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October 11 — The Washington
Post’s Bob Woodward talks to the “Today” show about Osama bin Laden’s financial
tools. | |
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AS A RESULT of the new information, government
sources said, the CIA has concluded that bin Laden “owns and operates” the
Taliban, highlighting the pervasive influence that bin Laden and his al Qaeda
forces exert within Afghanistan. Bin Laden’s military units also provide the
Taliban with some of its most committed and effective assault forces.
The sources add that a key component of the U.S. war on
terrorism — drying up bin Laden’s sources of money — is designed to drive a
wedge between the Taliban and bin Laden in addition to reducing the funding
available to bin Laden for future terrorist attacks.
Four days into the U.S. airstrike campaign, meanwhile, locating bin Laden
in the mountainous Afghan terrain remains problematic. Some intelligence reports
say bin Laden still changes locations frequently, at times using an ambulance as
cover — all under the protection of the Taliban militia. They say he often
spends the night in natural or man-made caves located in mountains. “It’s like
chasing one particular rabbit in the entire state of West Virginia,” one
official said.
The CIA has been developing some
imaginative and novel — and even risky — techniques to pin down his location,
the sources said. “The problem,” one official said, “is that we get where he
was, rather than where he will be.”
FOLLOWING THE FINANCIAL
TRAIL
Tens of millions of the $100
million provided by bin Laden to the Taliban since he arrived in Afghanistan
from Sudan in 1996 has been directly traced to bin Laden entities through
banking and other transfers, sources said. Bin Laden, 44, a member of an
extended Saudi family, received a personal inheritance of $30 million when his
father died in a plane crash in 1968, according to U.S. officials. But sources
said the money he has been providing to the Taliban does not come from his
personal fortune. The money bin Laden has funneled to the Taliban comes from
three primary sources: legal and illegal businesses or front companies bin Laden
operates directly or indirectly; tribute payments he receives from several
Persian Gulf states, companies or individuals that give him funds so he and his
al Qaeda supporters will stay out of or minimize activities in their countries;
and entities that are masked as charities. |
