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10/02/2002
Al Qaeda Still Financially Fit, UN Report Says
UNSC committee urges vigilance, resolve to fight terrorists
United Nations -- The al Qaeda terrorist group is still able to access its financial resources and get other support through Usama bin Laden's personal inheritance and investments, from supporters, and from contributions diverted from charitable organizations, according to a report released by the UN Security Council September 30.
"The measures adopted by the international community have had a marked impact on al Qaeda, causing it to go to ground, to reposition its assets and resources and to seek new recruits," the report said. "Nonetheless, the organization is by all accounts 'fit and well' and poised to strike again at its leisure."
"The bottom line is that members of al Qaeda and their associates are deployed in many countries across the world and, given the opportunity, they will have no compunction in killing as many people as they can from those nations that do not conform to their religious and ideological beliefs and which they perceived as their enemies," it said.
"This is the phenomenon which all members of the United Nations must be prepared to confront, even if it does involve painful changes to their legal structures," the report said.
On October 1, the sanctions committee added four men to the sanctions list. They are: Moroccan-born Mounir El Motassadeq, who is currently on trial in Hamburg; Ramzi Mohamed Abdullah Binalshibh, a Sudanese who goes by several aliases and is now in custody in the US; Said Bahaji, a German citizen who is the subject of an international arrest warrant issued by Germany; and Zakarya Essabar, a Moroccan citizen who is also subject to an international arrest warrant issued by Germany.
The Security Council committee that monitors the sanctions imposed on Usama bin Laden, al Qaeda, the Taliban and other individuals and groups released its second report since it was established in January 2002 to monitor the enforcement of sanctions against the two organizations and individuals associated with them. The sanctions require nations to take a number of steps including freezing economic resources, preventing the supply or sale of weapons, and preventing members of the two groups from entering or traveling through their territories.
Despite initial successes in locating and freezing some $112 million in assets belonging to al Qaeda and its associates in the months following the terrorist attacks on the United States, "al Qaeda continues to have access to considerable financial and other economic resources," the committee said.
Since the council adopted its resolution in January 2002, "only about $10 million in additional assets has been frozen," the committee said in its report. "Government officials have indicated that it has proved exceedingly difficult to identify these additional al Qaeda related funds and resources."
The group points out that experts on terrorism believe that the $112 million is "only a small fraction of the funds and resources" still available to al Qaeda and the Taliban. And the collapse of the Taliban government in Afghanistan and destruction of al Qaeda training camps frees up money for other activities including indoctrination and recruitment programs, and support to radical fundamentalist organizations, schools, and social organizations.
The report discusses the difficulty governments are having in identifying and blocking sources of al Qaeda funding because the organization has no large command and control center and is widespread in small, largely compartmentalized cells that are responsible for much of their own financial support. The cells engage in both legitimate local small businesses and criminal activities ranging from peddling illegal drugs to bank and credit card fraud.
Governments are reporting having particular difficulty in monitoring and regulating funds collected and disbursed by a number of Islamic-based charities, it said. These charities collect billions of dollars each year using most of it for benevolent purposes. However, some funds are being diverted to support al Qaeda activities such as supporting a network of radical fundamentalist institutions and organizations that are believed to provide refuge, logistic support, recruitment, and training for the al Qaeda network.
"Al Qaeda has been known to infiltrate established charities for this purpose," the report said.
Several charities have already been identified such as Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation in Somalia and Bosnia, the Aid Organization of the Ulema, and Benevolence International in Chicago.
A large number of countries in Europe and North America have tightened banking regulations in order to locate, trace and block financial transactions and require banks to review and report all suspicious transactions. As a result, al Qaeda has transferred much of its financial activities to Africa, the Middle East and Asia as well as increasing it use of alternative banking mechanisms such as informal remittance systems known as "hawala."
While governments have tightened visa and border controls, the committee said, al Qaeda and Taliban members "continue to move undetected across international boundaries, particularly in the areas adjacent to Afghanistan. "There are also reports that al Qaeda members have sought to enter Europe using falsified travel documents, traveling via well-established illegal immigration routes, including those extending from Central Asia as well as from Turkey and the Balkans into the rest of Europe," it said.
Warning that in the campaign against al Qaeda "there is no room for complacency," the committee said that all UN members "need to redouble their efforts both as individual states and collectively in a concerted and sustained manner in order to bring to bear every legal means possible to fight this scourge to international peace and security."
The committee recommended that nations exercise great surveillance over the operations of charities and the disbursement of funds, and greater efforts be made to track down and close businesses and entities supporting al Qaeda.
The committee emphasized the importance of states sharing information and cooperating in investigations in all areas such as identifying individuals, freezing assets, arms embargoes, and travel bans. The UN watch list of individuals and entities must be updated regularly to include specific and reliable information, it said, and states should help the committee in better identifying those on the list.
States should ensure that their border control officials are given adequate resources, training and technology to improve their ability to detect falsified documents, the committee said.
All states that have not yet done so should, as soon as possible, take steps to require the registration of all arms brokers dealing from their territories, including the registration of non-nationals as well as nationals, it said.
(The Washington File is a product of the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
