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| January 8, 2002 | Tuesday | Shawwal 23, 1422 |
US extends attacks probe overseas
WASHINGTON, Jan 7: With investigations carried out domestically to discover the sources of funding of the hijackers believed to be involved in the September attacks coming to an end, US authorities are said to be turning their attention to individuals and organizations overseas suspected of providing financial cover for Al Qaeda.
According to a report in Monday’s Washington Post, the financial hub of the money transfers made to the alleged hijackers in the US was the United Arab Emirates, but financial systems in Pakistan and Germany were also used to send money to accounts held by the hijackers.
The central financial figure has been identified by US prosecutors as Mustafa Ahmad Al-Hawsawi, who uses many aliases and who, the Post report says, was in Karachi before the Sept attacks, and then disappeared.
Investigators here are reported to have accounted for more than $325,000 spent on the attacks, the money being traced through credit card receipts, withdrawals from automatic teller machines and other transactions. The rest of the money for the $500,000-operation was in cash.
The US is stated to have so far frozen more than $33 million in assets of more than 150 individuals and organizations, and a similar amount has been frozen in bank accounts overseas by 142 other countries that are backing the American effort.
Lashkar-i-Tayyaba and Umma Tameer-i-Nau (run by two former scientists of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission) were recently placed on the US financial blacklist, and the Lashkar was also later formally designated as a terrorist organization by the State Department (so was Jaish-i-Mohammad).
The Post says the probe so far has confirmed an early belief that the financing of the hijackings was “remarkably disciplined and well-organized”, relying largely on a steady influx of money through wire transfers from foreign bank accounts tied to Osama bin Laden associates.
The effort has also provided a “key piece of evidence” against Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person in the US charged in connection with the Sept attacks. Moussaoui, a French national, allegedly received $14,000 in money orders from one Ramzi Binalshib, who has been identified as an Al Qaeda operative and is being sought by the German government.
Moussaoui did not enter a plea when he was recently arraigned before a US court, but the court ordered that this should be construed as a ‘not guilty’ plea. The trial of the suspect is set for October, which means that it will come just after the first anniversary of the Sept attacks when the atmosphere is expected to be emotionally charged.
Defence attorneys cited this fact to seek a later trial date, but their plea was turned down.
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