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| Africa: Subsaharan |
| Taylor's diamonds helped to finance 9/11 |
| 2004-08-28 |
| A Confidential report from the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone has implicated former Liberian president Charles Taylor of selling conflict diamonds to known al-Qaeda operatives. The report states that the said diamonds were used to finance the September 11 attacks on the United States. Special Court Chief Prosecutor David Crane who prepared the document said Al-Qaeda has been operating in West Africa since September 1998 and had maintained a continuous presence in the region through 2002. John Melrose, former US Ambassador to Sierra Leone, says "The United States never perceived itself to have a strategic interest in sub-Saharan Africa on the terrorism front until very recently." He said the development of a functioning criminal state in West Africa is not a secret to anyone who has been to the region. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |