It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
Originally posted by SevenThunders
I'm amazed at all the creepy lunatic terrorist sympathizers on this web site. Are you all prepared to bow down to mecca 5 times a day and for your women to be treated as property?
All this new jerk hate America and hate Israel propaganda. Without America most of your ancestors would be lampshades right now under the nazi boot, or living in some slave camp run by communist apparatchiks.
Israel is the only democratic country that even remotely respects human rights in the entire middle east.
"We are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. Allah willing, and nothing is too great for Allah," bin Laden said in the transcript.
...
"All that we have to do is to send two mujahedeen to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al Qaeda, in order to make generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic and political losses without their achieving anything of note other than some benefits for their private corporations," bin Laden said.
www.forbes.com...
As the feds continue to track, cut off and prosecute al Qaeda financiers, European nations, particularly the U.K., have stepped up their work in this area. Saudi Arabia has finally cracked down on contributions from charities and donors that used to flow to terror groups. International bodies, like the UN and the Financial Action Task Force, have sustained a coordinated effort with rules that have been adopted by many governments and banks in places where bombers used to get funds. "Al Qaeda is in a weaker financial state than it has been for a number of years," says David Cohen, the U.S. Treasury Department's assistant secretary for terrorist financing. As evidence of success he points to the rush of public pleas for financial help coming from al Qaeda leaders, outstretched turban in hand. He hastens to add: "No one is arguing that because al Qaeda core is in a weakened financial state that it is disabled."
Shallower though its pockets may be, the group still poses a threat: A small sum spent cleverly on the right explosive in the right place can do a lot of damage. The Christmas Day bomber, a rich kid from Nigeria, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, paid for his own ticket in cash but got training and equipment from a then little known affiliate in Yemen, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
Al Qaeda is much less of a top-down organization than it once was, when it called the shots and funded terrorist operations from Afghanistan. Then, it told operatives to focus on assignments and not to worry about how to subsidize them. Today it's a much looser organization of affiliates--more of a McDonald's, if you will, than a General Motors. Its decentralized partners and cells around the world pick their own targets, concoct their own strategies and raise their own funds. They may draw inspiration from al Qaeda headquarters somewhere in the Chitral region of northwest Pakistan, even kick back money to the leadership. But, like franchisees, they are largely on their own.
The change, U.S. officials say, is a direct result of the pressures the U.S. government has placed on terrorist money men. That has forced al Qaeda to go underground. While it still relies on individual donations from the Persian Gulf region, these contributions now move outside the formal financial system, through cash couriers and informal money transfer shops known as hawalas. In addition, the network seems to be turning to organized crimes like kidnapping and drug running. The shipment of coc aine from Latin America to Europe is a source of funding.
Fundraising efforts have also embraced new technologies -- like the bit of telemarketing by Ayman al Zawahiri, al Qaeda's second-in-command, who solicited donations through cell phone recordings that were distributed in 2008. Last June Abu al Yazid, a former al Qaeda money man who now runs its Afghan operations, made his pitch on a Web site controlled by al Qaeda leaders: "If a holy fighter does not have the money to get weapons, food, drink and the materials for jihad, he cannot fight jihad." The Internet, of course, is a terrorist's best friend when it comes to recruiting. Not that they've given up on old-school methods like extortion. "A broader trend that shows their financial troubles is they are shaking down recruits for money," says Michael Jacobson, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, who specializes in terror financing. A handful of people, arrested in 2008 by French and Belgian authorities, had traveled to Pakistan for al Qaeda training -- and were forced to cough up euros for courses, a room and weapons.