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Al Qaeda Financing Documents Turn Up in Bosnia Raid

Wednesday, February 19, 2003

Associated Press

WASHINGTON — U.S. authorities recovered a list of 20 financiers they suspect funneled money to Usama bin Laden and others extremist
Muslim causes among a cache of documents that provide insight into the financing of terrorism, an unsealed court record shows.

The seized documents are a "treasure trove" and among other things indicate Al Qaeda military leaders were at times paid salaries from Muslim
charity proceeds and purchased weapons with money from charity leaders, prosecutors said in the once-secret court filing.

Other evidence seized in March 2002 from the Bosnian offices of the Benevolence International Foundation, an Illinois-based Muslim charity,
includes handwritten correspondence to and from bin Laden and documents detailing the origins, growth and expansion of his Al Qaeda network
in the 1980s and 1990s, the filing said.

Though the original documents remain secret, the prosecutor described their contents and English translations for the first time in the filing
unsealed this month in the case of the head of the Muslim foundation who reached a plea deal with federal prosecutors in Chicago.

Enaam Arnaout pleaded guilty last week to illegally buying boots and uniforms for fighting forces in Bosnia and Chechnya under a deal in which
prosecutors, in exchange for his cooperation, dropped charges that he aided bin Laden.

In a pretrial document known as a "proffer," prosecutors said handwritten documents scanned into computer formats in the Bosnia office included
a file titled "Osama's history" that contained "a handwritten draft list of people referred to within Al Qaeda as the 'Golden Chain,' wealthy donors to
mujahedeen efforts."

"The list contained 20 names, and after each name a parenthetical indicating the person who received the money from the specified donor," the
proffer said.

The list suggested at least seven of the donors gave directly to bin Laden, and six of the others were listed as giving to the founder of a Muslim
charity, the court document said.

U.S. officials declined to identify any of the 20 donors, but said the list is one of several pieces of evidence the government has obtained since the
war on terror began after Sept. 11 that identifies spigots of money that have financed bin Laden and Middle Eastern and Asian terrorists over the
past two decades.

U.S. officials estimate they have frozen roughly $124.5 million in financial assets belonging to terrorist groups, including Al Qaeda, since the Sept.
11 attacks.

One letter found in the files instructed a charity leader to pay a monthly salary of 4,500 Saudi riyals each - about $1,200 - to two of Al Qaeda's
top military leaders. The letter establishes "that military commanders were salaried by the support organizations," the prosecutors said in the
proffer.

Other docume' ' discuss the purchases of weapons such as missiles, dynamite, fuses, rocket-propelled grenades and bayonets, the proffer
stated.

The documents found in the charity's Bosnian office also chronicle the evolution of bin Laden's movement from support of the once U.S.-based
muhajedeen warriors fighting Soviet occupation of Afghanistan to a global terror network that posed threats to the United States and rest of the
Western world.

In one letter, an unidentified author writes to bin Laden asking for help for followers in the African country of Eritrea. The letter identifies as its top
goal "facilitating the travel of the youth to the field of Jihad so they can benefit from the training possibilities, by providing them with tickets and
entry visas," according to the government translation.

Another letter from bin Laden "explains the time has come for an attack on the Russians," the court documents said. Other correspondence
describe money transfers and weapons purchases showing that Al Qaeda often facilitates such transactions with a simple letter from bin Laden or
a top lieutenant asking the recipient to provide money to the bearer of the letter.

http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,78937,00.html 8/1/2003
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