U.S. authorities freeze assets of two groups saying they funneled charitable donations to Al-Qaeda

Continuing its assault on Osama bin Laden’s financial network, the US administration announced yesterday that it was freezing assets of two groups professing humanitarian aims that officials said had funneled charitable donations to Al Qaeda instead.

As part of the action, announced by the Treasury Department, the government also froze the assets of two individuals who officials believe were involved in the diversion of cash from the groups to terrorists.

The groups are the Afghan Support Committee, which government officials said had been established by Mr. bin Laden, and the Revival of Islamic Heritage Society. From offices in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the two organizations, which are affiliated, are accused of having raised money for widows and orphans, and then transferred the donations to Al Qaeda.

The two organizations ”defrauded well-intentioned donors and turned funds meant for good into funds for evil,” Paul O’Neill, the treasury secretary, said at a news conference. ”These bad actors will now be pariahs in the civilized world.”

With the Heritage Society, the government is pinpointing only certain offices of a charitable organization, while specifically excluding the group’s headquarters in Kuwait. Government officials have frequently said that Al Qaeda often uses charitable groups to raise money by infiltrating certain local offices of legitimate organizations.

The administration has been focusing on the Heritage Society for weeks, and has been engaged in quiet diplomacy with Kuwait to determine if the group’s top officials at its Kuwait headquarters were implicated in any wrongdoing, government officials said. The headquarters cooperated with a review of its activities. The results of that review led the administration to conclude that the headquarters had been deceived by its local branches in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

According to information obtained by the Treasury Department, the Pakistani office of the Heritage Society lied to the Kuwaiti headquarters about the number of orphans it was helping by adding the names of children who had died or did not exist. The Kuwaiti office then forwarded money to Pakistan to pay for the care of those children.

”There is no evidence at this point that this financing was done with the knowledge” of the officials in Kuwait, according to a statement from the Treasury.

The director of the group’s Pakistani office is Abd al-Muhsin al-Libi, who the government said has carried messages and money on behalf of Mr. bin Laden, and has provided his terrorist organization with offices in Pakistan.

According to the government, the financial activities for Afghan Support Committee’s fund-raising was managed by Abu Bakr al-Jaziri, who has also been identified by the administration as the head of organized fund-raising for Mr. bin Laden.

Source: New York Times