Graham: We didn’t conclude that Pakistani intelligence ordered transfer of $100,000 to Mohammed Atta

Former U.S. Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fl.) recently granted an interview with 9/11 blogger Jon Gold about the joint congressional inquiry about 9/11 that Graham co-chaired. Readers will recall that 28 pages of the inquiry’s report dealing with Saudi sponsorship of some of the 9/11 hijackers remain classified.

During the interview, Gold asked Graham about the persistent rumor that the former chief of the Pakistani spy agency ISI ordered a third party to wire money to lead hijacker Mohamed Atta. Graham answered that the inquiry did not find that this had occurred, but could neither rule out that it did occur.

Listen to an excerpt from their conversation here (hat tip to 28pages.org), or read it below.

Jon Gold: From what I’ve heard, um, there are more than one country, or there is more than one country listed, within the 28 redacted pages. Can you at least confirm that much, or…?

Bob Graham: No.

Jon Gold: Ok, um, my next question, and I have heard you say that the claims regarding then head of the Pakistani ISI Lt. Gen. Mahmood Ahmed ordering Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh to wire transfer $100,000 to Mohammed Atta are unsubstantiated. Many people—

Bob Graham: We didn’t—I can say that our inquiry did not, uh, reach that conclusion.

Jon Gold: Ok, so you’re saying that your inquiry looked into those allegations or no?

Bob Graham: They were part of our general inquiry. I’m not saying that we conclusively said that it didn’t happen, but we did say we could not, based on the information that we were able to develop, state that Ahmed had been involved in some relationship with the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

To our knowledge, the report published by the joint congressional inquiry did not refer to Lt. Gen. Ahmed at all. In the Gold interview, Graham may have been referring to findings during the inquiry that were not included in the final report.

Based on the uncertainty about whether nominal “partners” of the U.S. (Saudi Arabia and Pakistan) helped support the 9/11 hijackers, wouldn’t it make sense for a major news organization to renew their investigations into the subject?

Money Jihad’s understanding of the flow of dollars to the 9/11 hijackers based on official, public sources is documented in this post and diagram here.

Business executive charged with bribery is jihadist’s father & terrorist’s brother

Mamdouh Elomar, who is the father of a most-wanted terrorist who posed with the decapitated heads of his victims in Syria and the brother of a man convicted for one of Australia’s biggest terror plots, has been charged with foreign bribery offenses.

Elomar is one of the directors of Lifese, a Sydney-based construction company. The bribes were alleged to have been offered to Iraqi officials to win multi-million dollar contracts.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation offers this 3-minute report. Take a listen:

Charming family.

ISIS profits from 20% tax on smuggled loot

Why 20 percent? The Koran 8:42 says that “when ye have taken any booty, a fifth part belongeth to God and to the Apostle…” This one-fifth tax, or khums, on booty or the spoils of war has been a common revenue-raising measure employed by caliphs, sultans, and Muslim military commanders since the eighth century.

BBC’s “File on 4” aired a report on Feb. 17 examining the extent to which ISIS controls the market in smuggling antiquities out of eastern Syria, especially around the ISIS stronghold in Raqqa, for follow-on sales through middlemen in Turkey and elsewhere to wealthy European and Gulf buyers. The BBC’s Simon Cox spoke from Lebanon with “Ahmed,” one Syrian dealer working in Turkey who described ISIS’s 20 percent cut on the archaeological black market.  Listen to this three minute clip of their conversation (please allow several seconds after clicking the arrow for the audio to play):

Hat tip to Alan for sending this over.

Prior Money Jihad coverage of ISIS’s reliance on khums is here, here, here, and here.

ISNA selection highlights procurement problem

The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) was a co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation’s financing of Hamas.  Yet INSA is being used as an endorsing agency for the selection of Muslim chaplains to serve in the military.

The reliance on ISNA as an endorsing agency is reminiscent of bid scandals in Afghanistan in which U.N. and U.S. officials have awarded contracts without adequately reviewing the bona fides of the contractor or subcontractor.

ISNA vetted two recently selected chaplains, but who vetted ISNA?  Is there no system in place to screen the endorsing agencies for ties to terrorism before they are selected?

Ryan Mauro from the Clarion Project explains this disturbing story in a Mar. 5 interview with Steve Doocy on the Fox News Channel.  Take a listen:

Jihad aspirant pleads guilty in California

In a reversal of his initial plea, Sinh Vinh Ngo Nguyen (a.k.a. Hasan Abu Omar Ghannoum) has pleaded guilty to attempting to provide material support for terrorism.  Nguyen intended to travel to Pakistan to train Al Qaeda operatives.

The two-minute clip below is the audio from a Dec. 27 televised report by Dave Lopez at KCAL, the CBS affiliate in Los Angeles.  The voice you’ll hear from the man saying “we don’t see a lot of these cases” is Thom Mrozek’s—a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in L.A.

For the record, we do see many of these cases.  Far too many.

Ayatollah amasses $95b in expropriated assets

Reuters has published a three-part report (hat tip to Sal) on how the Iranian agency Setad, purportedly an office administering unclaimed property, is actually a vessel for confiscating the assets of regime opponents, religious minorities, and emigrants.  Setad then auctions off those assets to make more money for the Ayatollah Khamenei.

Kai Ryssdal of the radio program Marketplace interviewed one of the Reuters reporters about the investigation.  Take a listen:

Eritrean tells of $30K ransom for captive cousin

The BBC has interviewed yet another Eritrean with a tragic story to tell about Islamist (or as the BBC calls them, “tribal”) kidnap-for-ransom schemes being conducted against hapless refugees trying to make across Sinai to a better world in Israel.

His cousin was burned, raped, and was only released after extended relatives were able to meet a ransom demand of $30,000—a big amount anywhere, but especially exorbitant for that part of the world.

The interview doesn’t get into it, but the ransom money from these kidnappings is often used to purchase weapons for Hamas.

Listen—it’s just a one-minute clip:

Freed Belgian tells how he was “sold” by the Free Syrian Army to a jihadist group

In April, Pierre Piccinin da Prata, a teacher from Belgium, was visiting Syria under the promise of protection by the Free Syrian Army.  Suddenly, he and his colleague, an Italian journalist, were sold as hostages to a group of Islamist fighters.

Pierre says the Islamists “wanted money.” Pierre says they were called dogs, and “we were considered as not really human beings.”  The only real men, the captives were told, are Sunni, Arab Muslims.  His colleague was subjected to mock executions.

After months of being held hostage, Pierre wanted to commit suicide rather than endure further humiliation and captivity, but was eventually released.

Listen to a few minutes of Pierre’s story in his own words during a Sept. 20 interview with the BBC:

Qatar gives Libyan arms to Syrian rebels

Weapons used during the rebellion against Qaddafi have been spirited out of Libya by agents of Qatar.  The arms are smuggled through Turkey across the Syrian border.  The guns transferred by Qatar are said to be going to fighters who are more extreme and Islamist than the rebels being supported by the Obama administration.

Take a listen to NPR’s four-minute interview with one of the New York Times journalists who reported on the story:

Kidnapped for ransom: ex-hostages describe melted plastic, electrocution sessions

Freed captive:  “Death would have been a relief”

Grisly report from Sinai mortician:  corpses from Bedouin kidnappers always show signs of torture to get their families to pay ransoms

Thousands of dollars are demanded for each Eritrean kidnapped as they attempt to cross borders in search of a better life.  When the tribes, terrorists, and criminal syndicates that abduct them don’t get the money they demand, they begin torturing their victims.  In some cases, they do this even while the victim’s families are forced to listen on the telephone.

Please listen to just five minutes from this BBC radio report (sound begins after a few seconds):

The human tragedy is the most shocking element of this story, but keep in mind the equally dangerous result of how kidnappers use ransom money to help buy weapons and perpetrate further acts of violence or terrorism.

The BBC’s Mike Thomson has since followed up with this additional report worth listening to.

Khan gave money, advice on lethal attack

Following in the ignoble tradition of Al Haramain, another jihadist has transferred funds from Oregon overseas to fund terrorism.  Portland’s Reaz Qadir Khan allegedly contributed $2,500 toward a suicide bombing in Pakistan that killed 40, injured 300.  Oregon Public Broadcasting’s Kristian Foden-Vencil has this one-minute Mar. 6 report: