The Al Qaeda

The first-person accounts detailed by the prosecutors add to long-standing claims that al-Qaeda laundered millions of dollars in terror funds through African diamonds before launching its deadliest offensive.

Al-Qaeda figures, including some already wanted in pre-Sept. 11 attacks on U.S. targets, dealt directly with then-President Charles Taylor and other leaders and warlords in the West African country of Liberia from 1999 onwards, according to the accounts. The witnesses told of meetings and sightings in the seedy hotels and safehouses of Monrovia, the blighted capital of what was then a rogue nation.

Al Qaeda's alleged aim: snapping up diamonds in order to have easily convertible, untraceable resources after the first U.S.-led moves freezing al-Qaeda bank accounts and other conventional assets worldwide in 1999.

Claims of al-Qaeda's Africa diamond links remain one of the most unsettled areas in international investigations into the terror group, splitting U.S. officials and the intelligence community on the quantity and quality of the evidence.

The dossier, apparently prepared by U.N.-backed investigators for presentation recently to the Sept. 11 commission and other officials in Washington, moves the matter forward. It shows that sources interviewed by prosecutors are corroborating in detail accounts of links between al-Qaeda and West Africa that news media and independent watchdog groups have previously reported.

"It is clear that al-Qaeda has been in West Africa since September 1998 and maintained a continuous presence in the area through 2002," the U.N.-backed war-crimes investigators in West Africa, led by American David Crane, said in the confidential report obtained by the AP.

Separately, one U.S. intelligence official told the AP that evidence of an al-Qaeda-Africa diamond link now was "close to overwhelming."

The official estimated al-Qaeda proceeds in the diamond dealings at $15 million.

The roster of al-Qaeda fugitives allegedly witnessed in Liberia ahead of Sept. 11, 2001, include names that have since become infamous.

They include Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian wanted in the 1998 bombings of two African U.S. embassies, and arrested July 25 in Pakistan after an intense gunbattle.

Other al-Qaeda figures placed in Liberia by direct sources cited in the dossier:

• Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, a native of east Africa's Comoros islands, accused in 1998 and 2002 al-Qaeda attacks in east Africa. Mohammed is wanted under a $25 million U.S. bounty.

• Egyptian Mohammed Atef, an alleged Osama bin Laden military chief, killed in Afghanistan in 2001.

• Pakistani Aafia Siddiqui, the only prominent female figure in al-Qaeda, considered by the United States to be a likely "fixer" for the group in the United States and elsewhere. Media reports have said Siddiqui was in Monrovia to iron out problems between other al-Qaeda operatives.

• Kenyan Sheik Ahmed Salim Swedan, wanted in the 1998 attacks in east Africa.

While the others are alleged to have largely scattered outside Africa after the Sept. 11 attacks, the dossier suggests Abdullah may have remained active — citing "source information" linking Abdullah to diamond smuggling in neighboring Guinea.

Witnesses depict Liberia's former president, Taylor, himself giving the al-Qaeda operatives entree to the shady West African world of guns, cash and diamonds before Sept. 11.

Taylor, who has since been ousted and is now in exile in Nigeria, allegedly brought together rebels, state leaders and Islamic extremists under the common goal of cash.

Accounts in the report include an alleged September 1998 get-together at Taylor's executive mansion where middlemen introduced him to Abdullah.

The Liberian leader subsequently directed the al-Qaeda figure to rebels controlling the mining of fine gems in neighboring, diamond-rich Sierra Leone, the investigators quote sources as saying.

The following year, Ghailani and Mohammed met Taylor at his private home in Monrovia.

Abdullah later ordered Ghailani and Mohammed to do al-Qaeda's diamond-buying, "because they were of African descent and would not arouse any suspicion," the dossier quotes one of its main sources as saying.

The report also cites a "highly credible source" as placing former al-Qaeda No. 2 Atef and Ghailani in Monrovia, at times meeting with diamond-dealing rebels, in 1999 and 2000.

However, neither this dossier nor other official accounts to reach the public have offered any direct proof that al-Qaeda used diamond profits to fund the Sept. 11 attacks. The Sept. 11 commission estimates the 2001 attacks cost al-Qaeda more than a half-million dollars to pull off.

The current dossier was put together by prosecutors trying war crimes in Sierra Leone, where rebels waged a 1991-2002 terror campaign bent on gaining control of that country's government and diamond fields.

Taylor, accused of backing the rebels, is the U.N.-Sierra Leone court's top surviving indicted suspect. The tribunal is pushing for Taylor's extradition from Nigeria, where he fled after opposition forces and international pressure routed him from Liberia's capital in August 2003.

Those making the link between al-Qaeda and Africa diamonds charge the U.S. government has turned its back on the case in part over discomfort over the CIA's own alleged Cold War-era links to Taylor.

One problem for those trying to put together a case for evidence of al-Qaeda in Africa diamond-dealing: much of the evidence cited has been from the disreputable figures involved in the dealing themselves.

When Americans gave one of the key sources a polygraph test early on, he failed, the AP was told.

There was other corroborating evidence at the time, but circumstantial: a tightening of the region's diamond markets at the time al-Qaeda was allegedly cornering millions in small- and medium-size gems, according to Western officials.

Other evidence is emerging more recently, intelligence officials, investigators and analysts told the AP. They said the evidence includes phone calls linking alleged al-Qaeda middlemen and diamond-dealers, and information from al-Qaeda suspects captured and interrogated since Sept. 11.

U.N.-backed investigators, including Crane, have been anxious the United States recognize the al-Qaeda-diamond link — hoping it would spur U.S. pressure for Taylor's extradition on the war-crimes indictments.

One such investigator went before the Sept. 11 commission to present the war-crimes' court's evidence on al-Qaeda in West Africa, commission spokesman Al Felzenberg confirmed, without identifying the investigator.

The commission's final report made clear its position, however: "No persuasive evidence exists that al-Qaeda ... funded itself through trafficking in diamonds from African states engaged in civil wars."

"We're confident in the thoroughness of our staff in assessing what they were given, and we stand by the report and their conclusions," Felzenberg said Friday.

••Al Qaeda Targeted On Horn Of Africa
WASHINGTON, Nov. 8, 2002

The Pentagon is sending an estimated 1,000 more Americans to help track down al Qaeda around the Horn of Africa, where the yearlong war on terrorism has produced few visible results so far.

And the troops could launch missions to catch terrorists in vast lawless areas of the region even if they don't have permission from the local governments, Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke suggested Friday.

"There may be circumstances where we go into an ungoverned area in pursuit of al Qaeda, and I'll just leave it at that," she said in response a question at a Pentagon press conference.

The amphibious command ship USS Mount Whitney — to be used as a floating headquarters off the coast of Djibouti — will leave its Norfolk, Va., homeport Tuesday, officials said. Two days later it will depart with Marines from Camp Lejeune, N.C., who'll coordinate military operations in the African region, base spokesman Maj. Steve Cox said Friday.

"This is ... focused on looking for al Qaeda, looking for terrorist cells and dealing with them expeditiously, and directly," Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Jones said Thursday.

The Mount Whitney has a Navy crew of some 560, and members of the 2nd Marine Division who will help set up the command center in Djibouti probably will number about 400, officials said.

The Americans will join a multinational force of thousands already in Africa — including some who have been trying to catch terrorists there since al Qaeda began fleeing Afghanistan a year ago. There are 700 to 800 Americans at a French military base in Djibouti, deployed several months ago for what defense officials would describe only as "training and contingencies."

Countries and waterways in and around the Horn of Africa long have been plagued by terrorist activity. Al Qaeda and others hide, pass through, train, organize, ship weapons, plot and launch attacks there, U.S. intelligence and defense officials say.

Defense officials have been unwilling or unable to name all the countries or the numbers of terrorists they believe may be there.

In addition to Americans already in Djibouti, there are more than 2,000 French troops and about 1,000 Germans, as well as a number of British forces. The international coalition has flown reconnaissance missions along the coast of East Africa. A ship interdiction program started last year to catch al Qaeda escaping by sea from Afghanistan has caught no one in area, officials have said, though they say the questioning of crews on passing vessels has netted much valuable intelligence and that their understanding of what is going on in the region has improved.

Though there have been highly publicized arrests of terror suspects in Europe, North Africa, Pakistan and Asia, no success of that type have been claimed in the Horn of Africa region, with the exception of Yemen. Across the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandab Strait from Djibouti, Yemen is a main concern in the region and said to be one of the highest priorities of the new Marine new task force.

Yemen is the ancestral home of Osama bin Laden and the site of the deadly October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole as well as last month's bombing of the French tanker Limburg. The Yemeni government says it has arrested hundreds of terror suspects — and the CIA last week killed a suspect in the Cole and tanker attacks — but the country has remained a dangerous terrorist haven despite joint efforts by its government and the international counterterror coalition.

The size of the terrorist problem in the region has never been clear. Officials no longer assert, for instance, that there are terrorist training camps in Somalia, as feared after the attacks Sept. 11, 2001, against the United States.

But the region is still regarded as a potential haven for terrorists with its porous borders, as well as harsh terrain and lack of resources that make it difficult for even willing governments to tackle a terrorist problem. Vast lawless areas and large Muslim populations in the region also make it fertile ground for terrorist sanctuaries, officials say. In the 1990s, Muslim extremists such as bin Laden found a haven in another Horn of Africa nation, Sudan.

Pentagon officials are considering several countries in the region for counterterror operations and counterterror training of local African forces, two defense officials said Thursday on condition of anonymity. They noted that the region the task force will oversee also includes Ethiopia and Eritrea, but declined to say what countries they have specific plans for.

The task force headquarters initially will operate aboard the ship on the Red Sea, and later move the command post ashore, one official said.

Officials described the establishment of the task force as a significant step forward in the global war on terrorism, likening it to a similar command running operations in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Richard Myers said at a Brooking Institution dinner Monday that the U.S. military is losing momentum in Afghanistan because remnants of al Qaeda and the Taliban have proved more successful in adapting to U.S. tactics than the U.S. military has to theirs.

Myers also said there is debate within the Pentagon about whether the United States needs to change its priorities in Afghanistan and de-emphasize military operations in favor of more support for reconstruction efforts, according to a transcript released by the think tank.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/11/08/attack/printable528690.shtml

EUCOM Deputy: Al Qaeda 'Has An Interest In North Africa'

WASHINGTON, March 9, 2004 – Al Qaeda operatives flushed out of Afghanistan and other locales have likely cast their eyes on the continent of Africa as a source for new recruits and funding, a senior U.S. military officer said March 8.

"There has, without a doubt, been some al Qaeda presence in portions of North Africa," Air Force Gen. Charles F. Wald told reporters during a roundtable discussion at the State Department's Foreign Press Center here.

Wald, the deputy commander for U.S. European Command, noted to reporters he'd recently returned from an 11-nation trip to Africa. EUCOM's area of responsibility extends from the North Cape of Norway, through the waters of the Baltic and Mediterranean seas, most of Europe, parts of the Middle East, to the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. Wald pointed to Algeria as a potential terrorist hot spot, noting that that nation has been fighting terrorist insurgents for years.

For example, he related that an Algerian terrorist group had announced about four months ago that it was associated with al Qaeda. "Now, whether al Qaeda has agreed to that or not, we don't know," Wald remarked. But, he pointed out, the Algerian group "made the statement they want to be associated with al Qaeda."

Successful U.S.-coalition military, financial and other campaigns waged against al Qaeda have taken their toll, Wald pointed out, noting the terrorist network "has been disrupted quite a bit."

"They're not gone. We know that," the four-star general acknowledged. "But," he added, "it's been more difficult for them to operate."

Having been kicked out of previous havens like Afghanistan, Wald said al Qaeda is probably marketing itself to disaffected elements in the world community – to include those in Africa.

"They're out franchising different organizations" to help them bolster their numbers, Wald pointed out.

Al Qaeda, Wald said, also has an interest in other parts of Africa. Some West African nations, he pointed out, have limited ability to govern isolated areas, or to monitor and stop gun-running and drug and people trafficking. Profits derived from those illicit activities, he noted, can be used to fund terrorist organizations. The terror organization also has been interested in African diamond smuggling "as a funding source," the general noted.

Wald said Al Qaeda is simply looking "for other places that are conducive for them to operate in." North Africa is a huge area that's very difficult to control militarily, he pointed out, noting the United States -- in partnership with its African allies -- can "help with that."

ast Africa is no stranger to Islamic militancy. The region has been the victim of a series of al-Qaeda related attacks against predominately U.S. interests. Due to the large population of Muslims in many of the region's states, it has the potential to become fertile breeding ground to al-Qaeda's religious rhetoric. Through the argument of conducting a "defensive jihad" against the United States, al-Qaeda has been able to recruit East Africans in missions aimed at endangering U.S. interests in the region.

A History of Al-Qaeda Related Militancy in East Africa

Islamist activity targeted at U.S. interests is a relatively new phenomenon in East Africa. While the region's recent history has been plagued with inter-religious violence, the objectives of such violence have been for state or regional control, and not an attempt to weaken the power and influence of foreign powers.

Al-Qaeda, however, has had some success in recruiting East African Muslims to conduct guerrilla operations with transnational objectives. These operations have primarily been to attack U.S. interests.

The first major attack took place in August 1998. Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for bombing the American embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The attacks killed hundreds of people and coincided with the anniversary of the first deployment of U.S. troops to Saudi Arabia in 1990. The U.S. troop commitment to Saudi Arabia has been one of the central motives behind al-Qaeda's attacks against the United States. [See: "The Threat of Al-Qaeda and the Islamic Revolutionary Movement"]

Four years later, in November 2002, an al-Qaeda conducted hotel bombing in Mombasa, Kenya killed more than a dozen people at the Israeli-owned Paradise Hotel. Minutes before the hotel bombing came an unsuccessful attempt to shoot down an Israeli airliner with a shoulder-held, surface-to-air missile. These attacks were meant to coincide with the 55th anniversary of the partition of Palestine.

In addition to these direct attacks, al-Qaeda is believed to have supported various Muslim militant organizations in East Africa, most notably the Somali Islamist organization Al-Ittihad al-Islami (A.I.A.I.). A.I.A.I.'s central objective is to create an Islamic government based on Islamic law in what is now Ethiopia and Somalia. The group follows the more radical Saudi-based Wahhabi form of Islam, also followed by bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network.

Washington believes that bin Laden sent al-Qaeda fighters, who had formerly fought in Afghanistan against the Soviet occupation there, to Somalia in 1991-1992 to help A.I.A.I. organize itself militarily, in addition to giving advice on how to set up social services for the Somali people. U.S. officials also contend that bin Laden spent approximately $3 million to send fighters from the Afghan resistance to Somalia to help set up an Islamic republic there. The goal of al-Qaeda in supporting A.I.A.I. is to turn the organization into a popular force in Somalia, in the hopes of A.I.A.I. seizing power from the Somali regime.

While A.I.A.I. managed to conduct a series of attacks in Ethiopia and Somalia, its power has been dramatically reduced ever since 1996, when it provoked the Ethiopian military to launch a series of cross-border raids into Somalia that successfully damaged the operational capability of A.I.A.I.

There is also the concern that al-Qaeda is exploiting the general lawlessness of East Africa to establish military training facilities there, where militants are taught guerrilla warfare techniques and then sent to select countries throughout the world to plan and execute attacks on U.S. interests. This concern is especially prevalent now considering that the U.S. invasion and occupation of Afghanistan has eliminated the primary country where these facilities were formerly located, forcing al-Qaeda to move its training operations elsewhere.

Washington's Counter-Terrorism Efforts

The Bush administration has recognized the potential threat that East Africa poses to U.S. interests. To counter this threat, an agreement was reached with the East African state of Djibouti, approving the establishment of a U.S. military base at Camp Lemonier, a former French military barracks. Since May 2003, from this base, approximately 1,500 U.S. troops have been engaged in humanitarian and counter-terrorism efforts, such as using the base as a launching point for unmanned Predator drone aircraft that are often utilized to monitor and attack al-Qaeda related militants in the region.

Furthermore, the Djibouti base is just across the Strait of Bab El Mande from Yemen, an Arab Muslim state that was the staging area for a suicide boat attack on the American guided-missile destroyer USS Cole in October 2000, blowing a large hole in the side of the ship and killing 17 U.S. sailors. Indeed, in November 2002, the U.S. military killed a group of suspected al-Qaeda militants in Yemen by firing a Hellfire missile from an unmanned Predator drone aircraft about 100 miles east of Sanaa. In the words of U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, "…there is no question but that there are al-Qaeda in Yemen."

Also to combat the al-Qaeda threat, the Bush administration has lent military support to the government of Ethiopia, which has been successfully combating the Islamist organization A.I.A.I. for years. As stated by Major Tsegaye Debela of the Ethiopian Air Force, and an advisor to the U.S. mission in East Africa, "[Terrorism] is not new for our country. Most of the people are appreciative of what the coalition forces, mostly U.S., are doing in Ethiopia."

The U.S. military does not plan on walking away from East Africa anytime soon. Marine Colonel Craig S. Huddleston, the chief of staff for the Djibouti-based Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa, recently told the American military publication Stars and Stripes, "I think we're going to be here long enough for the nations of the region to work together with all our other partners in the war on terrorism to eliminate the threat here. That's why I think it will take awhile."

Is Al-Qaeda a Minor Threat to U.S. Interests in East Africa?

Generally speaking, al-Qaeda is a minor threat to U.S. interests in East Africa. The populations in East African countries remain largely tied to their ethnic and tribal associations, rather than strictly to their religious ones. Because of this, they are much more likely to engage in national resistance struggles, rather than transnational ones. Nevertheless, al-Qaeda's attractive ideology of the need for a "defensive jihad" against U.S. forces has the potential of converting many East African Muslims to al-Qaeda's creed.

However, even if al-Qaeda were able to recruit a sizeable pool of militants in East Africa, there are not many U.S. interests for them to attack. Africa has remained a relatively forgotten continent in the United States. Attacks on U.S. and Western interests there would pose a minor threat to U.S. security.

Nonetheless, the fear of bin Laden that is prevalent in the U.S. and the West makes any rational power and interest calculation subject to error. In today's globalized economy, an attack against U.S. and Western interests anywhere in the world has the potential to cause massive investor and consumer fear, creating weakness in the global economy. Furthermore, an attack on U.S. or Western tourist facilities in East Africa could have ramifications for the tourist industry in Asia, or even Europe. By creating the impression that al-Qaeda could strike a tourist facility anywhere, bin Laden has the potential to impact the lives of Americans and Westerners wherever they are.

Additionally, the ability of al-Qaeda to set up military training facilities in East Africa could pose a serious risk to U.S. interests, since the veterans of such programs would be able to use their training to plan and execute attacks on U.S. interests across the globe.

Conclusion

Creating fear is perhaps the biggest threat that al-Qaeda poses to U.S. interests in East Africa. East Africa's large Muslim population, in addition to its many weak governments, gives al-Qaeda the opportunity to recruit and train Muslim militants for attacks against U.S. interests. While attacks on these interests within East Africa pose little real security or direct economic risk to the U.S., they have the potential of causing widespread fear and uncertainty, a horrible mix in investment-dependent economies.

The Bush administration's attempts to isolate East Africa from infiltration by al-Qaeda militants is an important step to prevent these societies from becoming religiously radicalized and finding meaning in bin Laden's rhetoric of conducting a "defensive jihad" against the United States. However, the instability and lawlessness in countries of the region, such as in Somalia and Sudan, will make it difficult for the United States to prevent al-Qaeda from effectively infiltrating East Africa. Nevertheless, because East African Muslims are not religiously polarized in the same way as are Arab Muslims, it will prove difficult for al-Qaeda to establish an effective East African force capable of launching successful attacks against U.S. interests in the region.

Report Drafted By:
Erich Marquard\

South Africa has denied media reports that top al-Qaeda figures are using the country as a base for their operations.

South African Intelligence Minister Ronnie Kasrils said such reports were greatly exaggerated.

An article in the country's Independent on Sunday newspaper had suggested that al-Qaeda's second and third tier leaders had fled to South Africa.

The article quoted a report from the Central Intelligence Agency and the United States.

Mr Kasrils said there was no evidence that South Africa was, as he put it, a frontline base for al-Qaeda.

He said that this did not mean that South Africans should not be vigilant, nor that the government was not taking the threat seriously.

He said there had been problems with members of al-Qaeda using South African passports and documentation.

A number of people suspected of being al-Qaeda members were arrested in London earlier this year with false papers from South Africa.