Al CIA-duh
HOW MANY DIAMONDS CAN YOU STICK UP YOUR ASS?
Mon Jul 5, 2004 21:42
64.140.158.127

Lev Leviv is Mr. Blood Diamond.

He was also connected to the Israeli state company
that broke it's lease with the WTC and moved away
right in the nick of time.
Now we see Al CIA-duh running diamonds for him.

In 2002 he was connected to alQueda arms trading in
hmmmm...Milan
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/727635/posts


http://news.ft.com
US suspects al-Qaeda African diamond link
Financial Times
By Thomas Catan and Michael Peel
Published: June 30 2004 5:00 | Last Updated: June 30
2004 5:00

The US is stepping up its anti-terrorist efforts in
west Africa amid continuing controversy over alleged
links between al-Qaeda and the smuggling of Sierra
Leonean diamonds through Liberia.

Washington has begun looking more closely at terrorist
financing in a region where the US military is
increasingly active in efforts to disrupt terrorist
networks, according to government officials and a
leading Congressman.

A US Congressional panel on the September 11 2001
terrorist attacks concluded this month there was "no
persuasive evidence" that al-Qaeda funded itself
through trafficking in diamonds from African states
experiencing civil wars. But a US government official
covering west Africa told the FT the US authorities
had started to examine more deeply alleged financial
links between the regime of Charles Taylor, exiled
former president of Liberia, and groups such as
Hizbollah and al-Qaeda.

"We want to find out the infrastructure," the official
said. "Taylor has ties to things other than what's
happening in Liberia. We want to find out who and
what."

The US military has already launched a programme known
as the Pan Sahel initiative to train soldiers in four
Muslim-dominated west and central African countries -
Mali, Chad, Mauritania and Niger - as part of efforts
to prevent terrorists establishing bases there.

The US has allocated an extra legal attaché to west
Africa and plans to send support staff to help
countries pursue terrorist finance investigations, a
counter-terrorism official said. Another initiative
will involve working with west African banking
authorities to disrupt flows of terrorist funds, some
of which could come from the sale of gold and
diamonds.

While east Africa is still the principal focus of US
anti-terrorism efforts in the continent, west Africa
is next on Washington's concerns, the official said.
"In coastal west Africa, what we see is the
opportunity for terrorist groups to take advantage of
exploitable resources," the official said.

A Federal Bureau of Investigation team this year found
"pretty definite" evidence of a link between al-Qaeda
operatives and the smuggling of Sierra Leonean
diamonds, according to the head of the House of
Representatives subcommittee that oversees the FBI. In
an interview, Frank Wolf, chairman of the House
commerce-justice-state and the judiciary
appropriations subcommittee, expressed surprise at the
September 11 committee's scepticism about the tie and
said he would check that it had access to FBI reports
on the issue.

Mr Wolf said he asked the FBI team to visit Liberia to
investigate concerns about alleged dealings in
diamonds by radical Islamic groups groups such as
Hizbollah in Lebanon. The investigation established
that al-Qaeda operatives visited Liberia to buy
diamonds, although Mr Wolf warned that confidentiality
laws prevented him from giving details.

"I can tell you that, to my satisfaction, there is a
connection to al-Qaeda," Mr Wolf said. "Now the
question is how much, how extensively, is it still
going on?"

Global Witness, a UK-based campaigning group, claimed
this month that classified briefings given to
congressional members by the FBI's terrorist finance
team had confirmed that al-Qaeda operatives visited
Liberia and Sierra Leone in order to gain access to
the diamond trade.

"The FBI should release an unclassified version of
their report as soon as possible," said Alex
Yearsley, a Global Witness campaigner.

The FBI declined to comment on the alleged al-Qaeda
visits.

The smuggling of "conflict diamonds" from Sierra Leone
became a big international issue after the rebel
Revolutionary United Front took over the country's
main diamond mining areas during the 1991-2002
civilwar.

Proceeds from diamond sales helped fund the RUF, which
was notorious for chopping off civilians' limbs and
abducting children to serve as fighters.

The US government has never officially confirmed
claims that al-Qaeda earned about m (?15.5m, L11.1m)
from selling west African diamonds, although officials
say a connection with Hizbollah is possible. Diplomats
in the region insist a link with al-Qaeda has not been
proved despite official investigations of claims first
reported in the Washington Post in 2001.

A US intelligence official said it was easy to point
to plausible potential financial links between
al-Qaeda and west Africa but much harder to find
evidence. The official said that Liberia's Mr Taylor
dealt with a Senegalese intermediary who had also met
Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, an al-Qaeda operative on the
FBI's list of 22 most-wanted terrorists. "We never
found anything specific, although when you start
looking at links you can make any sort of
assumption," the US intelligence official said.

Mr Mohammed and two other senior al-Qaeda operatives
on the most-wanted list - Mohammed Atef and Sheikh
Ahmed Salim Swedan - are reportedly under
investigation internationally over visits to Liberia
between 1999 and 2002. Mr Atef is believed to have
been killed in Afghanistan during the US invasion in
2001. Aafia Siddiqui, believed to be al-Qaeda's only
senior female leader, is also reported to be under
investigation.

Liberia's Mr Taylor, who is prohibited from talking to
the media under the terms of his exile in Nigeria,
has also denied involvement in diamond smuggling and
helping terrorist groups. Some observers have
suggested the US is reluctant to admit that it failed
to spot links between al-Qaeda and Liberia before the
September 11 attacks.

The US has close links with Liberia, which was founded
in 1847 by freed US slaves, although relations
deteriorated after Mr Taylor's election in 1997.

Mr Taylor was indicted last year for crimes against
humanity by the United Nations-backed Sierra Leone
war crimes court. David Crane, the court's chief
prosecutor, has on several occasions publicly alleged
links between al-Qaeda and west African conflict
diamonds.

In an interview, Mr Crane said he believed there was a
terrorist presence in the region but declined to go
into details. "There are all sorts of things going on
that are outside our mandate and we do not pursue," he
said.
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FBI Probes Terror Link to Diamond Trade in Liberia. ... terrorist involvement in the West
African diamond trade, according ... back up claims of an al-Qaeda presence in ...