Report: al-Qaida Made Pre-9/11 Diamond Buy

[Dover]

Aug 7, 9:37 PM EDT


Report: al-Qaida Made Pre-9/11 Diamond Buy


By EDWARD HARRIS


DAKAR, Senegal (AP) -- A series of witnesses place six top al-Qaida fugitives in Africa buying up diamonds in the run-up to the Sept. 11 attacks, according to a confidential report by U.N.-backed prosecutors obtained by The Associated Press.

The first-person accounts detailed by the prosecutors add to long-standing claims that al-Qaida laundered millions of dollars in terror funds through African diamonds before launching its deadliest offensive.

Al-Qaida figures, including some already wanted in pre-Sept. 11 attacks on U.S. targets, dealt directly with then-President Charles Taylor and other leaders and warlords in the West African country of Liberia from 1999 onwards, according to the accounts. The witnesses told of meetings and sightings in the seedy hotels and safehouses of Monrovia, the blighted capital of what was then a rogue nation...cont'd

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AFRICA_AL_QAIDA_DIAMONDS?SITE=KVUE&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

[Bozita]

1. Isn't Pat Robertson a business partner of Charles Taylor?

Send in your Social Security checks. Pat needs them to feed starving children. But, of course, the good reverend needs a Gulfstream V to transport those magnificent life-saving meals to all those little ones.

Can't cook the food without a way to get it to those poor souls.

Maybe DU should hold a bake sale.

[Coventina]

5. PAT ROBERTSON SHOULD BE IN GITMO!!!!!!

Getting anally violated in the name of the "War on Terror"

Wouldn't THAT be poetic justice?!?!?!

[DulceDecorum]

2. Al Qaeda is fricking STUPID

buying up real diamonds when you can have pure clear large stones manufactured for a fraction of the price in Florida where there their terrorist-hijackers were training.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.09/diamond_pr.html

What are the schmucks trying to do?
Bail out De Beers?

[DoYouEverWonder]

3. Those manufactured stones weren't available

before 9-11. Besides how do you expect people like Charles Taylor and Pat Robertson to be able to enrich themselves?

[tlcandie]

4. Isn't the BFFE involved in the diamond mines as well to some extent?

[Bozita]

6. iirc, Poppy Bush was linked with Barrick Gold

[daleo]

7. The BFEE will want to seize Africa's diamonds

As part of the war on terror. Pickles could use some classier jewelry - that'll show the terrorists.