Pakistani fugitive Aafia Siddiqui was
actively involved on behalf of Al Qaeda in buying diamonds
from Liberia in order to have easily convertible and untraceable
funds to circumvent US-led moves in 1999 freezing Al Qaeda
bank accounts and other assets worldwide.
Ms Siddiqui was the only prominent female
figure in Al Qaeda, and is believed by the United States
to have been a likely “fixer” for the group
in the United States and elsewhere. Media reports have
said Ms Siddiqui was in Monrovia to iron out problems
between other Al Qaeda operatives.
According to an Associated Press dispatch
based on a confidential report by UN-backed prosecutors,
a series of witnesses place six top Al Qaeda fugitives
in Africa buying diamonds in the run-up to the September
11 attacks. The first-person accounts detailed by the
prosecutors add to long-standing claims that Al Qaeda
laundered millions of dollars in terror funds through
African diamonds before 9/11. Al Qaeda figures, including
some already wanted in pre-September 11 attacks on US
targets, dealt directly with then-President Charles Taylor
and other leaders and warlords in Liberia from 1999 onwards,
according to the accounts. The witnesses told of meetings
and sightings in the seedy hotels and safe houses of Monrovia.
“It is clear that Al Qaeda has been
in West Africa since September 1998 and maintained a continuous
presence in the area through 2002,” according to
UN-backed war-crimes investigators in West Africa. Separately,
one US intelligence official said evidence of an Al Qaeda-Africa
diamond link was “close to overwhelming.”
According to him, Al Qaeda proceeds in the diamond trade
netted in $15 million. The 9/11 attacks cost an estimated
half a million dollars.
The Al Qaeda people seen in Liberia before
the 9/11 attacks include Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian
wanted in the 1998 bombings of two US embassies in Africa
and arrested on 25 July in Pakistan. Other Al Qaeda figures
placed in Liberia by direct sources cited in the dossier
are: Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, a native of East Africa’s
Comoro Islands, accused in 1998 and 2002 Al Qaeda attacks
in East Africa. The United States has placed a $25 million
bounty on Mohammed; Egyptian Mohammed Atef, a purported
Osama Bin Laden military chief, killed in Afghanistan
in 2001; Kenyan Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan, wanted in the
1998 attacks in East Africa; Egyptian Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah,
wanted in the 1998 attacks; and Aafia Siddiqui from Pakistan
