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.

Paks blame Afghans for extortion in Peshawar

What unbelievable gall Pakistani intelligence is demonstrating by blaming “Afghan nationals” for ongoing extortion, kidnap-for-ransom, and murder-for-hire schemes in Peshawar.

It was Pakistani intelligence that created and funded the Taliban and other jihadist groups in the first place to give Pakistan “strategic depth” in their ruthless desire to gain any conceivable edge over India. It was Pakistan that funded radical curriculum and instruction at madrassas and Afghan orphanages.

Now that their efforts have begun turning their own cities into charnel houses, they’re distancing themselves from their own creation.

Pakistan didn’t seem to mind harboring Osama Bin Laden, because he didn’t attack Pakistan while he lived there. But Pakistan does mind when his buddies start making mischief on their own streets.

Message to Pakistan: you made your own bed, now lie in it.

Nefarious finance: recommended reading

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• The pro-Hamas Islamic charity IHH  is hinting that it will launch another Turkish-based, Mavi Marmara-style “peace flotilla”… more>>

• Al Qaeda in Iraq and Syria has its own revenue sources and doesn’t feel the need to answer to Ayman al-Zawahiri… more>>

• Smuggling gold to keep Iran in the black?  Prosecutors uncover a sanctions evasion crime ring in Turkey that may go all the way to Prime Minister Erdogan’s office… more>>

Sanctions needed against Pakistan’s spy agency

This piece is also published at Terror Finance Blog today:

When dealing with undesirable behavior by foreign governments, the U.S. has increasingly employed narrowly targeted sanctions against individual officials of those governments, from human rights abusers in Syria to Russian leaders responsible for the annexation of Crimea.

But the same logic has yet to be applied to the ISI, Pakistan’s terrorist-sponsoring intelligence agency, which, compared to Russia and Syria, has posed a more direct threat to U.S. forces and civilians through the ISI’s sponsorship of terrorism against our troops in Afghanistan and through the safe haven it provided to Osama Bin Laden.

New York Times reporter Carlotta Gall revealed last week that, “Soon after the Navy SEAL raid on Bin Laden’s house, a Pakistani official told me that the United States had direct evidence that the ISI chief, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, knew of Bin Laden’s presence in Abbottabad,”  and that the ISI ran a special desk to “handle” Bin Laden.

The Bin Laden revelation is only the tip of the iceberg.  The Taliban itself was created by Pakistan, which allowed Al Qaeda to use Afghanistan as a base for hatching the 9/11 plot.  The perpetrators of the 26/11 terrorist attacks against Mumbai that left over 160 dead were also “clients and creations of the ISI.”

In an intercepted conversation, former ISI chief Gen. Ashfaq Kayani was heard describing Jalaluddin Haqqani, leader of the terrorist Haqqani network, as a “strategic asset.”  That is the way that Pakistani intelligence has looked at jihadists for decades—that holy warriors provide strategic depth and variety to the conventional armed forces along Pakistan’s borders.  They regard terrorism as a tool in a broader arsenal against Pakistan’s foes, making the country a state sponsor of terrorism in the truest sense of the phrase.

Designating a foreign spy service as a terrorist entity wouldn’t be such a major leap as it appears at first blush.  Interrogators at Guantanamo Bay are already trained to treat detainees affiliated with ISI the same way they would treat detainees affiliated with Al Qaeda or the Taliban.  The approach is partly due to evidence of ISI’s role in coordinating terrorist groups in operations targeting Afghanistan and India.

There is already some support for such sanctions.  Bruce Riedel, former CIA official and senior fellow at the Brookings Institute, called for individual sanctions against ISI officials.  New York writer Suketu Mehta said “America and other countries should declare Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence, some of whose officials have a long history of backing terrorists attacking India, ‘a terrorist entity’.”  The Afghan National Security Council also expressed strong support last year for designating the ISI as a terrorist organization (see here and here).

Are there arguments against levying sanctions against the ISI?  Yes.  Pakistan could retaliate by ceasing its assistance to us while our troops are still fighting in Afghanistan.  But if it weren’t for Pakistan playing midwife to the Taliban, and the Taliban subsequently partnering with Al Qaeda, the terrorist attacks of 9/11 wouldn’t have happened in the first place.  It makes little sense to mollycoddle the puppet master because we think it will help us attack the puppet.

Unfortunately, sanctions often don’t achieve the desired results.  Foreign aid is fungible, and if the U.S. and U.K. continue bestowing lavish foreign aid upon Pakistan, the government there will simply be able to move money from development and education projects toward military and intelligence operations.

But to the extent that we use sanctions at all as an instrument of foreign policy, it should be done for the right reasons.  Lately we use sanctions like a necktie that we wear to look fashionable, while absentmindedly dangling the tie over a paper shredder.  Rather than a entangling ourselves in the regional or internal affairs of bad actors in places where we have few interests, sanctions should be used as a tool used to serve our own national security interests, and to contain those whose actions do us harm.

ISI and Jamaat-e-Islami behind 10 truckloads of smuggled arms

Verdicts have been reached in a 2004 case involving the discovery of 10 trucks full of Chinese-made guns and ammunition intended to help fighters of the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) break away from India.

While Assamese separatists are mostly non-Muslim, they have been sustained financially and logistically by Islamist elements in Pakistan and Bangladesh including the ISI spy agency and the Jamaat-e-Islami party.  Fracturing India would give Pakistan a strategic advantage in the subcontinent.

Motiur Rahman Nizami, a Jamaat party member who served as Bangladesh’s industries minister during a coalition government in the early 2000s, is the senior-most official convicted in the case, whose involvement demonstrates Jamaat’s desire to foster separatism in northeast India.

As for the involvement of Pakistan’s involvement through its ISI spy service, The Daily Star reports that former Bangladeshi intelligence official Shahab Uddin, one of the conspirators in the smuggling operation, admitted that, “the ISI had provided mobile monitoring equipment” as a “gift,” and that Shahab met with ISI officials to discuss gun-running plans.

Previous reporting by the Times of India has shown that ULFA fighters were trained by the ISI as early as 1991.

Thanks to Munazir Hussain Syed for apprising Money Jihad of these revelations.

Jamaat intertwined with sharia banks and Islamic charities

Analyst Chris Blackburn has written an undated piece documenting the abuses of Jamaat-e-Islami, the radical Islamic political party in Bangladesh, and its support networks.  The article caught our attention when it was reposted in December on a Google group forum by Bangladeshi progressive Suhas Barua.  The write-up is especially timely and relevant considering how Jamaat has attempted to use money from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to attack moderate and secular elements in Bangladesh and short-circuit the ongoing war crimes trials against arch-Islamist operatives.

Blackburn provides valuable insights into the role of the sharia finance house Islami Bank Bangladesh, Arab businessmen, and Gulf- and Western-based Islamic charities in the financing of South Asian terrorist organizations:

Jamaat-i-Islami has been involved in murder, terrorism, intimidation and bigotry from it’s direct participation in war crimes during the 1971 War of Liberation to it’s involvement in pursuing sectarian violence against the Ahmadi sect in Pakistan and Bangladesh . Recently the Jamaat has been threatening the lives of journalists in Bangladesh if they continue to report and uncover the Jamaat and Shibir’s ties to militancy . A democracy must be allowed to have a free press- all actions must be taken to ensure this type of intimidation does not persist during the forthcoming elections.

The Jamaat-Bangladesh has been repeatedly linked to terrorist organisations mainly due to the fact that the majority of leaders and terrorists belonging to Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) and Jagrata Muslim Janata (JMJB) have past histories of involvement with Jamaat and the Islami Chhatra Shibir .

The Islami Bank Bangladesh (IBBL) is also linked to militancy and is controlled by the Jamaat – banks which act as foreign sponsors of IBBL have previously been used or have been accused of funnelling money to al-Qaeda linked militants and supporting radical Islamism in other countries. Yassin Qadi, a US and UN designated financier of terrorism’s family are also close to the bank . Qadi is a Saudi businessman and is the son-in-law of Sheikh Ahmed Salah Jamjoom, a foreign sponsor of IBBL . Jamjoom was a former finance minister in the Saudi government. It is not known if Qadi has direct ties to the bank. The Kuwaiti based Revival of Islamic Heritage Society (RIHS) also had accounts at the bank they are suspected of financing terrorism in Bangladesh and elsewhere- it is believed that the organisation helped finance the 17th August serial bombings in 2005 .

The links between the IBBL and the International Islamic University (Chittagong) – show how the Jamaat-Ikwhan is growing in influence in education- mainly in Dawa and Islamic financial sectors. The Jamaat- Shibir Bangladesh has also acted as a funding conduit for the ISI and the Jamaat-Pakistan . In 2000 Indian intelligence agencies intercepted a letter from Jamaat leaders which acknowledges that monies had been transferred through Jamaat-Bangladesh to the Muslim United Liberation Tigers of Assam (MULTA) from Jamaat-Pakistan . It must be noted that the US State Department and the US Department of Justice are concerned that the Bangladeshi Government is not investigating 45 major money laundering cases related to International terrorism; they believe it is due to political reasons- the US sent a team of officials from the Department of Justice to Dhaka to directly talk to their opposite numbers, this meeting was meant to be secret but was leaked to the press because of the frustration at the lack of progress .

MULTA is a terrorist organisation which is working towards turning Assam, a region in North India, into an Islamic enclave which will be run by Shariah law. The group has been involved in bombings and assassinations of civic leaders in Assam. MULTA works closely with Harkat-ul-Jihadi-Islami (HUJI-B) and is funded by Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) . HUJI-B has been added to the US and UN list of terrorist organisations. MULTA also works closely with other terrorist organisations such as the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) which are all allied to Osama Bin Laden’s International Islamic Front (IIF).

The network wants to create a Brihot Bangladesh or ‘greater Bangladesh’ by merging Muslim communities from North India into Bangladesh. Islami Chhatra Shibir (ISC), Jamaat’s student wing are also believed to have been involved with this militant network and are working in tandem with the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) to support the network. In 2002 Salim Sajid, SIMI’s financial secretary was interrogated and confessed how ISC were closely working with the SIMI to plan and attack Indian interests . The groups have been meeting in West Bengal under the banner of the ‘Islamic Action Force’.

SIMI was the student front of the Indian branch of the Jamaat-i-Islami and follows the thoughts and teachings of Mawdudi . It has a history of supporting the Taliban and al-Qaeda . Its cadre are believed to have been directly and indirectly involved in recent bomb attacks in India- they are believed to have helped terrorist cells in Varanasi, New Delhi, Mumbai and Adohya; these attacks have been major escalations for the SIMI as they have caused extremely high fatalities and casualty rates. SIMI is also working with Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) which are based in Pakistan . These are also members of the International Islamic Front.

In 2003 Indian Muslims working in Middle Eastern countries were contacted and recruited by known SIMI operatives to go and fight Coalition forces in Iraq – which is another escalation of the group’s international activities. The worrying point is that the ICS and Jamaat are working closely with SIMI and are well aware of its current strategy to attack India.

Jamaat’s support network in the UK and US

Jamaat-Pakistan and Jamaat-Bangladesh also receives backing from the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) and Muslim Aid branches who act as fundraisers, missionaries and PR managers for the Jamaat-i-Islami movement in the West . The charities have been linked to terrorism and have also been linked to Mueen Uddin Chowdhury and Asrafuzzaman Khan , two expatriate Bangladeshi’s with Jamaat backgrounds who are suspected of being directly involved in war crimes. The two charities send money collected in the UK, US, Germany and Austrialia to the Al-Khidmat Foundation/Society and Muslim Aid’s Bangladeshi branch . They are both de facto arms of the Jamaat. Al-Khidmat aids militancy and helps to support the Hizbul Mujahideen, Jamaat’s armed wing and other groups . Hizbul Mujahideen is designated by the US and UK as a terrorist organisation .

In 2004 Russian security agents from the Federal Security Bureau (FSB) assassinated Zelimkhan Yanderbiyev, the former vice president of Chechnya in a car bomb attack in Doha, Qatar . They believe he was meeting with wealthy Middle Eastern figures to collect funds for Jihad. Yanderbiyev was a recipient of Jamaati funds to wage war on Russia . Jamaat-i-Islami is listed by Russia’s Supreme Court as a leading financier and supporter of terrorism. After the 9/11 attacks the Russian FSB passed information to the US stating they believed that Jamaat would be involved in the attacks on the WTC and Pentagon, these assertions proved correct when Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks was arrested in the home of Jamaat leaders .

Al-Khidmat has recently helped to repatriate 2500 Taliban and Al-Qaeda terrorists that have been released as part of an amnesty by the Pakistani authorities . There have been reports that Taliban fighter are being treated at Al-Khimat’s medical centres in Pakistan. Al-Khidmat has also recently donated huge sums to Hamas to carry on with its Jihad against Israel . Al-Khidmat, ICNA and Muslim Aid’s branches should be added to UN and US sanctions for their direct financial support for terrorism.

Al-Khidmat has also recently given money to Sheikh Faisal Malawi of the Jemaah Islamiya (Lebanon) to aid his Al-Fajr militants to help Hezbollah attack Israel in Lebanon . Malawi is the former deputy chairman of the European Council for Fatwa and Research alongside Sheikh Yusef al-Qaradawi…

Also notice that Yasin al-Qadi is mentioned in the piece.  Prime Minister Erdogan of Turkey is currently under fire for his close relationship with al-Qadi, and his possible relevance to the unfolding corruption scandal in that country.

Haqqani financier with deep Gulf ties killed

The chief money man behind the Haqqani network, Nasiruddin Haqqani, has been shot dead.  He has been under U.S. sanctions since 2010; at the time the Treasury Department said, “From at least 2005 to 2009, Nasiruddin Haqqani collected funds for the Haqqani Network, including during a 2008 fundraising trip to a Gulf state and during regular travel to the (UAE) in 2007. As of mid-2007, Haqqani reportedly received funding from ­donations from the Gulf region, drug trafficking, and payments from al-Qa’ida. In 2004, he traveled to Saudi Arabia with a Taliban associate to raise funds for the Taliban.”

Nasiruddin Haqqani used to live next door to the headquarters of ISI, the Pakistani spy agency, with whom he collaborated.

The BBC reports:

… As the group’s main fundraiser, Nasiruddin frequently travelled to the oil-rich sheikhdoms of the Middle East to solicit donations.

He represented the Haqqani network in last year’s efforts to set up a Taliban office in Doha for peace talks with the United States.

He was also the group’s main contact person for pro-Taliban elements in Pakistan, as well as its representative with the Afghan Taliban.

‘Well-dressed networker’

Unlike his father and many of his brothers, Nasiruddin Haqqani and two of his uncles did not live in Miran Shah in North Waziristan. He chose to base himself near Islamabad, from where he made his many journeys abroad to secure funds.

Some sources said he had major business interests in the Gulf, including a transport company.

Nasiruddin is not thought to have been publicly photographed.

Those who have met him describe a tall, educated, well-dressed man who travelled in expensive cars and networked an extensive list of contacts all the time.

They say his appearance gave no clue to his militant connections. His code name was “the doctor”, possibly because of a degree that he had studied for.

His death will be a major blow to the Haqqanis, who will need to find someone else to spearhead their efforts to secure financing…

Shouldn’t be too hard for the ISI to anoint somebody else.

Revealed: Pakistan shelters terror finance mogul

Dawood Ibrahim, the international gangster and bankroller of terrorism, has been given sanctuary by Pakistan’s spy agency, the ISI, in exchange for his commitment to spend 30 percent of his income on jihadist operations.

This confession comes from Abdul Karim Tunda, a detained Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist and Dawood associate.  Tunda also disclosed three of Dawood’s addresses in Pakistan—two in Karachi and one in Islamabad, showing that Pakistan has provided cover for Dawood in the same manner that it did for Osama bin Laden.

Watch it all from India’s “Headlines Today”:

Pakistan is happy to take foreign aid money from the U.S. at the same time it accepts a share of underworld revenues to wage jihad in Kashmir and Afghanistan.  Time to withhold the foreign aid, no?

Pakistan’s covert war on India’s currency

Counterfeiting in India isn’t just being perpetrated by small time crooks and gangsters motivated by greed.  It is methodical economic warfare being waged by the government of Pakistan and its spy agency, the ISI.  The Hindu has the details:

Fake currency smuggling: three held

Police say seized fake currency will be sent to Forensic Science Laboratory for examination

The city police found that some ISI agents were smuggling fake currency from Pakistan and Bangladesh into the country. The agents were making efforts to hit the economy of India, said the police.

The Central Zone police arrested Abdul Aleem, a native of Lalagola Town, Musheerabad District of West Bengal and a former journalist Ch. Nandalal Bose in the city recently. Police seized Rs.3 lakh fake currency and Rs.80,000 original cash from them.

IB alert

The arrests were made just a couple of days after the Intelligence Bureau (IB) alerted the police over likely infiltration of suspected terrorists from Bangladesh on trains. The IB also cautioned the police over increasing ISI activities in the country.

During investigation, it was revealed that Aleem was smuggling fake currency using agents from Bangladesh to India in trains.

Middlemen

He had arranged middlemen at different places for circulating the fake notes in the market. Bose, who has financial problems, agreed to exchange the counterfeit currency by taking some amount, said the police.

“The notes seized from the accused were printed in Pakistan or Bangladesh and were smuggled from Malda District (border district of India with Bangladesh). There is a lot of difference between the local fake currency and the ISI counterfeit notes, which almost resembles original currency,” said a police officer investigating the case…

Hizbul’s role in counterfeiting confirmed

Once a relatively poor terrorist organization that relied on a monthly grant of $5,000 from Pakistan’s ISI spy service, the Kashmir-based terrorist organization Hizbul Mujahideen has moved on to three more lucrative methods of financing itself:  1) receiving zakat donations transmitted through hawala from charitable fronts sponsored by Pakistan, 2) engaging in the profitable animal skin trade, and 3) flooding India with counterfeit money, devaluing the rupee, and enriching themselves in the process.

From India Today on May 24 (h/t El Grillo):

Hizbul Mujahideen circulating fake currency in India, reveals NIA investigation

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has established a clear link between Pakistan and Jammu and Kashmir-based terror outfits pooling their resources to circulate fake Indian currency and using it to fund jihadi activities in India.

In a case related to smuggling of counterfeit currency, the NIA’s probe has revealed the role of Hizbul Mujahideen, which operates from J&K, in circulating fake currency.

Completing the investigation in the case registered in 2011, the NIA filed a final supplementary chargesheet in a Jammu court last month. The document exposes Hizbul hand in using fake currency to finance its terror activities.

The chargesheet states that “Fake Indian currency is being used being used by terrorist organisations to damage the economy of India and finance terrorist activities of their cadre operating in India”.

While the chargesheet stops short of naming Pakistan, sources said the trail of counterfeit currency from the neighbour country in West Bengal and then in India has been well-established.

“Through the Bangladesh border, it (fake Indian currency) was being pumped into India from West Bengal. It was being funnelled via Delhi to terror groups like Hizbul Mujahideen,” an officer from NIA said.

Sources said selling of fake currency in return for genuine currency gives huge returns, which can be used by terror organisations…

India: hawala is 30 percent of terror revenues

Hawala, the traditional Islamic system of transferring money and debts, is essentially outlawed in India.  However, the practice, which is difficult to trace and lends itself well to illicit financial activity, is still commonplace.  A recent article in the news website Rediff.com asserts that 10 percent of all such hawala transactions in India go toward funding terrorism, and that 30 percent of terrorists’ money comes from hawala.  Much of it is transferred from the Gulf (including Dubai) to Kerala, a hotspot for terror finance.

Time to revisit hawala policy?  Money Jihad thinks so.

H/t to Bob Connors.

Crores being pumped into India by ISI to finance terror

Apr. 1, 2013

In almost every hawala deal, 10 per cent of the amount goes towards terror funding, reports Vicky Nanjappa  

A sharp rise in the number of terror financing cases in 2012 in India is an indicator to how well terror groups have channelized their resources.

According to the Financial Intelligence Unit, in 2009, the number of terror financing cases was recorded at 200 but rose to 1,400 cases in 2012.

The FIU report states that the Inter-Services Intelligence in Pakistan manages to raise Rs 1,800 crore annually to fund terrorist activities especially against India. Today, the Intelligence units say that the amount has shot up to Rs 2,400 crore, as the intensity of their programme against India too is expected to see a rise.

In the past, the ISI adopted to circulating fake Indian currency, ensuring that a certain amount of money through hawala transactions, extortions and drug trade was handed over to them.

As per the latest FIU report, there have been 1,444 cases of terror financing last year. In 2011 the figures were 428 cases and in 2010 it was 316.

Sources in the Intelligence Bureau say that out of the 1,444 cases, almost 65 per cent are related to fake currency.

Last year, around 3,20,000 fake notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 denominations were found, while the year before that around 2,50,000 notes were found.

Sources say that while fake currency accounted for a major chunk of terror financing, hawala transactions accounted for at least 30 per cent. In almost every hawala deal, 10 per cent of the amount goes towards terror funding. The biggest hawala transactions have been from the Gulf to Kerala. Proof of such transactions being used for terror related activities was found during the 2006 train bombings in which an amount of Rs 4.5 lakh was exchanged to carry out the attack.

The Indian Mujahideen in particular has a dedicated network through which it collects money in Delhi. The money is wired from Gulf to Kerala and then to New Delhi…