WIKILEAKS’ CABLES EXPOSE FREE FLOW OF FUNDS TO TERRORISTS

DOWN THE MIDDLE EAST CASH PIPLINES

Aronite thinking – News analysis

Bin Laden- Mumbai attack, Train bombings.

London Tube bombings, Bus bombings- Moscow Metro attack

Aronite thinking – News analysis

Although the embarrassment to the American Foreign Office was more or less curtailed,
the shock of the implications in its voluminous contents published cables running into a
stupendous 250,000 diplomatic communiqués to and fro Washington and its 270
diplomatic outposts are only now slowly sinking in-

Here is yet another hair raising sample in the latest newsbreak by New York Times in its
State‘s Secrets-

Despite the meticulous efforts of American agencies to shut down the cash freely flowing
through the financial pipelines, using the vast networks of dubious front companies to
fund Islamist Terrorists world wide, cash in millions of dollars is still flowing down the
pipeline thanks to the intransigence of its deemed allies in its global war on terror.

The report portrays the grim picture of Bank heists, kidnap for ransom, in the Middle
Eastern countries like Yemen, collection and changing of hands of free cash in millions
of riyals from Pilgrims to Hajj and drug money from Afghanistan- all not presenting a
pretty picture.

The assessment of the containment of terror threat named in the Cables Al Qaeda,
Taliban, Hamas, Lakshar e taiba and so on, is rather pessimistic and admits the frustration
over its allies such as Saudi Arabia that comes out in one earlier classified Memo of
Hillary Clinton-

“It has been an ongoing challenge to persuade Saudi officials to treat terrorist financing
emanating from Saudi Arabia as a strategic priority” it states.

The Cables similarly names Qatar as ‘the worst in the region”, identifies Kuwait as a
“Transit point”, and asking for “to generate the political will necessary” to turn off the
cash pipe line to Islamist radicals striking Afghanistan and Pakistan to destabilize the
regimes there.

Tougher measures to plug the cash flow to terrorists are resented by those it believes to
be allies in this war, for instance Kuwait which is reported in the cable communiqué as
saying that the measures asked of it are ‘draconian’ and rather feels the reasons for such
demands to act on the matter as ‘not at all convincing”
While specific identification of bank robbery in daylight viewed by American agencies as
handwork al Qaeda given its operational sophistication, is reportedly contained in the
cables-

This bold, unusual operation” could provide Al Qaeda “with a substantial

financing infusion at a time when it is thought to be short of cash,” a dispatch
summarizing the episode said.

“Terrorists avoid money transfer controls by transferring amounts below

reporting thresholds and using reliable cash couriers, hawala, and money grams,”
The confidence expressed in a February communiqué disproven by the later cables-
“Emerging trends include mobile banking, pre-paid cards, and Internet banking.”

The conclusion about Al Qaeda’s sources of funding are obvious underlined- “U.K.
financing is important, but the real money is in the Gulf,”- the cables reveal.

Making the job easier is Kuwait’s’ Politico-economic structure-

“was as frank and pessimistic as ever when it came to the subject of apprehending
and detaining terror financiers and facilitators under Kuwait’s current legal and
political framework”- a cable briefing of a Kuwaiti ministerial meeting with its
Ambassador.

Fund raising for Terror at the annual Hajj-

This startling new scoop shows that the annual Hajj congregation has become a rich
harvesting ground for collection of funds for its world wide Jihad by the Islamist
extremist groups.

While the report tells us fund-raisers for extremist groups had often descended on
the pilgrims to seek money for their causes- the cables dated February this year
explains it all-

“Terrorist funding emanating from Saudi Arabia remains a serious concern,”

Yet another memo two months earlier from Mrs. .Clinton admits-

Al Qaeda, the Taliban, Lashkar-e-Taiba and other groups “probably raise millions of
dollars annually from Saudi sources, often during Hajj and Ramadan.”

Cables show how American agencies had informed the Mabahith, their Saudi
intelligence counterpart those three senior Taliban leaders — Tayyeb Agha, Mullah
Jalil and Khalil Haqqani — made several fund-raising trips to the kingdom.
The three are suspects of Terror funding but strangely are not in its banned entities
by the Treasury but cables indicate Saudis have yielded to the incriminating inputs
and had recently began a new financial Intelligence wing.

The most incriminating and fractious was Ms Townsend’s a senior Bush official
taking up of issue of a Saudi Ambassador to the Philippines in 2007- Mohammad
Ameen Wali – which was then promptly brushed off and explained away as-

“Bad judgment rather than intentional support for terrorism,” and followed by a loud
protest that “inappropriate and aggressive questions” are being asked by a
Washington based American bank handling Saudi accounts.

But this may not be for long, given the gathering of so much financial intelligence
since then and given that the Cable leaks would raise more such concern from other
countries affected by this plague to be turned a blind eye and with apologetically
justifications such as this one-

“We are trying to do our best,” Prince Mohamed bin Nayef had stated on the Cash
Pipeline from Saudi for Terror in 2009, and that if money wants to go” to terrorist
causes, “it will go”

Such cavalier statements made to Holbrook may not go easy with countries and
people who have been victim’s world wide by Islamic terror strikes when they hear it.

This brilliant Report of Andrew. W.Lehren by New York times in full –

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/06/world/middleeast/06wikileaks-
financing.html?pagewanted=3&_r=1&hp
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