Author: Eric Lichtblau & Eric Schmitt
Publication: Indian Express
Date: December 6, 2010
URL: http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/WikiLeaks-US-helpless-millions-flow-from-Mideast-to-terrorists/720839/
Nine years after the US vowed to shut down
the money pipeline that finances terrorism, senior Obama administration officials
say they believe that many millions of dollars are flowing largely unimpeded
to extremist groups worldwide, and they have grown frustrated by frequent
resistance from allies in the Middle East, according to secret diplomatic
dispatches.
The government cables, sent by Secretary of
State Hillary Rodham Clinton and senior State Department officials, catalog
a long list of methods that American officials suspect terrorist financiers
are using, from a brazen armed bank robbery in Yemen last year to kidnappings
for ransom, drug proceeds in Afghanistan and annual religious pilgrimages
to Mecca.
While American officials in their public statements
have been relatively upbeat about their progress in disrupting terrorist financing,
the internal State Department cables, obtained by WikiLeaks, offer a more
pessimistic account, with blunt assessments of the threat to the US from money
flowing to militants affiliated with the al-Qaeda, Taliban, Hamas, Lashkar-e-Toiba
and other groups.
A classified memo sent by Clinton last December
made it clear that residents of Saudi Arabia and its neighbours, all allies
of the US, are the chief financial supporters of many extremist activities.
"Donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding
to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide", the cable said.
The dispatch and others offered similarly
grim views about the United Arab Emirates ("a strategic gap" that
terrorists can exploit), Qatar ("the worst in the region" on counter-terrorism)
and Kuwait ("a key transit point"). The cable stressed the need
to "generate the political will necessary" to block money to terrorist
networks.
While President George W Bush frequently vowed
to cut off financing for militants and pledged to make financiers as culpable
as terrorists, President Obama has sought to adopt a more conciliatory tone
with Arab nations. But his administration has used many of the same covert
diplomatic, intelligence and law enforcement tools as his predecessor and
set up a special task force in the summer of 2009.
But as the US has pushed for more aggressive
crackdowns on suspected supporters of terrorism, foreign leaders have pushed
back. In private meetings, they have accused American officials of heavy-handedness
and of presenting thin evidence of wrongdoing by Arab charities or individuals.
The documents are filled with secret government
intelligence on possible terrorist-financing plots, like the case of a Somali
preacher who was reportedly touring Sweden, Finland and Norway last year to
look for money and recruits for the Shabab, a militant group in Somalia; or
that of a Pakistani driver caught with about $240,000 worth of Saudi riyals
stuffed behind his seat.
One memo even reported on a possible plot
by the Iranians to launder $5 billion to $10 billion in cash through the Emirates'
banks as part of a broader effort to "stir up trouble" among the
Persian Gulf states, though it was not clear how much of the money might be
channeled to militants.
One episode that set off particular concern
occurred in August 2009 in Yemen, when armed robbers stormed a bank truck
on a busy downtown street in Aden during daylight hours and stole 100 million
Yemeni riyals, or about $500,000. American diplomats said the sophistication
of the robbery and other indicators had all the markings of a Qaeda mission.
"This bold, unusual operation" could provide the al-Qaeda "with
a substantial financing infusion at a time when it is thought to be short
of cash", a dispatch summarising the episode said.
The al-Qaeda's branch in Yemen, known as al-Qaeda
in the Arabian Peninsula, is seen as a rising threat by the US and was blamed
for a parcel bomb plot in October and the failed attempt to blow up a jetliner
last December 25.
"Terrorists avoid money transfer controls
by transferring amounts below reporting thresholds and using reliable cash
couriers, hawala, and money grams," a recent cable warned. "Emerging
trends include mobile banking, pre-paid cards, and Internet banking."
Saudi Arabia emerges in the cables as the
most vexing of problems. Clinton's memo two months earlier said the al-Qaeda,
Taliban, Lashkar-e-Taiba and other groups "probably raise millions of
dollars annually from Saudi sources, often during Hajj and Ramadan".
The United States Embassy in Riyadh, Saudi
Arabia, reported in February that the Saudi authorities remained "almost
completely dependent on the C.I.A." for leads and direction on terrorist
financing.
In conversations last week, Obama administration
officials said that since the latest cable released from WikiLeaks, from February
2010, the Saudis had made notable progress, including the arrests of some
major donors to terrorist groups. Despite such pledges of cooperation between
the countries, tensions have occasionally flared.
In 2007, a senior Bush administration official,
Frances Fragos Townsend, told her Saudi counterparts in Riyadh that Bush was
"quite concerned" about the level of cooperation from the Saudis
on terrorist financing. Townsend questioned whether the kingdom's ambassador
to the Philippines, Mohammed Ameen Wali, might be involved in supporting terrorism
because of his involvement with two people suspected of being financiers,
the summary said.
Prince Saud al-Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister,
challenged the assertion, however, saying the ambassador might be guilty of
"bad judgment rather than intentional support for terrorism", and
he countered with an assertion of his own: an unnamed American bank handling
the Saudi Embassy's money in Washington was performing unnecessary audits
and asking "inappropriate and aggressive questions".
Saudi leaders also appear resigned to the
situation, according to the cables. "We are trying to do our best,"
Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, who leads the Saudis' anti-terrorism activities,
was quoted as telling Richard Holbrooke, the special representative of the
US to the region, in a May 2009 meeting. But, he said, "if money wants
to go" to terrorist causes, "it will go."
