Indian intelligence's invaluable role in helping US

[Guest guest]

Subj: Indian intelligence played invaluable role in helping US

identify 9/11 bombers

4/2/02 4:04:13 PM Pacific Standard Time

ramn

 

The Washington Times of April 2, 2002 has an article which quotes

authoritative US sources openly acknowledging, perhaps for the first

time, the invaluable role played by Indian intelligence in helping

the Unted States identify the 19 Al Qaeda hijackers who bombed the

World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.

 

This is what the report says:

 

The Clinton administration shut down a 1995 investigation of Islamic

charities, concerned that a public probe would expose Saudi Arabia's

suspected ties to a global money-laundering operation that raised

millions for anti-Israel terrorists, federal officials told The

Washington Times.

 

Accusations that the Saudi government used charities as front

organizations to fund international terrorism are long-standing,

first surfacing 20 years ago when U.S. intelligence officials warned

Congress that the Saudis had taken over the direct funding of

terrorist groups such as Islamic Jihad and Hamas.

 

One former and three current federal law enforcement officials said

the new probe began after U.S. officials learned that intelligence

agents in India had wiretapped the telephone of a Pakistani charity

funded by the Saudi government and discovered the transfer of

$100,000 to Mohamed Atta, one of the 19 al Qaeda hijackers in the

September 11 attacks.

 

That information helped U.S. officials identify the 19 hijackers, 15

of whom were from Saudi Arabia, the officials said.

 

After the suicide strikes on the World Trade Center and the

Pentagon, the officials said Treasury's interagency task force was

created to investigate ties between charitable organizations in this

country and international terrorist groups.

 

That ongoing probe, according to the officials, has focused on

accusations that several tax-exempt and nonprofit charities

operating from Virginia to Florida have contributed millions of

dollars to international groups that support terrorism, including

Islamic Jihad and Hamas.

 

See the full article below.

 

If you would like to write to the editor of the paper, please click:

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Ram Narayanan

 

 

http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20020402-86569840.htm

 

WASHINGTON TIMES, APRIL 2, 2002

 

CLINTON WHITE HOUSE AXED TERROR-FUND PROBE

 

By Jerry Seper

THE WASHINGTON TIMES

 

The Clinton administration shut down a 1995 investigation of Islamic

charities, concerned that a public probe would expose Saudi Arabia's

suspected ties to a global money-laundering operation that raised

millions for anti-Israel terrorists, federal officials told The

Washington Times.

 

Law enforcement authorities and others close to the aborted

investigation said the State Department pressed federal officials to

pull agents off the previously undisclosed probe after the charities

were targeted in the diversion of cash to groups that fund

terrorism.

 

Former federal prosecutor John J. Loftus said four interrelated

Islamic foundations, institutes and charities in Virginia with more

than a billion dollars in assets donated by or through the Saudi

Arabian government were allowed to continue under "a veil of

secrecy."

 

"If federal agents had been allowed to conduct the investigation

they wanted in 1995, they would have made the connection between the

Saudi government and those charities," said Mr. Loftus, now a St.

Petersburg, Fla., lawyer who filed a lawsuit last week accusing a

Florida charity of fraud.

 

"Had the charities been shut down, they would have been unable to

raise the millions that since have been used by terrorists in

hundreds of suicide attacks," he said.

 

Federal agents last week began a new investigation, known

as "Operation Green Quest," into the funding by charities of

suspected terrorists, raiding 14 Islamic businesses in Virginia.

Agents from the U.S. Customs Service, Internal Revenue Service,

Immigration and Naturalization Service and FBI, coordinated by a

Treasury Department counterterrorism task force, seized two dozen

computers, along with hundreds of bank statements and other

documents.

 

Records in the case have been sealed and no arrests have been

announced, although the probe is continuing.

 

The Loftus suit, filed March 20 under the Florida Consumer

Protection Act, accuses the Saudi government in a massive scheme

involving charities in Virginia and Florida that routed cash to

terrorists.

 

The suit's main target is Sami Al-Arian, a former University of

South Florida professor who created or was associated with several

Florida charities or think tanks, including the International

Committee for Palestine, Islamic Concern Project and the now-defunct

World and Islam Studies Enterprise.

 

Warrants served by agents in the Virginia raids last week targeted,

among others, the International Institute of Islamic Thought in

Herndon, a major source of funding for Mr. Al-Arian's World and

Islam Studies Institute.

 

The warrants sought information on Islamic Jihad, Hamas, the Islamic

Concern Project, the World and Islam Studies Enterprise, and Mr. Al-

Arian. They also sought information on the SAAR Foundation, an

educational and health charity founded by the Al-Rajihi family of

Saudi Arabia.

 

The Islamic Concern Project and the World and Islam Studies

Enterprise have been named by the State Department as front

organizations that raised funds for militant Islamic-Palestinian

groups such as Islamic Jihad and Hamas. They have been tied to the

diversion of millions of dollars to terrorists for weapons, safe

haven, training and equipment.

 

Nail Al-Jubeir, spokesman for the Saudi information office in

Washington, called the accusations "simply nonsense," adding that

Saudi Arabia has cracked down on terrorists and those who fund them.

 

"There is not one iota of evidence to support these accusations,"

Mr. Al-Jubeir said. "It is nothing more than an effort to smear our

name. If there is any proof, I would suggest it be taken directly to

the U.S. government."

 

Mr. Al-Arian and Mazen Al-Najjar, director of the Islamic Concern

Project, have been the focus of federal investigations since the mid-

1990s. No criminal charges have been filed against the two, although

the government shut down the World and Islam Studies Enterprise.

 

Mr. Al-Najjar, who is Mr. Al-Arian's brother-in-law, was detained

and ordered deported by the INS on visa violations after the

September 11 attacks on America. He is being held at a federal

detention center in Florida pending appeal.

 

In the aborted 1995 investigation, the FBI said in a sealed

affidavit that the Islamic Concern Project and World and Islam

Studies Enterprise — working with charities in Virginia — committed

fraud and "served as a vehicle by which [islamic Jihad] raised funds

to support terrorist activities in the occupied territories."

 

In that probe, investigators found that checks drawn on a bank

account of the International Committee for Palestine had been cashed

by people in the Middle East. They said the checks had been signed

by Mr. Al-Arian.

 

Mr. Loftus is seeking an injunction blocking Florida charities,

including those headed by Mr. Al-Arian, from transferring "money,

weapons, equipment or communications gear" to terrorists.

 

Mr. Al-Arian has vigorously denied any wrongdoing, calling the

Loftus lawsuit a "publicity stunt." His attorney, Robert McKee, did

not return calls to his office for comment.

Julie Payne, spokeswoman for former President Bill Clinton, did not

repond to inquiries about State Department policy in 1995 during his

administration.

 

Accusations that the Saudi government used charities as front

organizations to fund international terrorism are long-standing,

first surfacing 20 years ago when U.S. intelligence officials warned

Congress that the Saudis had taken over the direct funding of

terrorist groups such as Islamic Jihad and Hamas.

 

One former and three current federal law enforcement officials said

the new probe began after U.S. officials learned that intelligence

agents in India had wiretapped the telephone of a Pakistani charity

funded by the Saudi government and discovered the transfer of

$100,000 to Mohamed Atta, one of the 19 al Qaeda hijackers in the

September 11 attacks.

 

That information helped U.S. officials identify the 19 hijackers, 15

of whom were from Saudi Arabia, the officials said.

 

After the suicide strikes on the World Trade Center and the

Pentagon, the officials said Treasury's interagency task force was

created to investigate ties between charitable organizations in this

country and international terrorist groups.

 

That ongoing probe, according to the officials, has focused on

accusations that several tax-exempt and nonprofit charities

operating from Virginia to Florida have contributed millions of

dollars to international groups that support terrorism, including

Islamic Jihad and Hamas.