FTR-356 Mein Jihad, Part IV (The “Jihad For Freedom”) Two 30-minute segments) (Sources are noted in parentheses.) (Recorded on 4/21/2002.)

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This program presents more information about the 9/11 attacks. (For more about the attacks see FTR#’s 325-355.) Continuing discussion of the intersection between the milieux of oil, international finance, fascism and “Islamofascism” the program explores spheres of influence in which the forces behind the 9/11 attacks operate. Particular emphasis is on the connection between the Republican Party’s ethnic outreach operations and the Wahhabi/Islamofascist elements behind Al Queda.

1. Beginning with discussion of Grover Norquist, the broadcast highlights the profound connections between this prominent Republican (dubbed the “Field Marshal of the Bush Plan” by The Nation magazine) and powerful Islamists connected to a series of financial organizations raided by the Treasury Department on March 20. (For more about these raids, see FTR#353.) Norquist is a founding director of the Islamic Institute, and his Janus-Merritt Strategies LLC is connected to the American Muslim Council. (“Strange Bedfellows: Grover Norquist and Abdurahman Alamoudi” by Seth Gitell; The Boston Phoenix; 10/4-10/11/2001; accessed at http://www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/news_features/this_just_in/documents/01848515.htm .)

2. Norquist associate Alamoudi stated at an October 2000 anti-Clinton rally that he was a supporter of Hamas and Hezbollah. (Idem.)

3. Norquist’s Islamic liaisons overlap many of the organizations (and individuals) raided by Treasury as part of Operation Green Quest. (“Wahhabis in the Old Dominion” by Stephen Schwartz; The Weekly Standard; 4/8/2002 [Volume 007, Issue 29]; accessed at www.weeklystandard.com/Utilities/printer_preview.asp?idArticle=1072&R=4FC12C2DAA .)

4. One of the key individuals in this milieu is Khalid Bin Mahfouz, a longtime associate of the Bush family. (Idem.) (For more about Bin Mahfouz, the milieu of Al Queda, BCCI and the Bushes, see FTR#’s 330, 342, 344, 353, 354, 355.)

5. Among the key individuals in the “Green Quest” milieu is Jamal Barzinji. (Idem.)

6. Barzinji, in turn, overlaps institutions with connections to the Bin Laden family and Al Taqwa. (For more about Al Taqwa, see FTR#’s 335, 336, 338, 340, 342, 343, 344, 351, 352, 353, 354, 355.)

7. Barzinji is a representative of the World Assembly of Muslim Youth. (Idem.)

8. The WAMY is described as “. . .an arm of the Saudi regime with offices in Virginia. WAMY has been deeply involved in providing cover for Wahhabi terrorism. The 2002 entry in the U.S. Business Directory lists the president of theWAMY office in Annandale, Va., as Abdula bin Laden—the terrorist’s younger brother.” (Idem.)

9. One of the key connecting links between the milieu of Al Queda, the highest ranks of the Republican Party and Al Taqwa is the Amana Mutual Funds Trust. (Idem.)

10. “Barzinji serves as a trustee and officer of the Amana Mutual Funds Trust, a growth and income mutual fund headquartered in Bellingham, Washington, conveniently near the Canadian border. Amana’s board also includes Yaqub Mirza, a Pakistani physicist who shares Barzinji’s Herndon office address and who is widely described as a financial genius. Another board member and tenant in the Herndon office is Samir Salah. He formerly ran a branch of Al Taqwa in the Caribbean, heads a financial firm linked to Saar, and directs Dar al-Hijra, a mosque in Falls Church, Va., notable for hardline Wahhabi preaching.” (Idem.)

11. In previous programs about September 11, Mr. Emory has presented his hypothesis that an Underground Reich “Fifth Column” within the U.S. political, economic and national security establishment was involved in the attacks. In that context it is interesting to consider Mr. Barzinji’s connections. “Front groups interfacing between the Wahhabi-Saudi money movers under federal suspicion and the broader American public include two institutions active in the religious field: the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) and the Graduate School of Islamic and Social Sciences (GSISS). The involvement of GSISS with the financing of extremism is especially startling in that it alone is credentialed by the Department of Defense to certify Muslim chaplains for the U.S. armed forces. Barzinji has appeared on the boards of both.”

12. On April 4, Treasury Secretary O’Neill met with powerful Islamist Republicans whose spheres of interest overlap those of the institutions and individuals targeted on March 20. (“O’Neill Met Muslim Activists Tied to Charities” by Glenn R. Simpson [with Roger Thurow]; Wall Street Journal; 4/18/2002; p. A4.)

13. “Among the Muslim leaders attending [the meeting with O’Neill] was Talat Othman, a longtime associate and supporter of President Bush’s family, who gave a benediction at the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia in August 2000. . .But he also serves [with Barzinji] on the board of Amana Mutual funds Trust, an investment firm founded by M. Yacqub Mirza, the Northern Virginia businessman who set up most of the entities targeted by the Treasury and whose tax records were sought in the raid.” (Idem.)

14. As Mr. Emory hypothesized in FTR#353, the Norquist/GOP/Islamist links are part of the Republican Party’s ethnic outreach program. “The case also highlights conflicts between the Bush administration’s domestic political goals and its war on terror. GOP officials began courting the U.S. Muslim community intensely in the late 1990’s, seeking to add that ethnic bloc to the party’s political base.” (Idem.) (For more about the fascist heritage of the GOP’s ethnic outreach organization, see, among other programs, RFA#37, FTR#’s 29, 48, 113, 248, 346, 353.)

15. The meeting was described as highly unusual. “Bruce Zagaris, an asset-forfeiture lawyer, who represents clients in similar cases, said a meeting between Treasury officials and anyone who might be associated with an entity under investigation is very unusual. ‘It’s virtually impossible [to arrange such a meeting], especially with the Treasury secretary,’ Mr. Zagaris said. ‘It’s very difficult to even get phone calls returned.’” (Idem.)

16. The Amana organization has numerous areas of overlap with organizations described as being implicated in terrorism and the milieu of Al Queda. “Two nonprofits affiliated with Mr. Mirza and named in the search warrant, the SAAR Foundation Inc. and the Heritage Education Trust Inc., held large blocks of shares in Amana’s mutual funds in 1997, according to SEC records. The SEC documents and other records detailing connections between Mr. Othman and the Islamic Institute [on the board of which Mr. Othman serves] and the raided groups were compiled by the National Security News Service, a Washington based nonprofit research group.” (Idem.)

17. Further details have emerged about the links between Al Taqwa and the GOP/Bush administration. “Mr. Othman also is on the board of Mr. Saffuri’s [and Norquist’s] Islamic Institute, the GOP-leaning group that received $20,000.00 from the Safa Trust, one of the raid's targets. The president of the Safa Trust, Jamal Barzinji, is a former business associate of Switzerland based investor Youssef Nada, whose assets were frozen last fall after the Treasury designated him a person suspected of giving aid to terrorists.” (Idem.)

18. Othman’s links to Bush are profound. “Mr. Othman has ties to the Bush family going back to the 1980’s, when he served with George W. Bush on the board of a Texas petroleum firm, Harken Oil & Gas Inc. Mr. Othman has visited the White House during the administrations of both President Bush and his father George H.W. Bush.” (Idem.) (For more about Harken Oil and George W. Bush, see FTR’s 284, 355.)

19. Further detailing the background of Othman, the broadcast highlights the connections between people associated with the Nugan Hand Bank and Othman. “Harken Energy was formed in 1973 by two oilmen who would benefit from a successful covert effort to destabilize Australia’s Labor Party government (which had attempted to shut out foreign oil exploration). A decade later, Harken was sold to a new investment group headed by New York attorney Alan G. Quasha, a partner in the firm of Quasha, Wessely & Schneider. …William Quasha [Alan’s father] had also given legal advice to two top officials of the notorious Nugan Hand Bank in Australia, a CIA operation. After the sale of Harken Energy in 1983, Alan Quasha became a director and chairman of the board. Under Quasha, Harken suddenly absorbed Junior’s struggling Spectrum 7 in 1986. (“Bush Family Value$: The Bush Clan’s Family Business” by Stephen Pizzo; Mother Jones; September/October 1992; accessed at www.motherjones.com/news_wire/bushboys.html .) (For more about Nugan Hand, see RFA#’s 4, 25, 30.)

20. Othman also has links to Gaith Pharoan of the BCCI and, through him, to James R. Bath and the Bin Ladens. “Sheikh Abdullah Bakhsh, in turn, was a business associate of BCCI front man Gaith Pharoan; he bought a chunk of Harken’s stock and placed his representative, Talat Othman, on Harken Energy’s board of directors.” (Idem.)

21. Next, the broadcast turns to discussion of Clearstream, a major vehicle for the financing of BCCI and, as we shall see, Al Taqwa. “A controversial European book that might help authorities track terrorist funding sources remains unpublished and relatively unknown in the United States. Entitled Revelation$ [by Ernest Backes and Denis Robert], it exposes a secret banking system that might be used by terrorists. At the center is a clearinghouse in Luxembourg called Clearstream, which transfers money for international banks and major companies.” (“A Book Too Hot For U.S. to Handle? Tracking Terrorist Money” by Lucy Komisar; Pacific News Service; 10/4/2001; accessed at www.pacificnews.org/content/pns/2001/oct/1004tracking.html .)

22. Furthermore, the Clearstream/BCCI link was apparently known to Rudy Giuliani (a U.S. attorney under the elder George Bush.) “This reporter was shown copies of what Backes says are records of the secret accounts. He keeps the originals in caches outside Luxembourg. The documents are a mine of information for any financial inquiry, with detailed information on every cross-border transfer in cash or securities. Some U.S. officials—including New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani—may well be aware of the system detailed in the documents. . . .When Mayor Giuliani was an assistant prosecutor in charge of investigating the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) in the early 1990’s, he received documents from Backes according to Revelation$. ‘Giuliani and agents of the FBI were delighted with the official documents [which Backes sent him],’ the authors wrote.’” (Idem.) Mr. Emory notes that the current director of the FBI, Robert Mueller, was in charge of the BCCI investigation and was less than vigorous in his pursuit of the truth. It is Mr. Emory’s view that Mueller may well have been an inside plant, positioned in order to prevent an unraveling of the BCCI money trail in the direction of George W. Bush. (See FTR#’s 310, 325, 349.)

23. The program also notes another speculative link between Al Queda, Nazi banker and operative Francois Genoud and the 9/11 attacks. “Ernest Backes, a leading European expert on money laundering, told the Luxembourg-based financial journal Plus Minus that he believed that the 9/11 terrorist money trail would ultimately lead back to Swiss bank accounts set up by an organization founded by Genoud. Reports of a possible Genoud trail cite the involvement of a Swiss lawyer named Baudoin [Dunant] on the management committee of the Geneva branch of the Saudi Investment Company (SICO), which handles much of the bin-Laden family's investments abroad.” (“The Mysterious Achmed Huber: Friend to Hitler, Allah. . .and Ibn Laden?” by Kevin Coogan: Hit List; April/May 2002 [Volume 3, #4]; p. 125.) (For more about Genoud in the context of the 9/11 attacks, see FTR#’s 333, 335, 341, 343, 344, 350, 351, 351, 352, 354, 355.)

24. Clearstream, Al Taqwa and Bin Laden were further described by the remarkable Mr. Backes in a recent article, also by Ms. Komisar. “In November, U.S. authorities named some banks that had bin Laden accounts, and it put them on a blacklist. One was Al Taqwa, ‘Fear of God,’ registered in the Bahamas with offices in Lugano, Switzerland. Al Taqwa had access to the Clearstream system through its correspondent account with the Banca del Gottardo in Lugano, which has a published Clearstream account (No. 74381). But Bin Laden may have other access to the unpublished system. In what he calls a ‘spectacular discovery,’ Ernest Backes reports that in the weeks before CEO Andre Lussi was forced to leave Clearstream last May, a series of 16 unpublished accounts were opened under the name of the Saudi Investment Company, or SICO, the Geneva holding of the Saudi binladen Group, which is run by Osama’s brother Yeslam Binladen (some family members spell the name differently.) Yeslam Binladen insists hat he has nothing to do with his brother, but evidence suggests SICO is tied into Osama’s financial network. SICO is associated with Dar Al-Maal-Al-Islami (DMI), an Islamic financial institution also based in Geneva and presided over by Prince Muhammed Al Faisal Al Saoud, a cousin of Saudi King Fahd, that directs millions a year to fundamentalist movements. DMI holds a share of the Al Shamal Islamic Bank of Sudan, which was set up in 1991 and partly financed by $50 million from Osama bin Laden. Furthermore, one of SICO’s administrators, Geneva attorney Baudoin Dunand, is a partner in a law firm, Magnin Dunand & Partners, that set up the Swiss financial services company SBA, a subsidiary of the SBA Bank in Paris, which is controlled by Khaled bin Mahfouz. Mahfouz’s younger sister is married to Osama bin Laden.” (“Banking with Bin Laden” by Lucy Komisar [sidebar to “Explosive Revelation$”]; In These Times; 3/15/2002; accessed at www.inthesetimes.com/issue/26/10feature1_side2.shtml .) (For more about SICO, Yeslam Bin Laden, and Baudoin Dunand, see FTR#’s 354, 355.)

25. Next, the program details the fact that Clearstream was recently purchased by Deutsche Borse (the German stock exchange), which had previously owned 50% of the house. (This took place after 9/11.) (“Deutsche Borse Buys Clearstream” by Jonathan Braude; The Deal.com; 2/1/2002; accessed at http://tdnycprodwww01.the…icle/Printerfriendly&ArtID=1012398846203.) (FTR#232 sets forth the ownership of Deutsche Borse by major German commercial banks controlled by the Bormann organization. For more about the Bormann organization, see FTR#355, among other programs.)

26. The program concludes with a look at links between Al Taqwa, Clearstream, the Banca del Gottardo in Lugano, alleged Soviet biological warfare operations and elements connected to the Balkans wars. “Beginning in 1973, Biopreparat produced and stockpiled hundreds of tons of anthrax and dozens of tons of plague and smallpox. Documents obtained in Switzerland by this reporter show that the Banca del Gottardo in Lugano has been tightly involved in deals between Russian weapons firms and Interplastica, a company which beginning in the 1960’s specialized in trade with the countries of the East Bloc to pierce western embargoes. Interplastica is registered in Morbio Inferiore near Lugano, in the canton of Tessin in southern Switzerland. Among the deals, documents show that the Banca del Gottardo financed a contract between Biopreparat and Interplastica in 1993. . . .Beghjet Pacolli . . .ran Interplastica. Pacolli, who was born in Kosovo, supports militant Muslim groups. . . .Through the Fund for Reconstruction of Kosovo (FORK), in Lugano, he finances the Kosovo Liberation Army or UCK, (known in the West as KLA) described by Robert Gelbard, who was America’s special envoy to Bosnia as ‘Islamic terrorists’ . . . .On Wednesday, November 6, the U.S. announced that it was adding to its blacklist of banks and individuals believed connected to the Bin Laden network the Al Taqwa bank, with operations in Switzerland, Italy, Liechtenstein and the Bahamas, and its chief executive Youssef Nada and board members Mohamed Mansour and Albert Huber. Mohamed Mansour is on the board of the Bosnian Institute in Zurich. So is Pacolli. Pier Felici Barchi, Nada’s lawyer, and Claudio Generali, president of the Banca del Gottardo, serve together on boards of a capital management foundation in Liechtenstein and several enterprises in Switzerland. They are both leaders of the Liberal Radical Party, which rules in Switzerland and which, till now, has afforded the bank political protection from intrusive investigations by authorities. The U.S. should put an end to that.” (“Swiss Bank Handled Sale from Russian Bioweapons Company” by Lucy Komisar; Earth Times News Service; November 2001; accessed at www.earthtimes.org/nov/businessswissnov12_01.htm .) Mr. Emory notes that the biological warfare attack that presages the Nazi takeover in the book Serpent’s Walk is perpetrated with genetically-engineered microorganisms of Ostensibly Russian origin. (For more about this Nazi tract, see FTR#’s 331, 335, 336, 339, among other programs.) (It is recommended that serious students of the events of 9/11 consult RFA#37, and Miscellaneous Archive Show M61, available from Spitfire.) (Recorded on 4/21/2002.)