation about Mr. Qadi read in
part: "He heads the Saudi-based Muwafaq Foundation. Muwafaq is *****
Qaeda front that receives funding from wealthy Saudi businessmen."
It goes on to say that the business community has been transferring
millions of dollars to Mr. bin Laden through the charity.
It is an accusation that Mr. Qadi says he finds absurd, not least
because the foundation shut down five years ago.
"Nothing has been given to bin Laden whatsoever, this is nonsense,"
Mr. Qadi, a bearded, 45-year-old businessman, said in an interview.
Accusations against pillars of the Jidda community like Mr. Qadi and
the foundation -- its six-member board included prominent figures
like two members of the bin Mahfouz banking clan.
Boston Herald , October 14, 2001
Three banks allegedly used by Osama bin Laden to distribute money to
his global terrorism network have well-established ties to a prince
in Saudi Arabia's royal family, several billionaire Saudi bankers,
and the governments of Kuwait and Dubai.
One of the banks, Al-Shamal Islamic Bank in the Sudan, was
controlled directly by Osama bin Laden, according to a 1996 U.S.
State Department report. A second bank, Faisal Islamic Bank, appears
to have a relative of Osama bin Laden on its board of directors, the
bank's records show.
- Despite repeated denials of any connection to their notorious
relative, members of the family of Osama bin Laden continue to have
close business relationships with another wealthy Saudi banking
clan, the bin Mahfouz family, which is suspected of shipping
millions of dollars to the exiled terrorist as recently as three
years ago.
The bin Mahfouz family was placed in the spotlight Friday when the
Bush administration moved to freeze the assets of 39 more
individuals and groups it believes are supporting terrorism.
One of the names on the list, Saudi businessman Yasin al-Qadi, is
involved with members of the bin Mahfouz family in a Muslim charity,
Blessed Relief, which the Treasury Department says has steered
millions of dollars to bin Laden.
Sunday Times (London) , October 14, 2001,
Further investigations into the Bin Laden money network have linked
a dynasty of Saudi billionaires with close ties to their country's
royal family to a London charity accused of being connected with Bin
Laden.
The International Development Foundation (IDF) -which is now under
investigation by Britain's Charity Commission -was founded by
members of the Bin Mahfouz family, one of Saudi Arabia's most
prominent clans.
It has emerged, too, that a director of the IDF is also on the board
of an Arab investment company that was refuelling the American
warship USS Cole last year when it was attacked in Yemen on the
orders of Bin Laden. The company was cleared of any involvement.
The alleged links between the Bin Mahfouz family, which has an
estimated fortune of Pounds 2.5 billion, and the Bin Laden money
network will be a severe embarrassment to the Saudi rulers.
The IDF charity, based in Curzon Street, central London, was named
publicly last week in a French parliamentary report as having
"points of contact" with Bin Laden's organisation.
The report also stated that a subsidiary of Sedco, a Bin Mahfouz
family company based in Saudi Arabia, was "suspected by the US of
having made donations to Osama Bin Laden".
According to records filed with the Charity Commission last year,
the directors of the IDF include Abdelelah, Saleh, Mohammed and
Ahmed Bin Mahfouz. Their listed address is the Sedco headquarters in
Saudi Arabia. The Bin Mahfouz family is one of the most successful
trading clans in the Middle East.
The allegations against the IDF and the Sedco subsidiary, which are
all strongly denied by the family, come as Saudi Arabia is
confronted by growing criticism that its companies and charities may
have provided, knowingly or unwittingly, funding for Bin Laden's
Al-Qaeda network.
An intelligence report published as an annex to a French
parliamentary report last week named more than 40 organisations
registered in Britain with possible links to Bin Laden, including
the IDF.
Khalid Bin Mahfouz, the former president of the National Commercial
Bank in Saudi Arabia, is believed to be under investigation in Saudi
Arabia after allegations that he channelled money to Bin Laden.
Other members of the family involved in Sedco say they are no longer
connected to Khalid Bin Mahfouz and do not in any way support Bin
Laden. "The Bin Mahfouzes are a very, very established family and
Osama Bin Laden is anathema to them," said one source close to the
family.
New York Times , October 13, 2001, JEFF GERTH and JUDITH MILLER
Yasin al-Qadi is among the prominent Saudis who those in need of
charity or shrewd business advice could turn to. But the United
States government now says that Mr. Qadi and many other
well-connected Saudi citizens have transferred millions of dollars
to Osama bin Laden through charities and trusts like the Muwafaq
Foundation supposedly established to feed the hungry, house the poor
and alleviate suffering.
In describing Muwafaq, which means "Blessed Relief" in Arabic, as a
front for Mr. bin Laden's terror network, the Bush administration
has put Saudi Arabia, one of its most important Middle East allies,
in a delicate bind.
The Muwafaq Foundation has been administered by some of the
kingdom's leading families. Mr. Qadi, a businessman and investor,
was cited yesterday on a list of those who support terrorism.
The foundation, however, was not mentioned. The reason,
administration officials said, was the inability of United States
officials to locate the charity or determine whether it is still in
operation.
A statement accompanying the list yesterday said this about the
foundation: "Muwafaq is an al-Qaeda front that receives funding from
wealthy Saudi businessmen. Blessed Relief is the English
translation. Saudi businessmen have been transferring millions of
dollars to bin Laden through Blessed Relief."
In 1995, the trustees of the Muwafaq Foundation filed a libel suit
in London against the newsletter Africa Confidential for linking the
foundation to terrorist activities in Africa. The publication lost
the lawsuit.
Court papers in that case, provided by Steven Emerson, a writer and
commentator on terrorism, list the trustees as Mr. Qadi (under the
spelling Yassin Quadi) and five others, including two members of the
bin Mahfouz family.
"They are the creme de la creme of Saudi society," said Patrick
Smith, editor of Africa Confidential. The bin Mahfouz family
controls the National Commercial Bank of Saudi Arabia, which is the
kingdom's largest bank and is the banker to the royal family. Sheik
Khalid bin Mahfouz paid $225 million, including a $37 million fine,
to escape possible charges in connection with the 1991 collapse of
the Bank of Credit and Commerce International. . Mr. Qadi -- under
the spelling Kadi -- is a major investor and director of Global
Diamond Resources, a diamond exploration company based in San Diego,
Calif. Public records show that he is involved in real estate,
consulting, chemical and banking companies in Saudi Arabia, Turkey,
Kazakhstan and Pakistan.
The chairman of Global Diamond, Johann de Villiers, said of Mr.
Qadi, "The guy I know is a very nice guy." He said he understood
that Mr. Qadi had significant investments in the American stock
market as well as some investments in Malaysia.
Mr. de Villiers traced Mr. Qadi's investment in his company to a
meeting in London in December 1998. The meeting included an
investment banker and some other Middle Eastern investors, including
a senior member of the bin Laden family, who had invested in the
diamond company one year earlier.
The bin Laden family controls one of the most powerful business
groups in Saudi Arabia and its members have publicly disowned Osama
bin Laden.
Mr. de Villiers said it was the assurances of the bin Laden family
that gave him the confidence he needed to accept Mr. Qadi's $3
million investment in his small company.
"I relied on the representations of the bin Laden family," Mr. de
Villiers said. "They vouched for him."
Mr. de Villiers said all calls for Mr. Qadi would be directed to his
lawyer in London, Mr. Carter-Ruck.
This is not the first time that Mr. Qadi has come to the attention
of the United States government in connection with the financing of
terrorist activities. He was identified as the major source of funds
for a money-laundering scheme for the Palestinian group Hamas. The
case occurred in June 1998, when the Justice Department froze the
funds of a foundation near Chicago called the Quranic Literacy
Institute and one of its important volunteers, Muhammad A. Salah,
for funneling money to Hamas, which the State Department says is a
foreign terrorist organization.
According to court documents, the money was ultimately traced back
to Mr. Qadi.
The government said that in 1991, Mr. Qadi, whom it described as a
Saudi businessman, transferred by wire some $820,000 from a Swiss
bank account for investment purposes. The transaction was intended
to conceal the source of the money, which was from Mr. Qadi. The
government said some of the money was ultimately used by Mr. Salah
to help purchase weapons and reorganize the Hamas leadership in the
West Bank and Gaza.
The Ottawa Citizen , September 29, 2001 Two imprisoned men,
separated by half a planet and what amounts to a royal fortune, may
hold the key to unlocking the secret of how Osama bin Laden finances
his global terrorist network. But both are staying stone silent.
Khalid al-Fawwaz is an otherwise undistinguished former Nairobi car
importer who lived in a nondescript London apartment and ran an
obscure war relief group called the Advice and Reformation Committee
(ARC) in London. Now being held in Britain's maximum-security
Belmarsh prison, he faces criminal charges in the United States for
abetting the 1998 terrorist bombings of embassies in Kenya and
Tanzania, which killed or wounded nearly 4,800 people.
Khalid bin Mahfouz is a controversial, Yemeni-born tycoon worth an
estimated $2.5 billion U.S. He founded and ran the world's largest
private bank until 1999, when the Saudi royal family quietly
arranged for a government investment fund to buy out his 50-per-cent
stake in the National Commercial Bank, then forced his dismissal.
After a financial audit of the bank's $21-billion assets, Mr.
Mahfouz was confined to a military hospital in Taef, Saudi Arabia.
Some $2 billion has been reported missing. One of his sisters is
married to Mr. bin Laden.
U.S. intelligence services want to know if some of that missing
money went to phoney charities secretly funneling money to Mr. bin
Laden's al-Qaeda organization, including:
- The London-based Advice and Reformation Committee, run by Mr.
Fawwaz and founded by Mr. bin Laden;
- An Africa aid group called Blessed Relief, whose directors
included Mr. Mahfouz's son;
- A Kenya branch of Help Africa People, run by several men later
convicted or indicted for the U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and
Tanzania;
- The International Islamic Relief Organization, linked to terrorist
bomb plots in the Philippines and India;
- The Kenya branch of war and famine relief group Mercy
International, where key evidence used to convict the embassy
bombers was found;
- A host of other Islamic aid groups working from Afghanistan to
Kosovo, some of which were named by U.S. President George W. Bush
earlier this week.
U.S. efforts to follow the bin Laden money trail also include
searching the worldwide assets of dozens of banks, businesses and
ventures in the secretive Mahfouz commercial empire.
It is no easy task. The Mahfouz family still owns a 30-per-cent
stake in the National Commercial Bank, and controls worldwide assets
through a private holding company called Al Murjan. One of its
assets is Globalstar LP, which has licences for satellite broadcasts
in eight Middle Eastern countries.
Some of the Mahfouz wealth is interlocked with another Saudi sheik
and billionaire, Mohammed Hussein Al-Amoudi, who has since been
appointed to run the private bank Mr. Mahfouz founded. Its clients
include much of the Saudi royal family.
The Mahfouz/Al-Amoudi joint ventures include the port facilities in
Yemen where the USS Cole was bombed by Islamic militants while it
refueled, an alleged chemical weapons plant in Kenya that former
U.S. president Bill Clinton ordered destroyed by missiles, and a
Washington-based private company called WorldSpace, which provides
satellite-based technology and programming to rural Africa and Asia.
Mr. Mahfouz is no stranger to missing money -- or controversy. He is
a former director of the infamous BCCI international bank, which
triggered a $12-billion U.S. bankruptcy scandal in the early 1990s.
Indicted in the U.S. for a $300-million bank fraud and facing civil
claims exceeding $10 billion, he arranged a $225-million settlement
with prosecutors and agreed to a permanent prohibition on owning
banks in the U.S.
Mr. Mahfouz was also embroiled in a citizenship-for-sale scheme in
Ireland, in which foreign millionaires were secretly courted to
invest in Irish enterprises in exchange for coveted Irish passports
and lucrative tax writeoffs. Mr. Mahfouz purchased 11 passports for
Saudi and Pakistani nationals, but failed to make the promised
investments.
Is there a connection between Mr. bin Laden and the two far-flung
prisoners?
U.S. court records -- especially evidence entered by British
detectives who raided Mr. Fawwaz's apartment and the ARC office on
London's Beethoven Street in 1998 -- leave little doubt that Mr.
Fawwaz worked for Mr. bin Laden and personally knew those who were
later convicted of the African embassy bombings.
Seized computer hard drives revealed fiercely anti-American "holy
war" edicts from Mr. bin Laden, to be relayed to European Muslims
through the ARC "charity." A seized copy of the ARC founding
documents bore Mr. bin Laden's signature.
Wiretap evidence, satellite-phone and fax records confirmed that
calls were made to or from the now-convicted African embassy bombers
and Mr. bin Laden's military lieutenant in Pakistan, Mohammed Atef
(who is charged with Mr. bin Laden in the African embassy bombings).
Seized bank records showed that Mr. Fawwaz held the signing
authority for a Barclay's account for ARC.
The U.S. court records, and testimony from former bin Laden
insiders, also indicate that Mr. Fawwaz purchased mobile phone
technology that Mr. bin Laden or his aides used to make 140 calls to
London and the Kenya bomb group from Afghanistan.
Seizures in Nairobi turned up phone bills for Mercy International in
Mr. Fawwaz's name, and calls to that office from Mr. bin Laden's
satellite phone. Much of the evidence used to convict four of the
embassy bomb plotters in a later U.S. trial was found at the
charity's Kenya office.
A former Mercy International staffer in Ireland, Hamid Aich, had
earlier shared a Vancouver suburb apartment for three years with
Abdelmajid Dahoumane, the accused accomplice of convicted millennium
bomb plotter Ahmed Ressam. (Mr. Ressam, part of an Algerian bin
Laden cell based in Montreal, has testified that he and Mr.
Dahoumane concocted bomb ingredients to blow up the Los Angeles
airport at a Vancouver motel in December, 1999.)
Mr. Ressam was caught at the U.S. border with the explosives in his
car trunk, and convicted after a U.S. trial this year. Mr. Dahoumane
fled Canada, facing criminal warrants here and in the U.S. He is
believed to be in Afghanistan. Mr. Aich was arrested in Ireland, but
released before police realized his connection to the Canadian-based
Algerians. His whereabouts is unknown.
Mr. Fawwaz has denied any involvement in the terrorist bombings
linked to Mr. bin Laden, and is fighting extradition from Britain to
the United States. The evidence being used to support his transfer
to the U.S. has not been tested at trial.
The U.S. has not filed any indictments against Mr. Mahfouz, and
there is no public evidence linking him to any of the terrorist
attacks against U.S. targets. However, the Saudi royal family
restricted his travel last year after U.S. officials shared
financial evidence gleaned from investigations following the 1993
World Trade Center bombing, and subsequent terrorist attacks against
the USS Cole, U.S. military barracks near Riyadh, and the African
embassies, a failed 1996 plot to bomb 12 airliners over the Pacific,
and a failed plot to bomb U.S. consular offices in India.
American officials had earlier convinced governments in Dubai, the
United Arab Emirates, and Britain to close bank accounts they had
linked to Mr. bin Laden. U.S. press reports have disclosed that some
wealthy Persian Gulf businessmen also were being "tithed" -- or
bribed -- millions to fund Islamic charities that acted as fronts
for Mr. bin Laden. One Associated Press report estimated the
donations at $50 million, and another reported that even Saudi
pension funds were being routed to the phony charities.
According to Indian police, a Bangladeshi man caught with explosives
destined for U.S. consulates in India confessed to being a former
worker for the International Islamic Relief Organization, and said
the IIRO president had personally attended a meeting to plan the
bomb attacks.
The Philippines chapter of the IIRO was formerly headed by Mr. bin
Laden's brother-in-law, and was fingered as a front for Mr. bin
Laden by a man later convicted in the 1993 World Trade Center
bombings. Mr. Mahfouz's son was on the board of Blessed Relief in
Sudan, a group reportedly linked to the 1995 attempted assassination
of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak in Ethiopia.
A Lebanese-born U.S. citizen based in Kenya, later convicted of
aiding the African embassy bombings, testified that he began working
for the bin Laden network after being recruited for the Islamic
relief agency Al Kifa by al-Qaeda military boss Mohammed Atef.
He later served as a senior business aide to Mr. bin Laden in Sudan,
then through Kenya-based groups that combined legitimate aid work
and covert al-Qaeda business, such as preparing false passports,
masking travel by bomb plotters, and exchanging money and reports
with the bin Laden group in Afghanistan. Some of the convicted or
at-large indicted bombers had previously worked for Help Africa
People.
Mr. Mahfouz was a major investor with sheik Al-Amoudi in the
$100-million El Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Kenya, which was
destroyed by U.S. missiles weeks after the embassies were bombed.
The Clinton administration claimed the CIA had earlier detected bomb
ingredients in the soil nearby. Yet subsequent lab tests and court
actions leave little doubt the El Shifa plant was producing only
human and veterinary drugs.
The nominal owner, now based in London and a long-time accountant to
Mr. Mahfouz, later sued the U.S. government, which quietly settled
the case and unfroze his assets in the United States.
The U.S. counter-strike against the El Shifa plant was almost
certainly aimed at an innocent target. A simultaneous U.S. cruise
missile barrage aimed at Mr. bin Laden himself in his Afghan hideout
missed its intended target.
Those retaliatory strikes enraged many in the Muslim world, and may
have prompted covert donations to the bin Laden cause from some of
the Persian Gulf's wealthy businessmen. They also drew the wrath of
military governments in countries like Yemen, Sudan and Ethiopia,
where the Mahfouz/Al-Amoudi group often gets preferential projects.
One example is the multibillion-dollar project to modernize the
shipping facilities in the Yemeni capital of Aden, completed a year
before the USS Cole was hit there by a suicide barge. The lead
investor and builder was the Mahfouz/Al-Amoudi Group, through their
companies Yeminvest and Yemen Holdings Ltd.
Mr. Mahfouz and Mr. bin Laden were both born in Yemen, and are
revered by many Yemenis. A U.S. probe into the terrorist attack
there has been stymied by the Yemeni government, which openly
supports a "holy war" against the U.S., and has vowed to provide
sanctuary for jihad militants.
http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~pdscott/q4c.html
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'Wahhabi lobby' polarizing FBI Culture of political correctness
clashes with war on terrorism
July 13, 2003
As FBI agents in the field moved in on a dozen suspected terrorists
running recruitment operations in Northern Virginia, a senior FBI
official appeared June 26 before a Senate Homeland Security panel
and avoided testifying about what senators had called him to
discuss. The issues were sponsorship of pro-terrorist ideology,
extremist political action and terrorist recruitment financed from
Saudi Arabia, supposedly a U.S. ally.
Well into the war on terrorism, the FBI is a house divided. On one
side, agents are wrapping up terrorist-support networks coast to
coast that include radicalized American Muslims bent on unleashing a
murderous jihad against their own country. On the other side, in
Washington, a culture of political correctness seems to have settled
in the bureau's upper management, which some insiders describe as a
Clinton-like pandering to the latest favored victim group.
Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States, a
favorite self-proclaimed victim has been an aggressive band of
Washington-based groups that purport to represent the nation's
Muslims and hyphenated Arabs. That constituency is known as the
"Wahhabi lobby" for many of its members' alleged ties to Saudi
Arabia, whose state religion is considered by many to be an
extremist and violent Wahhabi sect of Islam.
Sources say the FBI has silenced a senior counterterrorism agent,
Robert Wright of the Chicago field office, for exposing how senior
figures in the bureau blocked investigations of al-Qaida terror
networks inside the United States prior to Sept. 11, and for
complaining that a Muslim special agent, Gamel Abdel-Hafiz, refused
to wear a wire when questioning terror suspects, allegedly saying,
"A Muslim doesn't record another Muslim."
Wright's FBI colleague, John Vincent, says he also was called off
pre-Sept. 11 cases and has been speaking in Wright's stead. Wright
is receiving legal counsel from David Schippers, the Chicago
attorney who led the House commission to impeach President Bill
Clinton. Schippers tells Insight the Wright case is symptomatic of
out-of-control political correctness at the FBI.
Meanwhile, senior administration officials tell Insight that FBI
Director Robert Mueller was under orders from an unnamed senior
White House campaign strategist to appease Muslim and Arab-American
groups that have been complaining noisily that federal
counterterrorism efforts are impinging on their civil rights.
Mueller was widely criticized both inside the bureau and out for
addressing the June 2002 national convention of the American Muslim
Council. An FBI spokesman defended Mueller's appearance on grounds
that the AMC was one of the most "mainstream" organizations in
Washington. This proved especially embarrassing to the director
when, at the very time of the Mueller speech, AMC spokesman Eric
Vickers appeared on Fox News and MSNBC and refused, under
questioning, to denounce by name terrorist groups such as Hamas,
Hezbollah and al-Qaida.
Mueller and other top FBI officials have met subsequently with the
AMC and other high-profile Washington groups, including the Council
on American-Islamic Relations, that claim to be mainstream but seem
to antiterrorism specialists to be more opposed to the FBI's efforts
to fight terrorism than to the terrorists themselves.
The FBI says it holds such meetings to build relations with
Arab-American and Muslim communities. But some of its interlocutors
are using those relations against the FBI's counterterrorism
efforts, say careful observers of the Wahhabi lobby. Representatives
of those groups reportedly have used these high-profile meetings to
credentialize themselves while serving as character witnesses for
terrorism suspects arrested by the FBI.
In one case, the activists defended suspected Palestinian Islamic
Jihad leader Sami Al-Arian, the former University of South Florida
professor arrested earlier this year under a 50-count terrorism
indictment. For the previous two years, Al-Arian was the lobbying
coordinator at the American Muslim Council conventions, working to
organize efforts on Capitol Hill to weaken U.S. antiterrorism laws,
according to the programs of the 2000 and 2001 AMC conferences.
According to testimony at the June 26 hearing of the Senate
Judiciary subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland
Security, the FBI has retained members of the vocal Wahhabi lobby to
run "sensitivity-training" classes at the FBI Academy in Quantico,
Va. The FBI official the subcommittee called to address the Wahhabi
issue, Larry A. Mefford, assistant director of the counterterrorism
division, did not discuss it.
Overall, some senior FBI leaders have shown a barely concealed
contempt for Attorney General John Ashcroft, the man who has been
instrumental in persuading Congress to broaden the bureau's
counterterrorism powers. Relations between the attorney general and
FBI Director Mueller are said to be cool. Some in the FBI, claiming
to be civil libertarians, allege Ashcroft is too aggressive in going
after terrorist suspects and their support networks. As yet there is
no reform of the federal investigative and law-enforcement services
along the lines of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's painful but
potent transformation of the military.
The FBI has gone out of its way to avoid talking about Saudi state
sponsorship of terrorism. Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., chairman of the
Senate subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security,
called the June 26 hearing to discuss that very issue.
"The problem we are looking at today," Kyl told Mefford,
specifically citing Wahhabism and Saudi Arabia, "is the
state-sponsored doctrine and funding of an extremist ideology that
provides the recruiting grounds, support infrastructure and monetary
lifeblood of today's international terrorists."
http://www.libertypost.org/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=18727
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Saudi Money Aiding bin Laden
by Jack Kelley
USA Today
October 29, 1999
WASHINGTON - More than a year after the U.S. Embassy bombings in
East Africa, prominent businessmen in Saudi Arabia continue to
transfer tens of millions of dollars to bank accounts linked to
indicted terrorist Osama bin Laden, senior U.S. intelligence
officials told USA Today.
The money transfers, which began more than five years ago, have been
used to finance several terrorist acts by bin Laden, including the
attempted assassination in 1995 of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak
in Ethiopia, the officials said.
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright is expected to raise the issue
with Prince Sultan, the Saudi defense minister, during his visit to
Washington next week. Saudi Arabia, the main U.S. ally in the
Persian Gulf, has pledged to fight terrorism.
According to a Saudi government audit acquired by U.S. intelligence,
five of Saudi Arabia's top businessmen ordered the National
Commercial Bank (NCB), the kingdom's largest, to transfer personal
funds, along with $3 million diverted from a Saudi pension fund, to
New York and London banks.
The money was deposited into the accounts of Islamic charities,
including Islamic Relief and Blessed Relief, that serve as fronts
for bin Laden.
The businessmen, who are worth more than $5 billion, are paying bin
Laden "protection money" to stave off attacks on their businesses in
Saudi Arabia, intelligence officials said. Bin Laden, whose family
runs the largest Saudi construction firm, has called for the
overthrow of the Saudi government.
The money transfers were discovered in April after the royal family
ordered an audit of NCB and its founder and former chairman, Khalid
bin Mahfouz, U.S. officials say. Mahfouz is now under "house arrest"
at a military hospital in the Saudi city of Taif, intelligence
officials said.
His successor, Mohammad Hussein Al-Amoudi, also heads the Capitol
Trust Bank in New York and London, which U.S. and British officials
are investigating for allegedly transferring money to bin Laden.
Amoudi's Washington lawyer, Vernon Jordan, could not be reached for
comment.
Mahfouz's son, Abdul Rahman Mahfouz, is on the board of Blessed
Relief in Sudan. Suspects in the Mubarak attack are linked to the
charity.
Bin Laden faces U.S. criminal charges for allegedly masterminding
the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that
killed 224 people. Bin Laden, who is in Afghanistan, denies the
charges.
Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar bin Sultan declined to comment on the
reports.
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline/1990s/usatoday102999.html