August 30, 2002	Friday	Jamadi-us-Saani 20, 1423

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UNITED NATIONS, Aug 29: The UN officials on Thursday refused to comment on a report leaked to a US paper which said that the global campaign to stop Al Qaeda from its money has stalled, giving Osama bin Laden’s network access to a fresh infusion of tens of millions of dollars.

When asked by Dawn to verify the contents of the report published in Washington Post, a UN spokesman said: “We refuse to comment on such a report,” adding, “we are referring all queries to the UN Security Council.”

The paper reported that according to a 43-page draft, the Al Qaeda continues to draw on funds from Osama’s personal inheritance, as well as from investments and money diverted or embezzled from charitable organizations.

The document, written by a UN monitoring group on Al Qaeda, was quoted as saying the group’s financial backers in North Africa, the Middle East and Asia manage at least $30 million in investments, with some estimates going as high as $300 million.

According to the newspaper, the draft said Al Qaeda was also suspected of having bank accounts under the names of unidentified intermediaries in Dubai, Hong Kong, London, Malaysia and Vienna and that private donations to the group are believed to continue, “largely unabated”.

“Al Qaeda is by all accounts ‘fit and well’ and poised to strike again at its leisure,” the draft report says, according to the Post.

In the months immediately after the Sept 11 attacks, the United States and other UN members froze more than $112 million in assets belonging to suspected Al Qaeda members and supporters. But in the past eight months, only $10 million had been frozen, the paper said, citing the UN report.

The paper said the UN panel lists a number of factors that it says has hampered the effort to shut down Al Qaeda’s financial network, including the group’s decision to shift its assets into precious metals and gems, lax border controls in several European countries and the failure of the United States and other governments to provide complete information about the suspected Al Qaeda members.

The officials and diplomats here speculate that the report was prematurely leaked to an American paper by a Western diplomat of the Security council.