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| Terror Networks |
| Al Qaeda Keeps Using Identities of Arrested or Dead Operatives |
| 2004-03-17 |
| al Qaeda may be stealing the identities of its own operatives in order to further confuse investigators tracking its financing operations. In at least two cases documented over the past year, U.S. law enforcement has moved to freeze assets belonging to terrorists who are either dead or long imprisoned. In September of 2003, al Qaeda operative Abdul Hakim Murad was added to the Treasury Department’s list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists — a master list of terrorists and suspected terrorists whose assets have been officially frozen by the U.S. government’s Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC). Fathur Rahman al-Ghozi, a bomb-maker associated with al Qaeda’s Southeast Asia affiliate, was also added to the list at the same time. It was an extremely unusual move, for simple reasons: Murad has been in prison since 1995, and al-Ghozi had been dead for months at the time the list was released. .... Murad [was] arrested after being exposed in Manila, the Philippines, in January 1995, where they were planning Projoect (or OpPlan) Bojinka .... All the additions to the list were based in Southeast Asia, strongly suggesting that they were added as the result of information collected during Hambali’s arrest. A minister in New Zealand, which appended the names to its own asset control list, told the media in January that al-Ghozi’s assets were still possibly being used. .... From al Qaeda’s perspective, there is a compelling pragmatism to stealing the identities of captured operatives. For one thing, operatives like Murad frequently stash dozens of forged identity papers and passports in safehouses around the globe. Generally, it’s easier to alter existing documents than to forge brand new ones. .... In Murad’s case, there is further specific evidence that his assets continued to be useful to al Qaeda operatives. Murad’s cell phone account in the Philippines remained in use for two or three months after his arrest, according to investigative author Peter Lance, writing in 1000 Years for Revenge. .... |
| Posted by:Mike Sylwester |