http://web.archive.org/web/20030429202335/http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/12/20021206-4.htmlQ How about the PTech raid in Boston? Could you talk about what, if any, role the White House had in overseeing this or even being involved in it? And also are you completely assured that there's no problems with any of the software that this company --
MR. FLEISCHER: Yes, thank you for asking that, because earlier at this morning's off-camera briefing, somebody said -- described this as White House orchestrated. And I went back and took a look at the actual report that accurately described it as White House coordinated, meaning the White House is coordinated with it. The White House didn't orchestrate this; this is a law enforcement matter.
But, as you can always imagine, and has happened before and you're very familiar and aware with it,
that anything that may be terrorist related, of course, gets coordinated with the White House. The White House wants to know about things of this nature. But these things are done by the law enforcement community for law enforcement reasons and for law enforcement purposes, and that was the case here.
This is a law enforcement matter. The U.S. Attorney in Massachusetts is the proper authority to discuss any of this. It was a Customs Service operation involving the potential for terrorist connections in this company and, beyond that, it's law-enforcement sensitive. The one thing I can share with you is that the products that were supplied by this company to the government all fell in the nonclassified area. None of it involved any classified products used by the government. The material has been reviewed by the appropriate government agencies, and they have detected absolutely nothing in their reports to the White House that would lead to any concern about any of the products purchased from this company.
Q Who are they talking about -- a cyber office here or --
MR. FLEISCHER: No, I think it's more some of the experts in technology and software, things of that nature.______________________________________________________________
“You would know where the access points are, you’d know how to get in, you would know where the weaknesses are, you’d know how to destroy it.” --John Zachman, in reference to Ptech’s capabilities
_____________________________________________________________
http://www.time.com/time/world/printout/0,8816,178227,00.htmlFriday, Oct. 05, 2001
A Banking System Built for TerrorismBy Meenakshi Ganguly
In the labrynthine depths of old Delhi, where the lanes are too narrow even for a rickshaw, men drink tea and chat in shabby offices. Nobody seems to be doing any work, until the phone rings. Then, numbers are furiously scribbled, followed by some busy dialing and whispered instruction. Although it's far from obvious in the innocuous setting, these men are moving money — to exporters, drug traffickers, tax evaders, corrupt politicians. And terrorists.
Welcome to the world of hawala, an international underground banking system that allows money to show up in the bank accounts or pockets of men like hijacker Mohammed Atta, without leaving any paper trail. There are no contracts, bank statements or transaction records, and yet those who use the hawala networks can move thousands of dollars around the world in a matter of hours.
In a smoke-filled, empty office in Delhi, Ali — who would not give his real name — explains his trade. "All it needs is a good network of trustworthy people," he explains. "If today you want to me to arrange a delivery of cash anywhere in the world — Hong Kong, Johannesburg, New York, Paris — it will be done in, maximum, eight hours."
To move money to New York, for instance, Ali will accept payment in Indian rupees from a client in Delhi. Then he'll call associates in Dubai, who in turn contact their man in New York. The client in Delhi is given a code, usually the numbers from a currency note, which is passed on to the recipient. When the phone rings in New York, both messenger and recipient will read back alternate digits from the password. Identity thus established, the recipient will be paid in dollars.
Not only is there no paper trail, Ali's system avoids bank charges, transmission delays and foreign exchange regulations. All that hawala requires is trust. And that, ironically, is why it thrives in the underworld. No one cheats, Ali insists. And if they do? He looks a little shifty. "The small gain will not be worth the bigger price," he says. "You will lose respect, and for a man, honor is his most important asset." How about his life? Ali laughs. "Yes, if someone is very upset, he might want to kill the thief," he says. "But it seldom comes to that."
Although Indian authorities have found Kashmiri militants making extensive use of the hawala system, funding terrorism is not a priority for the hawala dealers. The big money comes from defrauding trade regulations: An importer arranges with a supplier to charge a fraction of his real prices on an invoice, and pays the difference via hawala. Drug traffickers and corrupt officials also use the system for money laundering. "Hawala dealers don't care about where the money comes from or what it is being used for," says Ali. "They only concern themselves with the deal."
The industry's hub is the oil emirate of Dubai, home to many gangsters from both India and Pakistan who maintain legitimate enterprises there but also operate hawala networks. Dubai is a free trade zone with no limitations on the movement of goods or currency. In the absence of laws expressly prohibiting the practice of hawala, it is difficult to track and arrest the offenders. And since hawala does not affect the Dubai economy, and it's not a priority for local law enforcement.
Hawala hurts the national economies of developing countries desperate for foreign exchange deposits, but every individual in the chain has the incentive of earning a commission. And that's what keeps the networks going. "People know that salaries cannot buy the good things," says Ali, one of thousands of operatives in an underground banking world that stretches from New York to Tokyo. "You need a little extra." Even at a cost of enabling crime and terrorism.
______________________________________________________________
http://dir.salon.com/story/tech/feature/2002/03/15/al_taqwa/print.htmlShareholders in the Bank of Terror?A previously unpublished list reveals that backers of a bank that the U.S. says helped fund al-Qaida include prominent members of the Arab world.
By Lucy Komisar
According to an unpublished list obtained by Salon, the Al Taqwa bank, part of a network of financial companies named by the Bush administration as a major source and distributor of funds for Osama bin Laden's terrorist operations, has shareholders that include prominent Arab figures from numerous countries in the Middle East. Among the shareholders are the grand mufti of the United Arab Emirates and prominent families in the UAE and Kuwait. Two sisters of Osama bin Laden are also on the list, undermining the bin Laden family's claim that it separated itself from his terrorist pursuits after he was expelled from Saudi Arabia in 1994.
Ahmed Huber, a Swiss director of the bank who is a radical Islamist and Hitler admirer, acknowledged in 1995 that wealthy Saudi Arabians were large contributors to the Al Taqwa bank. The just-revealed list of shareholders demonstrates further connections between important individuals in moderate Middle Eastern countries and a financial network allegedly vital to bin Laden.
The FBI may have known who the shareholders were for as long as four years. There is also evidence that Swiss authorities have since the mid-1990s refused to cooperate with international intelligence inquiries into the bank's activities. Swiss officials have said they were aware of reports that Al Taqwa was connected to terrorist groups, but there was never sufficient evidence to merit a search warrant.
The names appear on an unpublished shareholders register of "Bank Al Taqwa" that reflects holdings as of December 1999. Bank Al Taqwa is based in the Bahamas; the Al Taqwa group (which changed its name to Nada Management Organization a year ago, after authorities began an investigation into its dealings) is headquartered in Lugano, Switzerland. In November, the U.S. named the Al Taqwa network a funnel for Bin Laden's al-Qaida financial network. Representatives of the bank have denied any involvement in terrorist activities.
The list has been confirmed as authentic by both U.S. officials and Al Taqwa. Michele Davis, spokeswoman for the Treasury Department, was shown the documents on March 13 and acknowledged, "We have the list. We are doing the same as you -- trying to find out who these people are." There are 745 names on the 18-page register.
Al Taqwa president Youssef Moustafa Nada, one of several top bank officials who was put on the U.S. "supporters of terrorism" list in November, also confirmed the veracity of the list. "It is genuine," he said in a phone interview. "You can ask Mr. Nicati [the Swiss deputy attorney general]. He investigated all these things four months ago. The FBI knows since 1997. I talked to them."
Nada has vehemently denied funding bin Laden.
Included on the list are Yousuf Abdullah Al-Qaradawi, the grand mufti of the United Arab Emirates, and five members of his family; Mariam Al-Sheikh A. Bin Aziz Al-Mubarak of a branch of the Kuwaiti royal family; and members of the prominent Khalifeh family of the United Arab Emirates. Sisters Huta and Iman Binladen, who live in Saudi Arabia, and Hassan el-Banna, a leader of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood group, are also listed.
Al Taqwa was a so-called "hawala" operation (an informal word-of-mouth system that keeps no records and relies on trust) that facilitated transfers of cash between agents worldwide. The bank also used correspondent accounts -- accounts that banks have in other banks -- to transmit cash to its agents.
In October, Swiss Attorney General Valentine Roschacher said he'd received names from the FBI and they were being checked, but said no evidence of any wrongdoing had been found. He added, "It's difficult for us to get information." Swiss banks are protected by stringent secrecy laws, and the hawala system makes ascertaining the exact nature of Al Taqwa's transactions even more difficult.
One American law enforcement official who was shown the list recognized names of members of the militant Palestinian organization Hamas, which is on the State Department's list of terrorist organizations, among the shareholders. Additional publicly accessible records show that some of the bank's shareholders are connected to organizations Western intelligence officials link to al-Qaida.
Mar 15, 2002 | Al Taqwa has been viewed with suspicion by Western intelligence sources for years. In the mid-1990s, the Italian anti-terrorist agency DIGOS (Division of General Intelligence and Special Operations), concerned about radical Islamic activity at the Islamic Cultural Institution of Milan, found links to Al Taqwa. In 1995, according to journalists Paolo Fusi and Martin Stoll in the Swiss newsweekly Facts, DIGOS told Swiss federal prosecutor Carla Del Ponte, "The Nada group comprises the most important financial structure of the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic terrorist organizations." The newsweekly said the agency later reported that Swiss officials appeared loath to look into Nada's operations.
Included in the list of shareholders of Al Taqwa are bank founder and director Ahmed Idriss Nasreddin, an Ethiopian who worked for the Binladen Group (the bin Laden family's construction company) and was honorary consul of Kuwait in Milan, board member of the Islamic Center of Milan and president of the Islamic Community of Ticino. Others are Sante (Abdulwahab) Ciccarello, director of the Islamic Cultural Center in Milan, and Kaldoun Dia Eddine, president of the Committee to Aid Refugees of Bosnia-Herzegovina and secretary of the Islamic Community of Ticino.
In 1996 DIGOS became suspicious that humanitarian help to Bosnia organized by Nasreddin in Milan was being skimmed. The amount the charity sent didn't coincide with what it raised. According to the U.S. investigations into the 1998 attacks on the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the Milan center was also a gathering place for recruits to an alQaida training camp in Afghanistan.
According to Facts, a 1996 DIGOS report said Al Taqwa handled financing for a number of Arab and Islamic political and militant groups, including the Palestine Liberation Organization, Hamas, the Algerian Armed Islamic Group (GIA) and the Egyptian Gama'a al-Islamiya, as well as former Afghan mujahedin in bin Laden's camps. It said the network aided terrorist groups in Kuwait, Yemen, Libya, Jordan, Lebanon and Sudan.
The weekly Facts also reported that in 1997 DIGOS asked for Swiss help. Del Ponte (who is now leading the U.N.'s prosecution of former Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milosevic for war crimes) started questioning Al Taqwa officials. Nada's attorney, Pier Felice Barchi, in whose law firm Del Ponte had worked, recalled to Facts how he ended the investigation. Barchi said, "When I learned about the Italian inquiry, I immediately called Del Ponte and said to her, 'Hey, Carlotta, stop this shit.' A few hours later, the nonsense was off the table."
Barchi told Salon his true remark was, "Please, Mrs. Del Ponte, make an inquiry." He said, "After 20 or 30 days, Mrs. Del Ponte said it's not necessary to make an inquiry; there's no evidence against Mr. Nada." He said he hadn't asked Facts for a correction because "I have other things to do." Del Ponte's press spokesman declined to respond to a detailed query.
Al Taqwa has for years enjoyed protection in Switzerland, where it moves money through correspondent accounts in the politically influential Banca del Gottardo, also in Lugano. Gottardo president Claudio Generali is a local vice president of the ruling Liberal Radical Party and a former finance minister of Ticino. Gottardo has New York correspondent accounts in Citibank and the Bank of New York, which gave Al Taqwa entry into the U.S. Replying to numerous queries about Gottardo activities, spokesman Franco Rogantini sent an e-mail declining to answer queries, then or in the future.
-- By Lucy Komisar
______________________________________________________________
OCTOBER 17, 2003
Terror Fund Trail Leads To Alpine Kingdom By MARC PERELMAN
FORWARD STAFF
A man charged last week on immigration infractions and suspected by prosecutors of financial links to terrorism is seen by government investigators as a possible key to unraveling an alleged terrorism-financing network spanning from Virginia to the secretive kingdom of Liechtenstein.
Soliman Biheiri, a native of Egypt, was convicted in a federal court in Virginia on charges of lying on his citizenship application. It is the first conviction to be handed down in a major terrorism investigation involving a cluster of Islamic charities and companies in Virginia.
While such immigration charges typically carry prison sentences of less than six months, prosecutors have asked the court to deviate from its guidelines and jail Biheiri for up to 10 years because of his potential terrorist links.
Sources close to the investigation said prosecutors asked for the unusual sentencing because they think Biheiri, who was held as a material witness before his trial, has deep knowledge of the so-called SAAR network. The network, a group of Muslim charities and companies based in Virginia, is believed to have ties in two European tax havens, Switzerland and Liechtenstein.
In an affidavit filed in support of Biheiri's detention, special agent David Kane accused him of possibly funneling $3.7 million from the Virginia charities to terrorists through his New Jersey-based real estate investment company, BMI.
Kane also alleged that he had business and personal relationships with Hamas leader Moussa Abu Marzook, suspected Al Qaeda and Hamas backer Yassin Qadi and Sami Al-Arian, a Florida university professor indicted for his alleged leadership position in Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
At the hearing, Biheiri's lawyer James Clark acknowledged those connections but insisted there was no evidence his client was involved in terrorism.
Clark declined to comment on the case on the record with the Forward, other than confirming that the prosecution had asked the judge to deviate from standard sentencing guidelines. The judge is scheduled to hand down his decision on January 9.
The prosecution also alleged that Biheiri is linked to a secretive financial network in Switzerland and Liechtenstein called Al Taqwa, which American and European investigators say is a financial backer of the Muslim Brotherhood.
The Brotherhood, often depicted as the ideological parent of most radical Islamic groups, recently has come under government scrutiny for its possible direct role in supporting terrorism, most prominently because of Al Taqwa.
The Bush administration and the United Nations have designated the Al Taqwa network and its main officials — two self-avowed Muslim Brothers and an admitted Nazi sympathizer — as supporters of Al Qaeda. As a result, their assets have been frozen and they are the focus of a Swiss investigation.
The Al Taqwa officials have repeatedly rejected the charges.
At the Biheiri detention hearing last month, prosecutor Steven Ward described Biheiri as the Muslim Brotherhood's "financial toehold in the U.S."
The prosecution said it had established links between Biheiri and the two principals of Al Taqwa, Youssef Nada and Ghaleb Himmat.
According to testimony from special agent Kane of the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the addresses of Nada and Himmat were found in Biheiri's laptop computer. Kane told the court that there were "other indications" of connections between al Taqwa and Biheiri's company BMI, including financial transactions.
At that point, the prosecutor prevented Kane from elaborating further, saying he was entering the realm of classified foreign intelligence, according to an account by the Wall Street Journal that was confirmed to the Forward by a source who requested anonymity.
One company in the Al Taqwa galaxy that was designated by the United States and the U.N. as a terrorist-related entity is a Liechtenstein entity called Asat Trust.
Its director, Martin Wachter, told the Forward this year that Asat Trust operates merely as a registry for businesses and is not involved in the operation of any company. He added that the American government had wrongfully designated Asat Trust as a terrorist-related entity because it had once represented Al Taqwa in a small real estate deal in Switzerland.
Still, copies of business registration documents on file with authorities in Liechtenstein show that Asat Trust has been intimately involved with the Al Taqwa network during the last 30 years, registering changes in company names, personnel and financial structure, which may explain why Asat Trust landed on the American and U.N. terrorist lists.
The records also shed light on the involvement of one member of the royal family of Liechtenstein in Asat Trust. According to the documents, deceased Prince Emanuel von und zu Liechtenstein became a board member of Asat Trust in May 1970 and stayed until November 1990, when he was replaced by Wachter, the trust's current director.
Florian Krenkel, a spokesman for the royal family, said Prince Emanuel had died in 1987 and that he was a distant cousin from ruling prince Hans Adam II.
"There are hundreds of family members and we don't know what they are all doing," he told the Forward in a phone interview from Vaduz, the capital of the tiny European kingdom. "But I can assure you that the royal family has no links to terrorism."
There also appears to be some links between Asat Trust and a bank owned by the Liechtenstein royal family. Several Asat Trust documents feature on their letterheads "Bank in Liechtenstein AG" beneath "Asat Trust."
The royal family bank has changed its name and is now called LGT bank.
A telephone and an e-mail query to the bank's spokesman Hans-Martin Uehringer went unreturned.
Biheiri's wife told federal agents in May 2002 that her husband had left the United States in mid-2002 to work for the "Liechtenstein bank" in Switzerland, according to the sworn testimony of special agent Kane.
Biheiri himself told Kane that his job at the bank consisted of "investment banking with high net worth clients and included significant travel between Egypt and Saudi Arabia," according to the affidavit.
Biheiri was familiar with Switzerland before moving to the United States in 1985. He earned a master's degree in economics from the University of Freiburg in Switzerland and worked for a Swiss bank, according to a transcript of a deposition he made at a separate trial.
Furthermore, in 1984 he set up and presided over an Islamic and Arab student group in Zurich, according to Swiss records obtained by the Forward. Biheiri dissolved the association in July 2002, the records show.
In March 1986, he founded BMI, a Secaucus, N.J.-based investment bank specializing in real estate investments, according to copies of New Jersey corporate records provided to the Forward by the Investigative project, a Washington-based terrorist watchdog specialized in Muslim groups.
Prosecutors contend that BMI and its affiliates received $3.7 million between 1992 and 1998 from the American branch of the International Islamic Relief Organization, or IIRO, which is located in the Virginia area where the SAAR network buildings were raided by federal agents in March 2002.
The IIRO is a major Saudi charity that has been suspected by the United States of links to Hamas, Gamaa Islamiya and Osama bin Laden at least since 1996, according to a copy of a CIA report from that year obtained by the Forward.
IIRO officials have consistently denied terrorist links.
Al Taqwa also appears to have some links to the SAAR network. Two operatives from SAAR-related companies and charities, Jamal Barzinji and Hisham al Talib, were board members of one of the network's companies in Liechtenstein during the mid-1970s, according to incorporation records.
Neither man has been indicted. They have rejected allegations, in the press and elsewhere, that they have supported terrorism, according to published news reports.
There are also indications that both Nada and Himmat, the Al Taqwa principals who today live in an Italian enclave bordering Switzerland and have acquired Italian citizenship, spent time in the United States in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
According to a translated copy of a 1996 Italian intelligence report, they each had three children born in the United States -—five of them born in Silver Spring, Md., between 1979 and 1984.
According to the Kane affidavit, Biheiri also had relations with a prominent Egyptian religious leader from the Muslim Brotherhood called Sheikh Youssouf Qaradawi. He acknowledged hosting him during when the sheikh visited America several years ago, according to the affidavit.
Now living in Qatar, Qaradawi has been barred from entering America since November 1999 because of his alleged support for terrorism. He has issued fatwas supporting suicide bombings in Israel and attacks on American troops in Iraq, according to documents produced by the prosecution at the Biheiri trial.
Qaradawi is listed as one of the shareholders of the Bahamas branch of Al Taqwa bank, according to a copy of a 1999 list of shareholders in possession of the Forward.
This branch shut down in April 2001. Press reports said the closure was the result of Jordanian, French and American intelligence reports which affirmed that Al Qaeda money coming from Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates had been channeled through Al Taqwa.
According to Swiss business records, the Al Taqwa network's main company in Switzerland followed suit and shut down at the end of 2001 following its designation as a terrorist-supporting entity by the United States and the U.N.
A 1995 Italian intelligence report contends that the Al Taqwa network funded radical groups in Algeria, Tunisia and Sudan and was a major backer of the Palestine Liberation Organization during the 1970s and, later on, Hamas.
American officials have charged that Al Taqwa also funneled money to Al Qaeda before and after the September 11 terrorist attacks.
The two-year-old Swiss investigation has yet to produce to any indictments.
_______________________________________________________________
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A12823-2004Sep10?language=printerTHE WORLD AFTER 9/11 : The Muslim Brotherhood In America
In Search Of Friends Among The Foes
U.S. Hopes to Work With Diverse GroupBy John Mintz and Douglas Farah
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, September 11, 2004; Page A01
When U.S. immigration officers in New York City whisked away Ishaq Farhan as he stepped off an incoming international flight in May 2000, his Jordanian diplomatic passport was no help to him. Federal agents questioned him for hours before barring his entry into the country. Then they made him pay for the flight back to Jordan.
The U.S. Embassy in Jordan lost no time making amends to Farhan, a leading opposition politician who has been closely affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, a worldwide movement opposed to Western influences. A State Department official visited his home, issued him an immediate visa and passed on the United States' "deep regret for the difficulties Dr. Farhan experienced."
The episode demonstrates the U.S. government's dilemma. Some federal agents worry that the Muslim Brotherhood has dangerous links to terrorism. But some U.S. diplomats and intelligence officials believe its influence offers an opportunity for political engagement that could help isolate violent jihadists.
"It is the preeminent movement in the Muslim world," said Graham E. Fuller, a former CIA official specializing in the Middle East. "It's something we can work with." Demonizing the Brotherhood "would be foolhardy in the extreme," he warned.
The Brotherhood's history and the challenges it poses to U.S. officials illustrate the complexity of the political front in the campaign against terrorism three years after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. FBI agents and financial investigators probe the group for terrorist ties and legal violations, while diplomats simultaneously discuss strategies for co-opting at least its moderate wings. In both sectors of the U.S. government, the Brotherhood often remains a mystery.
The Brotherhood -- or al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun, as it is known in Arabic -- is a sprawling and secretive society with followers in more than 70 countries. It is dedicated to creating an Islamic civilization that harks back to the caliphates of the 7th and 8th centuries, one that would segregate women from public life and scorn nonbelievers.
In some nations -- Egypt, Algeria, Syria, Sudan -- the Brotherhood has fomented Islamic revolution. In the Palestinian territories, the Brotherhood created the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, which has become known for its suicide bombings of Israelis. Yet it is also a sophisticated and diverse organization that appeals to many Muslims worldwide and sometimes advocates peaceful persuasion, not violent revolt. Some of its supporters went on to help found al Qaeda, while others launched one of the largest college student groups in the United States.
For decades, the Brotherhood enjoyed the support of the government of Saudi Arabia and its oil billions, which helped the group expand in the United States.
Past and present Muslim Brotherhood supporters make up the U.S. Islamic community's most organized force. They run hundreds of mosques and dozens of businesses engaging in ventures such as real estate development and banking. They also helped set up some of the leading American Islamic organizations that defend the rights of Muslims, promote Muslim civic activism and seek to spread Islam.
For years federal agents paid little heed to the Brotherhood, but after Sept. 11 they noticed that many leads went back to the Brotherhood. "We see some sort of nexus, direct or indirect, to the Brotherhood, in ongoing cases," said Dennis Lormel, until recently a top FBI counterterrorism official.
The architect of the Sept. 11 strikes, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, told U.S. interrogators that he was drawn to violent jihad after joining the Brotherhood in Kuwait at age 16 and attending its desert youth camps, according to the report released in July by the national commission that investigated the attacks.
Brotherhood radicals in Germany and Spain are suspected of organizing logistical support for the al Qaeda cell that carried out the attacks. Western governments subsequently shut down a huge banking network in Switzerland, Liechtenstein and the Bahamas that was set up by a leading Brotherhood figure, citing its numerous financial ties to al Qaeda and other terrorists. The founder, Youssef Nada, denies wrongdoing.
In March 2002, federal agents in Northern Virginia raided a cluster of Muslim think tanks, companies and foundations run mostly by men who sympathized with the Brotherhood in Iraq and elsewhere in the 1960s. No charges have resulted, but U.S. officials stated in court earlier this year that they are pursuing terrorist financing allegations. Members of the group, known for their relative political moderation, say they ended Brotherhood ties years ago and deny wrongdoing.
In a 42-count indictment in July, the government alleged that an Islamic charity, the Texas-based Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, funneled $12.4 million to a designated terrorist group, Hamas. The indictment said the Holy Land Foundation was "deeply involved with a network of Muslim Brotherhood organizations dedicated to furthering the Islamic fundamentalist agenda espoused by Hamas." The Holy Land Foundation denies wrongdoing.
The indictment alleges that the Holy Land Foundation and its Brotherhood allies performed services for Hamas -- fundraising, banking, producing videos and distributing literature. The Brotherhood network, according to the indictment, also hosted conferences -- featuring Hamas officials and radical sheiks -- that glorified extremism and included "violent dramatic skits depicting the killing of Jewish people." But the Brotherhood was not charged with any crimes.
One alleged Brotherhood figure is Soliman S. Biheiri, a Northern Virginia finance company executive convicted last year of lying to obtain U.S. citizenship. Biheiri, who federal documents say invested money for years in this country for Hamas officials, is "the Muslim Brotherhood's financial toehold in the U.S.," federal prosecutor Steven Ward said last year in court.
For law enforcement, the Brotherhood remains a worrisome enigma.
"The complication is they are a political movement, an economic cadre and in some cases terrorist supporters," said Juan Zarate, chief of the Treasury Department's terrorist finance unit. "They operate business empires in the Western world, but their philosophy and ultimate objectives are radical Islamist goals that in many ways are antithetical to our interests. They have one foot in our world and one foot in a world hostile to us. How to decipher what is good, bad or suspect is a severe complication."
Until recently "there wasn't a recognition of the logistical and financial ties to terrorism through the Muslim Brotherhood," Zarate added.
A senior U.S. law enforcement official said the FBI studied the Brotherhood -- or the Ikhwan -- from afar for a decade, but "we are more actively aware of them now." One worrisome feature of the network, he said, is the secret bond among Brotherhood activists. "We are very interested in relations among people and entities," he said. "People know each other for 20 years and will do anything for them because they are all 'brothers.' "
The Brotherhood has been connected to many Islamic extremists worldwide. Two Egyptian Brotherhood members went on to found split-off terrorist groups: Ayman Zawahiri, now Osama bin Laden's deputy, and blind sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, who was convicted in 1995 of plotting to blow up New York landmarks.
One top movement leader is Nada, who was jailed in Egypt in the 1950s for Brotherhood activities. He later became wealthy selling construction materials in Saudi Arabia, where he was called the "cement king," and now lives in a sprawling Italian villa.
With "significant backing from the Muslim Brotherhood," Nada set up a complex global banking network in the 1980s, the Treasury Department said when it recently designated Nada and two other Brotherhood officials as terrorist financiers. U.S. and European officials say the network has funded al Qaeda, Hamas and Algeria's Armed Islamic Group -- assertions that Nada denies. Although the network was supposedly shut down, U.S. and European officials say they still find Nada moving funds under new corporate names.
One of Nada's key aides has been a Holocaust revisionist from Switzerland, Ahmed Huber -- one of many neo-Nazis who helped the Ikhwan set up its financial structure.
Muslim activists who know current and former Brotherhood sympathizers in this country say bitter opposition to Israel is a key part of Brotherhood beliefs. Law enforcement sources say hundreds of current and former Ikhwan supporters nationwide are under federal investigation for alleged financial support of Hamas and other Palestinian groups deemed terrorists by the U.S. government.
But some Brotherhood experts say most wings of the movement are moderate and no threat to the United States. Ahmad Sakr, who has known Brotherhood activists in his native Lebanon and in this country, said U.S. officials are "100 percent wrong" to treat the Ikhwan with suspicion.
"They're not military men or terrorists," said Sakr, a Muslim activist in California. "They're educated and contribute to the success of America. The Muslim Brothers want to practice Islam in their families and in themselves, to show Islam is for every human being. . . . I never saw humble people like them. They give everything for the honor of God."
The Saudi Connection
The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in 1928 by a 22-year-old schoolteacher named Hassan Banna in his house in the Egyptian city of Ismailiyya. Banna railed against the colonial powers' humiliation of Muslims, and preached that governments should be ruled by Islamic law, or sharia.
Members swore obedience to Banna, pledging iron discipline and secrecy. They were organized into tiers of membership, with some forming a covert military wing to confront the Cairo regime.
As the Ikhwan's following grew to half a million, Banna was assassinated by Egyptian officials in 1949. Five years later, after Brotherhood members fired shots at Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser, thousands of Ikhwanis were imprisoned, shattering the organization. Hundreds more were jailed in Syria and Iraq. Another Brotherhood leader, Sayyid Qutb, who advocated militant jihad against nonbelievers and revolution against impure Muslim states, was hanged by Egypt in 1966. Qutb's books would later provide the philosophical underpinning for jihadists such as bin Laden as well as many Islamists in this country.
Today, the Egyptian Ikhwan operates semi-openly, with some members serving in parliament. It eschews violence against the government of Hosni Mubarak, arguing that it can attain its goals by peaceful proselytizing, one wayward soul at a time. Still, Mubarak has banned the Brotherhood, labeling it a terrorist front, and jailed hundreds.
Egypt remains the Brotherhood's center of gravity, with Mohammed Akef, its "Supreme Guide" in that country, considered by many to be the group's de facto leader worldwide. Akef embodies the contradictions of the movement, with statements supporting democratic elections as well as violence against Americans in Iraq.
In the 1950s, Brotherhood activists -- reeling from their suppression in Egypt, Iraq and Syria -- found a refuge in Saudi Arabia, newly awash in oil money. Thousands of Ikhwanis became teachers, lawyers and engineers there, staffing government agencies, establishing Saudi universities and banks, and rewriting curricula.
With royal family approval, Brotherhood activists also launched the largest Saudi charities, including the Muslim World League in 1963 and the World Assembly of Muslim Youth in 1973. Funded by petro dollars, they became global missionaries spreading the Saudis' austere and rigid Wahhabi school of Islam, whose adherents at times describe all non-Wahhabis as infidels.
The missionary work morphed into armed struggle in Afghanistan, where in the 1980s Saudi-financed Brotherhood activists helped repel the Soviet invasion, with support from the CIA and Pakistan. As Islamic radicalism spread with the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan in 1989, many Ikhwanis laboring for the Saudis embraced worldwide jihad and were at al Qaeda's inception.
The Brotherhood began to fall out of favor with the Saudis in 1990, when the Ikhwan backed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in his invasion of Kuwait. The Saudis slowly cut off funding.
After the Sept. 11 attacks, Saudi leaders began describing the transnational Brotherhood as the germ of al Qaeda while playing down the role of its government-backed clergy. Recently, Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef repeatedly denounced the Brotherhood, saying it is guilty of "betrayal of pledges and ingratitude" and is "the source of all problems in the Islamic world."
Coming to America
In the 1960s, Brotherhood activists started arriving in the United States. Most embraced modernism and American culture, people who sympathize with them said. Many also ended a formal tie to the Cairo-based Ikhwan headquarters even as they hewed to Ikhwan principles. Among their main goals were carving out havens for Muslims, propagating Islam in America and backing Israel's destruction, said Ali Ahmed, a Saudi activist in Washington close to many Ikhwanis.
"In this country the Ikhwan is mostly not a formal membership organization but a set of ideas people subscribe to," Ahmed said. "A lot of Brotherhood people who came here became more moderate and interested in democracy, while others became more radical."
A U.S. official familiar with federal investigations of former Brotherhood members said some developed "a disciplined strategy, specific goals" to act on their plan to convert Americans, starting with U.S. military personnel, prison inmates and black people.
Many Brotherhood leaders advocate patience in promoting their goals. In a 1995 speech to an Islamic conference in Ohio, a top Brotherhood official, Youssef Qaradawi, said victory will come through dawah -- Islamic renewal and outreach -- according to a transcript provided by the Investigative Project, a Washington terrorism research group. "Conquest through dawah, that is what we hope for," said Qaradawi, an influential Qatari imam who pens some of the religious edicts justifying Hamas suicide bombings against Israeli civilians. "We will conquer Europe, we will conquer America, not through the sword but through dawah," said the imam, who has condemned the Sept. 11 attacks but is now barred from the United States.
In his speech, Qaradawi said the dawah would work through Islamic groups set up by Brotherhood supporters in this country. He praised supporters who were jailed by Arab governments in 1950s and then came to the United States to "fight the seculars and the Westernized" by founding this country's leading Islamic groups.
He named the Muslim Students Association (MSA), which was founded in 1963. Twenty years later, the MSA -- using $21 million raised in part from Qaradawi, banker Nada and the emir of Qatar -- opened a headquarters complex built on former farmland in suburban Indianapolis. With 150 chapters, the MSA is one of the nation's largest college groups.
The MSA Web site said the group's essential task "was always dawah." Nowadays, Muslim activists say, its members represent all schools of Islam and political leanings -- many are moderates, while others express anti-U.S. views or support violence against Israelis.
Some of the same Brotherhood people who started the MSA also launched the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT) in 1971. The trust is a financing arm that holds title to hundreds of U.S. mosques and manages bank accounts for Muslim groups using Islamic principles.
In 1981, some of the same people launched the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), which was also cited in Qaradawi's speech. It is an umbrella organization for Islamic groups that holds annual conventions drawing more than 25,000 people. Some U.S. officials praise its moderation, and its Islamic Horizons magazine covers such topics as Muslim Boy Scouts and Islamic investing principles.
People who helped set up the MSA, NAIT, ISNA and related groups say they are in no way anti-American -- they say they embrace American values while trying to strengthen their Muslim identities. They say their goal is not converting all Americans to Islam but constructing a vibrant Muslim community here.
The MSA, NAIT and ISNA did not respond to requests for comment. Officials from those organizations have said elsewhere they are not connected to foreign groups, such as the Brotherhood. But because the Brotherhood is a secret society, its precise links around the world are hard to determine, U.S. officials said.
In addition to the first generation of groups aimed at consolidating the U.S. Islamic community, a second generation arose to wield political and business clout.
One such group was the American Muslim Council (AMC), launched in 1990 to urge Muslims to get involved in politics and other civic activities. One of its founders was Mahmoud Abu Saud, who 58 years before helped Banna expand the Brotherhood, and who later became a top financial adviser to governments from Morocco to Kuwait, according to documents provided by the SITE Institute, a Washington terrorism research group that has written reports critical of the Brotherhood. The AMC folded in 2003, and a more moderate group has assumed that name.
One leader of the former AMC was Abdurahman Alamoudi, who U.S. officials and Islamic activists say is a Brotherhood associate. In July he pleaded guilty to moving funds from Libya, which was illegal because the United States at the time considered that country a sponsor of terrorism. Federal documents in the case say he is a Hamas supporter. Alamoudi also was identified by U.S. officials in June as a participant in a plot hatched by Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi to assassinate the Saudi head of state, Crown Prince Abdullah.
Another group in this generation is the Muslim American Society, based in Falls Church, which was co-founded in 1992 by Akef, the recently installed head of Egypt's Brotherhood, and other Ikhwanis, Akef told the Chicago Tribune in February. The group's goals include spreading Islam to Muslims and non-Muslims and building "a virtuous and moral society." Its officials deny ties to the Ikhwan.
Home in Northern Virginia
Since the mid-1990s, a Northern Virginia-based group of companies, charities and think tanks has also been under off-and-on scrutiny by U.S. officials looking into whether it has ties to anti-Israel terrorist financing. Lawyers for the informal network, centered on the Herndon-based International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), deny impropriety.
Jordanian political figure Farhan, who was barred from this country in 2000 and then received U.S. diplomats' apologies in Amman, had been on his way to a Virginia board meeting of the IIIT, which he had helped lead for years.
Lawyer Nancy Luque said her clients embrace American values such as democracy and equality for women. "They love this country," she said. "Their kids are in school here becoming doctors and lawyers." In the 1980s and early 1990s, she said, her clients gave intelligence tips picked up by their global contacts to the State and Defense departments.
The IIIT network was set up in the 1980s largely by onetime Brotherhood sympathizers with money from wealthy Saudis, Muslim activists said. A number of its members ended their Brotherhood ties years ago after concluding it was too inflexible but still advocate some of its principles, the activists said.
Some network figures had dealings with activists who ran two vehemently anti-Israel groups out of the University of South Florida in Tampa, federal documents said. One of the activists, USF professor Sami al-Arian, was indicted last year on charges of conspiracy to commit murder via suicide attacks in Israel. Officials said he was secretly a top leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist organization. Al-Arian denies the charges.
The network's lawyers say that its ties to Al-Arian were fleeting. The government is looking into whether the network engaged in tax violations and "suspected terrorism-related money laundering activities," a U.S. customs agent stated in a report on the probe filed in federal court a year ago.
Luque said her clients abhor terrorism, including against Israelis.
But an IIIT book called "Violence," published in 2001, said Israel is a "foreign usurper" that must be confronted with "fear, terror and lack of security." The book, by IIIT official AbdulHamid AbuSulayman, says, "Fighting is a duty of the oppressed people." Palestinian fighters must choose their targets "whether the targets are civilian or military," it said, adding that any such attacks should not be "excessive." The book said such attacks are justified acts of a liberation struggle, not terrorism.
The life story of one of the IIIT network's leaders illustrates the key role it has played in the global politics of the Ikhwan. Jamal M. Barzinji fled his native Iraq in 1969 when the Baathist regime started executing fellow Islamists. An engineering student and top MSA leader, he joined MSA associates in 1971 to host the top leaders of the Egyptian Brotherhood, just released from 16 years in prison, for two weeks of meetings in Indiana.
He and other then-MSA leaders helped persuade the Egyptian brothers to try participating in Egyptian elections as an alternative to underground struggle, he said. "It was one of our main contributions to the Ikhwan movement worldwide," he said. He and his associates likewise have hosted many other Islamist leaders here over the years to "show them how wrong they are in being anti-American," Barzinji said.
But the government's current probe of the IIIT network undercuts their efforts toward moderation, he said. "The extremists say: 'See? All American society is corrupt.' "
Beyond U.S. Shores
Some U.S. Islam experts say law enforcement investigations of Ikhwan-tied activists complicate U.S. diplomatic dialogues with Brotherhood members overseas. For years, State Department and CIA officials have met with Brotherhood activists in Egypt, Kuwait, Jordan, the Palestinian territories and elsewhere to track currents within Islamic politics.
"We want to know where they're coming from, to influence them," said Edward P. Djerejian, a former top State Department official who now runs Rice University's James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy.
At the same time, host governments in Cairo, Tunis and elsewhere warn that the Brotherhood is dangerous. So do many in U.S. law enforcement. "There were debates all the time about meeting with them," Djerejian said.
Since the Sept. 11 attacks, pockets in the government -- including officials in State's Near East bureau and diplomats posted overseas -- have quietly advocated that the government reach out to the Brotherhood and its allies. These officials and some in U.S. think tanks hope the Brotherhood can temper its anti-U.S. stance and become a barrier against jihadists worldwide.
"Bin Laden-ism can only be gutted by fundamentalists" such as the Ikhwan, said Reuel Gerecht, a former CIA officer in the Middle East who is tracking pro-democracy activism in the region for the conservative American Enterprise Institute.
As U.S. officials try to promote democracy in Muslim countries, he said, "it's inevitable the U.S. will engage the fundamentalists" because of their popularity in those societies. Indeed, many Arab experts say the Ikhwan or its allies could win open elections in countries such as Egypt and Algeria.
But many in the government oppose engagement because it runs counter to the wishes of close U.S. allies in the Egyptian and Moroccan governments, which feel threatened by the Brotherhood.
"At high levels of the government, there's no desire to go in the direction of dialogue," said Fuller, the former CIA official. "It's still seen as fairly way out." But he warns against a litmus test for talking to Islamists -- such as eliminating those who embrace anti-Israel terrorism or make anti-American statements. "There's hardly an Islamic group anywhere that hasn't done that," he said.
Leslie Campbell, who runs Middle East affairs for the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, supports the outreach idea. Campbell, who trains Arab politicians including Islamists, hosted a delegation in July from a Brotherhood-tied political party in Yemen to the Democratic National Convention in Boston.
"They appreciated that the U.S. had reached out to them," he said. "If they're empowered, they'd serve as a bulwark against those who want to destroy."
Research editor Margot Williams contributed to this report.
