Posts Tagged ‘hawala’
Another layer of funding for Taliban, al Qaeda – in Saudi Arabia
Oil is thicker than water
In August last year, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak was not happy with Saudi Arabia. He complained that the Saudis appeared to be funding an opposition candidate, Anwar Ibrahim, in upcoming elections.
What’s more, the Malaysian authorities suspected two senior Saudi princes of involvement. The Saudis launched an investigation, and uncovered something very different — and more alarming.
A secret report seen by CNN concludes: “There is no evidence any Saudi official ever supported Anwar Ibrahim” and “claims of support from the Saudi royals named in the initial report [names redacted] were found to be without basis.” But the investigation found that hundreds of millions of dollars of Saudi money had been funneled to leading Islamist politicians and political activists overseas. It also found that al Qaeda and the Taliban were still able to use Saudi Arabia for fund-raising, despite numerous measures to choke off those sources of cash.
According to a Saudi source who is not authorized to speak publically, “People close to the senior leadership of the Taliban live in Saudi Arabia and send money back” [to the Taliban].
Today he estimates the money reaching al Qaeda is “in the region of tens of thousands of dollars possibly hundreds of thousands…”
The problem facing Saudi authorities is huge, the source told CNN. “Eighty-six percent of all Islamic charities are based in Saudi Arabia” making “monitoring all their activities difficult.” The problem was compounded by several other factors, he said. Saudi Arabia “has the world’s fourth largest migrant workforce, 7 million legal workers, 3 million illegal.”
Many of them use unregulated Islamic Hawala money transfer banks where a deposit in one country can immediately be picked up in another with no paper trail to trace it. The Hawala networks were identified by the U.S. Treasury Department last year as a significant channel for funding the Taliban and other insurgent groups…
With friends like this, etc.. The Saudi royal family are vendors. We are customers for their oil. Not even clients.
We give them money. They keep our fossil fuel addiction topped up. They see no reason for filial loyalty to the United States. Especially with political commitments dedicated to Israel roughly equivalent to Alaskan statehood.
So, please, don’t pay too much attention to high-sounding declarations of comradeship in the War on Terror. Or whatever it’s called this week.
Bomb suspect got cash at doughnut shop
The Times Square terror suspect got $4,000 cash for his warped plot in a clandestine meeting at a Long Island Dunkin’ Donuts…
Faisal Shahzad drove from Connecticut to the doughnut shop near the Ronkonkoma Long Island Rail Road station to pick up his blood money, sources said.
The doughnut connection came on a day of fast-breaking developments in the probe – including the arrest of three Pakistani nationals.
Just who gave the money to Shahzad, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Pakistan, remains unclear. Authorities suspect the three men swept up in yesterday’s synchronized, four-state FBI terror sweep at least helped funnel the cash to finance the botched Times Square car bombing, which authorities have said cost about $7,000…
A fourth man, with ties to the Taliban, was arrested in Pakistan, also as an accomplice in the plot, sources said. He provided evidence that the Pakistani Taliban was behind the attack and admitted helping Shahzad get bomb-making training in Pakistan.
Uri Back, the owner of the Dunkin’ Donuts, which closed for renovations three weeks ago, told The News the feds have not questioned him.
Absolutely everyone living in the Northeast understands how good the coffee and doughnuts are at Dunkin Donuts. Even the terrorists.
