Al-Qaida suspects in the deadly 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies took shelter in West Africa in the months before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, converting terror cash into untraceable diamonds, according to findings of a U.N.-backed court obtained by The Associated Press. The allegations came as part of the Sierra Leone war crimes court's investigation of former Liberian President Charles Taylor, alleged have been a middleman between al-Qaida and West Africa's multimillion-dollar diamond trade. "We have in the process of investigating Charles Taylor ... clearly uncovered that he harbored al-Qaida operatives in Monrovia (the Liberian capital) as late as the summer of 2001," said David Crane, the court's lead prosecutor. "The central thread is blood diamonds."
Other international investigators told the AP the three suspects are Mohammed Atef of Egypt, Fazul Abdullah Mohammed of Comoros and Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan of Kenya. Fazul and Swedan are believed in East Africa; Atef was killed in fighting in Afghanistan. All were on the FBI's most-wanted terrorist list in connection with Aug. 7, 1998 car bombings that killed 231 people at American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Al-Qaida claimed responsibility for both attacks. The three took shelter in Liberia in June and July of 2001, according to the international investigation findings obtained by the AP. Crane, a veteran U.S. Defense Department lawyer, said he had no information on whether any funds from alleged al-Qaida diamond dealings were used to carrying out the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington.
| That was likely either zakat or princely largesse... |
FBI teams have repeatedly traveled to West Africa to investigate allegations of al-Qaida diamond dealings here. No charges are known to have been brought in any court as a result of any of the probes into alleged West Africa-al-Qaida links. U.S. government officials say they have found little or no evidence to support those allegations. The illicit international trade in so-called blood diamonds draws on generally high-quality gems from Sierra Leone. The trade helped fund many of West Africa's wars of the 1990s, and is increasingly under international scrutiny as a suspected means of finance for terror. The United States estimates that between $70 million and $100 million still are smuggled out of Sierra Leone each year, despite the coming of peace and international accords to block illicit trafficking. U.S. and U.N. authorities and international rights groups have long believed Taylor was a top conduit for smuggled West Africa diamonds. Taylor is alleged to have used diamonds acquired in Sierra Leone to bankroll the 1989-1996 insurgency that brought him to power in neighboring Liberia. |