April 2, 2002	Tuesday	Muharram 18,1423

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PARIS, April 1: A special report, prepared by Anne Le Lorier for the French finance ministry on the financial aspects of international terrorism, claims that the cost of organizing the last Sept 11 attacks on the United States was “less than US$1 million.”

Le Lorier’s report was commissioned by the finance minister Laurent Fabius as part of a study of how France, and the European Union, might better control financial flows making them less accessible to terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda.

Her 50-page report, which is classified as confidential, is based on information obtained from interviews with several dozen high-level officials of the finance and justice ministries of France and other unidentified European Union member countries, not to mention those of the United States, also the secret services of France and other EU countries, especially France’s three crack agencies that have specialized in anti-terrorism, the Renseignements Generaux (RG), Direction de la surveillance du territoire (DST, the French FBI), and Direction generale de la securite exterieure (DGSE, the French CIA).

Another result of her report was the recent decision by French judicial authorities to investigate possible money laundering by financial interests linked to the family of Osama bin Laden, notably the several companies associated with SICO (Saudi Investment Company), the Geneva-based group that is headed by Yeslam Bin Laden, a half-brother of Osama, which manages a large part of the holdings of Binladin Group (SBG), which was founded by Osama’s father.

As for the cost of organizing the Sept 11 attacks, Le Lorier points out that the sum she puts forth is effectively “more than might be expected” for the preparation of such operations, “and represents the expense of financing the ‘double-life’ of the terrorists.”

Financing, she points out, had to be provided not only for the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center but also for the cost of living of the 19 participants in the attacks, during the several weeks preceding Sept 11, most of whom were living as students in the United States.

The author of the report notes that a careful watch over international financial flows preceding the attack had resulted in revelation of credit transfers used to finance Sept 11 - notably one for US$69,985 to the order of Mohammed Atta, the ringleader of the Al Qaeda group that allegedly prepared the attacks.

Although the transaction was remarked as it made its way through US banking circuits, and was signalled to authorities, unfortunately, notes Le Lorier, “it got lost in the mass of the 125,000 documents” received annually by Finacen, the US agency charged with tracking do