LETTER FROM FRANK R. WOLF, U.S. CONGRESS, REGARDING E-MAILS RECEIVED BY HIS STAFF CONCERNING OSAMA BIN LADEN'S CONNECTIONS TO THE GOVERNMENT OF SUDAN, AND REQUESTS THAT THESE ISSUES BE REVIEWED FOR ACCURACY

• Document Type: FOIA
• Collection: FOIA Collection
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): 05595190
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 15
• Document Creation Date: March 9, 2023
• Document Release Date: September 25, 2020
• Case Number: F-2010-00549
• Publication Date: September 28, 2001

Approved for Release: 2020/09/24 C05595190
UNCLASSIFIED
;
DCI ACTION CENTER
ROUTING SLIP
ACTION
INFO
ACTION
INFO
1
DCI
X
11
GC
2
DOC!
X
12
GS
3
DDCl/CM
13
HR
4
ADCl/MS
14
IC
5
EXDIR/CIA
E-Copy
15
NIC
6
CFO
16
OCA
E-Copy
7
CIO
17
OPA
8
DDI
E-Copy
18
SEC
9
DDO
E-Copy
19
DO/CTC
E-Copy
10
DDS&T
20
DAC
SUSPENSE
DOCUMENT
Action
DATE: 11 October 2001
NO: DAC-04866-01
Officer:
COORDINATION/ROUTING: OCA/911 Team to prepare a response for D/OCA
signature.
SUMMARY:
Letter from Frank R. Wolf, U.S. Congress, regarding e-mails received by his staff concerning Osama bin Laden's
connections to the Government of Sudan, and requests that these issues be reviewed for accuracy.
Date of Document: 28 September 2001
Received in DAC: 2 October 2001
P0-BOARD 07310 1017 P 2001
UNCLASSIFIED
(b)(3)
Approved for Release: 2020/09/24 C05595190
Approved for Release: 2020/09/24 C05595190
CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENCE CORRESPONDENCE ACTION PLAN
Date! Time Received
Suspense Date
Control Number
DA1- C-6,1 8 62 (0 -0 1
ACTION: Please forward response as indicated below to .00A for coordination and tran:smittal. � .
Prepare a response for DCI signature.
Lead Action
Office:
Information
Copies:
Prepare a response for D/OCA signature.
Lead Action Office:
COJI 9 / / I ect, 1/1/1
Inform inn Cnnine
'() 10:1� C., ..\ t-li
i
fl (b)(3;
NO WRITTEN RESPONSE NECESSARY
Lead Office:
Follow-Up Action:
Information Copies:
OCA ACTION OFFICER
e
(b)
Advance Copies Provided To oc ft El 0
c/a c. Li A i `S- 0 Q
Comments:
NO FURTHER
DISSEMINATION WITHOUT
PRIOR OCA APPROVAL,
Form
3-99 4499
/v.v., Obsolete Previous
Editions
(3)
Approved for Release: 2020/09/24 C05595190
Approved for Release: 2020/09/24 C05595190
FRANK R. WOLF
10TH DISTRICT, VIRGINIA
COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
suBCOMMITTEES
CHAIRMAN�COMMERCE. JUSTICE.
STATE AND JUDICIARY
TRANSPORTATION
TREASURY, POSTAL SERVICE.
GENERAL GOVERNMENT
CO-CHAIR�CONGRESSIONAL
HUMAN RIGHTS CAUCUS
Cottgremi of tbe Elniteb i�tate5
PooBe of ikepreoentatibeg
September 28, 2001
The Honorable George Tenet
Director of Central Intelligence
Washington DC 20505
Dear Mr. Director:
-G if K(p(o CANNON BUILDING
WASHINGTON, DC 20515-4610
12021 225-5136
13873 PARK CENTER ROAD
SUITE 130
HERNDON, VA 20171
17031 709-5900
1800/ 945-9653 ON STATE)
110 NORTH CAMERON STREET
WINCHESTER. VA 22601
15401 667-0990
18001 850-3463 Ilv STATE1
www.house.goviwoll/
,w2:
I want to share with you these e-mails my staff has received concerning Osama bin
Laden's connections to the Government of Sudan.
While you and your staff may already be aware of these reported connections, I want to
make sure these issues have been brought to your attention.
Among the noteworthy information included in these e-mails is that the Canadian
Security Intelligence Service has reported that the Government of Sudan agreed to provide
diplomatic credentials for followers of bin Laden, and that in 1998, Sudanese leaders agreed to
use their embassy staffs in New York, reer,TITRome to raise funds for bin Laden.
I also want to make sure you and your staff are aware of the likely connections between
bin Laden and Khalid bin Mahfoouz. I think it is worth determining what, if any, assistance was
provided to Al Qaeda and bin Laden through the al-Shamal Bank, Faisal Islamic Bank, Bakarat
Bank and through the National Commercial Bank.
Finally, I believe it is imperative that the Government of Sudan fully cooperate in
providing information on supposed charity organizations, operating in Sudan, that may be
funneling money to bin Laden and Al Qaeda.
Thank you for your hard work during this difficult time.
Best wishes.
FRW:dd
THIS STATIONERY PRINTED ON PAPER MADE OF RECYCLED FIBERS
Approved for Release: 2020/09/24 C05595190
Approved for Release: 2020/09/24 C05595190
This article picks up just one of the many connections between the bin Mahfouz and bin Ladin
"clans".
The big things they did not pick up in this article include 1) Osama bin Ladin is brother in law to
Khalid bin Mahfouz, 2) Khalid bin Mahfouz is or was under house arrest in Saudi for helping
finance Al Qaeda, and 3) the bin Ladin and bin Mahfouz families have been closely entwined for
2 generations, since migrating to Saudi from the same region of Yemen in the early 1900's. (and
blood and tribal/clan relations are important when doing business in the region - which is why
you seal important business contracts with family marriages)
No one has yet pursued the'bin Ladin replacement at National Commercial Bank - Sheik al-
Amoudi. Nor has anyone pursued the al-Shamal Bank (Sudan), Faisal Islamic Bank (Sudan), and
Bakarat (?) Bank (Sudan) connections with bin Ladin/bin Mahfouz/al-Amoudi
THE INVESTIGATION
Bin Ladens own stake in Mass. biomedical firm
by Jonathan Wells and Jack Meyers
Tuesday, September 25, 2001
One of Osama bin Laden's brothers and a separate Saudi banking family suspected of funneling
millions of dollars to bin Laden's terrorist organization own 28 percent of the stock in a
Massachusetts biomedical firm engaged in advanced DNA research.
Securities and Exchange records show that Yahia M. A. bin Laden, one of the bin Laden siblings
in charge of the family's Middle East-based construction conglomerate, owns 16 percent of
Cambridge-based Hybridon, Inc., an 11-year-old company developing new medicine to combat
cancer and bolster the human immune system.
A second stockholder in the company is Abdela bin Mahfouz, a member of a wealthy family
which controls Saudi Arabia's largest bank, National Commercial Bank. That bank was accused
by the Saudi government in 1999 of trying to transfer at least $3 million to front organizations
for Osama bin Laden's terrorist organization. As of last May, Abdela bin Mahfouz owned nearly
12 percent of the stock in Hybridon.
Earlier SEC filings show that another member of the family, Abdulrahman bin Mahfouz, held
stock in Hybridon. Abdulrahman bin Mahfouz is a director of the National Commercial Bank as
Page 1 of 3
Approved for Release: 2020/09/24 C05595190
Approved for Release: 2020/09/24 C05595190
well as a board member of Blessed Relief, a Sudan-based charity, which U.S. officials say served
as a front for Osama bin Laden.
Robert Anderson, chief operating officer of Hybridon, said Yahia bin Laden and the bin Mahfouz
family have been "loyal stockholders."
�We don't have any issue with the background of the investors. We don't have any concern,"
Anderson said. "These families put money in early on. . . they deal at arms length. I imagine
they have a number of investments in the U.S."
"We are a legitimate company which is developing medicine," Anderson added. "We have
dedicated scientists doing cancer research, not anything harmful."
Hybridon, incorporated in 1990, is one of a handful of companies in the U.S. developing
"antisense" technology, which involves the design of synthetic DNA material to inhibit the
body's production of disease-causing protein.
The biggest U.S. company involved in the antisense field, Isis Pharmaceuticals, Inc., is currently
working under a $6.6 million research grant from the U.S. Department of Defense to see if this
new technology can be used to counteract the devastating effects of biological weapons.
Hybridon has an agreement under which it licenses intellectual property to Isis, but according to
Anderson, Hybridon has no involvement in any research related to germ warfare. "Currently we
don't," Anderson said. "I guess if Isis were successful in some way we would consider it."
As far as Anderson knows, Hybridon researchers do not work with materials useful in the
development of biological weapons.
Anderson said he has never met Yahia bin Laden in person or spoken with him by telephone.
However, he provided the Herald with a copy of a statement Hybridon received from the head of
the bin Laden family in Saudi Arabia a few days after the U.S, named Osama bin Laden as the
chief suspect in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, D.C.
Signed by Abdullah A. A. bin Laden, the statement declared the bin Laden family's "strong
denunciation and condemnation of this tragic incident which has resulted in the loss of lives of so
many innocent men, children and women, which run counter to our gracious religion and which
is repugnant to all religions and humanity.... We express our condolences to the families and
relatives of the innocent victims."
Restating a position first announced by the family in 1994, Abdullah bin Laden also asserted that
"the bin Laden family has no relation at all with (Osama bin Laden's) acts and conducts."
The message was delivered to Hybridon through the Saudi Arabian consulate in the United
States.
Page 2 of 3
Approved for Release: 2020/09/24 C05595190
Approved for Release: 2020/09/24 C05595190
Another Hybridon stockholder and member of the company's board of directors is Camille A.
Chebeir, whose company, Saudi Economic Development Co., manages bin Mahfouz family
money, which reportedly totals some $4 billion.
Chebeir, the former executive vice president of the bin Mahfouz's National Commercial Bank,
was appointed to Hybridon's board in 1999.
According to reports in USA Today and by the Associated Press that same year, Saudi
government officials audited National Commercial Bank and its founder, Khalid bin Mahfouz,
and found that several of the country's wealthiest businessmen had ordered the bank to transfer
more than $3 million to New York and London, where it was placed in the accounts of Islamic
charities, including Blessed Relief. IChalid bin Mahfouz was reportedly placed under house arrest
after the discovery of the transactions.
Anderson said he is unaware of any alleged financial dealings between the bin Mahfouz family
and Osama bin Laden's organization.
Of the bin Laden and bin Mahfouz stock ownership, Anderson said: "They have a vote for their
number of shares at the annual meeting. Like any other common stockholder, they're allowed to
vote their shares.
"Surely these people have significant investments in other companies," he added.
"There must be many, many others because these people have vast amounts of money. Why
single out a little company like ours?"
Yahia bin Laden (also spelled Yehia) is one of three brothers who exert the most control over the
Saudi-based Bin Laden Group, according to research by PBS' Frontline, and he is currently
negotiating with Lebanese officials for a $50 million contract to help rebuild war-tom central
town Beirut.
� Copyright by the Boston Herald and Herald Interactive Advertising Systems, Inc
Page 3 of 3
Approved for Release: 2020/09/24 C05595190
Approved for Release: 2020/09/24 C05595190
The mountain of evidence linking Osama bin Laden and Sudan's National Islamic Front
continues to grow, and it's clear that the links are emphatically in the present tense. Al-Shamal
bank is, for the moment, only the most conspicuous financial link. But there are several other
banking connections analyzed in recent press reports. Just as significantly, construction and
agricultural interests in Sudan continue to supply bin Laden and his al-Qaeda organization with
huge revenues. And in an extremely important development, the Khartoum regime is revealed
today, in a report from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, to have "arranged for
diplomatic credentials for bin Laden followers, allowing them unfettered travel around the
world" (National Post, September 28, 2001).
(b)(6)
Oil companies such as Talisman Energy of Canada, Petronas of Malaysia, Lundin Petroleum of
Sweden, OMV of Austria, China National Petroleum Corp. should be seen for what they are:
fully cognizant partners with a terrorist-supporting regime. The extremist National Islamic Front
in Khartoum continues to support Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda, continues to allow Sudanese
financial and economic resources to benefit bin Laden---and, using the oil revenues supplied by
Talisman Energy and its partners, continues its own massive terrorist campaign against the
people of the south.
Though much is being made of the easy words of condolence emanating from Khartoum, the
radical Islamist regime is deeply in sympathy with bin Laden and his goals. They are
"cooperating" simply determined to avoid American wrath. Self-preservation dictates that they
will not yield the most telling information about Sudan's decade-long support for terrorism and
bin Laden in particular.
The most chilling recent revelation about Khartoum's ongoing support for world terrorism comes
from today's National Post of Canada. Citing documents from the Canadian Security
Intelligence Service, the article reports on two extremely disturbing developments:
[1] "Sudanese leaders agreed in 1998 to use their embassy staff in
New York, London and Rome to raise funds for Osama bin Laden, according to documents from
the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS)."
[2] "The documents, filed in Federal Court, also claim the Sudanese agreed to arrange for
diplomatic credentials for bin Laden followers, allowing them unfettered travel around the world.
The alleged agreement was struck between bin Laden's top aide, Dr. Ayman Al-Zawahri, and
'Sudanese Islamic leaders,' the CSIS brief said."
There could hardly be more unambiguous evidence that Khartoum has not abandoned its terrorist
ways simply because bin Laden ended his five-year stay in Sudan in 1996.
Page 1 of 3
Approved for Release: 2020/09/24 C05595190
Approved for Release: 2020/09/24 C05595190
These findings of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service comport with a recent revelation in
the Hindustan Times (India). The Times reports (September 20, 2001) that:
"According to a senior police official, fresh evidence gathered by them has revealed that Ismail,
the first secretary in the Sudanese embassy, was not only operating as a conduit of Osama bin
Laden in the Capital [New Delhi] but was also trying to recruit more operatives for subversive
activities.
"Al-Safani, lieutenant of [bin] Laden, and Ismail had asked Mohd Shamim, one of the accused
arrested in the case, to arrange for motivated youths to attack the American embassy and in
return promised him a reward of Its 100 lalch,' said an officer. Special Cell sleuths now say that
investigations into the case have been hampered as the [Sudanese] diplomat had fled the country
after his name figured in the case.
"Sources reveal that [Sudanese Embassy First Secretary] Ismail was called back by his
government [in Khartoum] as soon as his name was disclosed by [Abdel] Raouf [one of the
accused in the original World Trade Center bombing]."
As these, and other, newspaper reports make clear, the Khartoum regime is using its diplomatic
presence abroad to support Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda, just as they gave safe haven to bin
Laden from 1991 to 1996, and allowed al-Qaeda (begun in 1988) to come to full fruition.
The Hindustan Times continues:
"Raouf was nabbed by SpecialCell sleuths in June and was suspected to be working for [bin]
Laden. Further investigations revealed that Raouf came to Delhi and stayed with [Sudanese
Embassy First Secretary] Ismail at his Shanti Niketan residence for one and a half months and
was being paid by the Sudanese embassy. In fact, the charge sheet filed in a city court names
Ismail and Yemenese national Hussain Mohd Salmi, besides bin Laden, as the main
conspirators. Safani is alleged to be main the conduit of Osama and a prominent figure in his
terrorist outfit Al Qaeda. A trained bomb expert, he was involved in last years' attack on US
warship USS Cole Yemen, resulting in the death of 17 US sailors."
The State Department and the Bush administration had best think long and hard before going
further down the road of "cooperation" with a Khartoum regime that is clearly still in the
terrorism business. There are a host of additional links between Khartoum and bin Laden and al-
Qaeda that are only now emerging more clearly in the wake of the horrors of September 11.
Investigative reporting is in high-gear, and there are a number of additional revelations that will
emerge in the coming days.
At the same time, well aware of its own terrorist-supporting Ways, Khartoum will predictably
give up whatever and whomever it can---an expedient effort to divert American attention from
both its support of world terrorism, and its genocidal conduct of the war and terrorism in the
south. But they will obviously never give up most critical information; to do so would be to
Page 2 of 3
Approved for Release: 2020/09/24 C05595190
Approved for Release: 2020/09/24 C05595190
reveal just how fully they have continued to support bin Laden and al-Qaeda.
The United States will have betrayed its declared goal in confronting world terrorism if it does
not face up squarely to these ongoing realities.
Page 3 of 3
Approved for Release: 2020/09/24 C05595190
Approved for Release: 2020/09/24 C05595190
Sudan and the financing of Osama bin Laden's empire of terror:
The al-Shamal Bank in Khartoum is but the tip of a very nasty iceberg
(b)(6)
The Boston Globe, CNN, and Reuters news-wire have all reported in the last day the continuing
role of al-Shamal Bank in financing Osama bin Laden's campaign of terror against the United
States. Unsurprisingly, al-Shamal Bank is in Khartoum, capital of Sudan and the extremist
National Islamic Front regime. This is the same regime---controlled by the same brutal figures--
that gave safe haven to bin Laden from 1991 to 1996, and allowed him to bring his al-Qaeda
terrorist organization to fruition. The Khartoum regime also gave bin Laden many lucrative
opportunities not only in banking, but in agriculture and construction. And as the al-Shamal
Bank example suggests, bin Laden continues to derive extensive support from Khartoum.
The Boston Globe reports in its extremely well-researched account (attached below) that: "Bin
Laden could be using the [al-]Shamal bank to gain access to US banks,' [Senator Carl] Levin
said, calling for new laws that would prevent such access. Levin cited an instance in which
$250,000 was wired from [al-]Shamal Bank to a bin Laden associate in Texas, who used the
money to buy a plane for bin Laden." According to CNN (Sept 26), bin Laden had provided $50
million in start-up capital for the al-Shamal Bank. It's simply not credible that the Khartoum
regime hasn't been fully unaware of such a large financial presence in its banking system.
And as the Globe also notes in reporting on the years in which bin Laden was actually in Sudan:
"US officials said bin Laden controlled some of the largest commercial enterprises in Sudan,
generating both profits and a cover for terrorist activities." Though bin Laden left Sudan in
1996, it would be na� in the extreme to believe that he simply severed his economic and
financial ties.
On the contrary, there is a mountain of evidence to the contrary. Again, the disclosures about the
al-Shamal Bank are certainly only the tip of a very ugly iceberg. As another State Department
report on Sudan and bin Laden noted: "[Bin Laden] secured a near monopoly over Sudan's major
agricultural exports of gum, corn, sunflower, and sesame products." Some of these assets are
certainly still funding bin Laden's al-Qaeda, and thus various of the terrorist assaults on the
United States, including the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, the original World Trade
Center bombing, the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen---and the catastrophic assaults of
September 11.
Much has been made in recent days of Khartoum's statements of regret at the terrorist attacks of
September 11, and some reports have suggested that there is now cooperation between
Washington and Khartoum in the campaign against world terrorism. There has, in fact, been
some FBI and CIA investigative presence in Sudan for over a year. But assessments of what
Page 1 of 6
Approved for Release: 2020/09/24 C05595190
Approved for Release: 2020/09/24 C05595190
intelligence and access Khartoum is actually offering, and the value of what is offered, should be
regarded with extreme caution---as should Khartoum's motives in "cooperating."
The regime has hardly changed from the time it supported bin Laden openly. The same cast of
vicious characters dominates in Khartoum and in the formulation of policies. Most notably,
Khartoum's conduct of the war against the peoples of the south and other marginalized areas of
Sudan is still marked by genocidal ambition, by the most egregious of human rights violations,
and by a refusal to negotiate peace in good faith. Their campaign against the south is nothing
less than "state-sponsored terrorism."
Notably, there is evidence of significant weapons deliveries to Khartoum from bin Laden's new
haven in Afghanistan. The Globe again reports: "[Bin Laden's] businesses were not just focused
on the bottom line, US prosecutors [in the embassy bombing trial] say. In one transaction, a bin
Laden company sent sugar from Sudan to Afghanistan. But on its return flight, the rented Sudan
Airways cargo plane was loaded with Milan rockets and Stinger missiles."
Let's be clear: Khartoum is "cooperating" on terrorism now only because it is acutely and
fearfully aware of its own long history of giving safe haven to terrorists and encouraging terrorist
activities. The April 2001 State Department report on world terrorism has not suddenly become
irrelevant; it states clearly that "[In 2000] Sudan continued to be used as a safe haven by
members of various groups, including associates of Usama Bin Ladin's al-Qaida organization."
The Foreign Minister of Sudan has been quite blunt in his statements about what Sudan has and
hasn't done: Agence France-Presse (Sept 26) reports that Foreign Minister Mustafa Ismail
"denied that Khartoum had turned in persons or lists of persons to the United States. He was
referring to rumors that his government had handed a number of Islamists to Egypt and the US."
Perhaps some useful intelligence is being developed behind the scenes; perhaps there have been a
few convenient deportations, as some informed observers are reporting. But critical questions
remain.
The most important question, and the one that will not go away, is the value of what the US is
getting from Khartoum. The current issue of Africa Confidential, the most authoritative
published source on Sudan, puts the matter this way:
"The N[ational l[slamic] F[ront] political and security apparatus is intact, as are the NIF's and the
international Islamists' control of the economy. Many of those running terrorist training are still
in security and ministerial jobs. So, well informed Sudanese doubt that the NIF will hand much
of value to US investigators. The NIF is as Islamist as its friends Usama and the Taliban. This
regime believes in what it does. Any concession is intended only to protect the greater cause.
Secondly, any major betrayal would be suicidal, just as dangerous as holding free elections."
(Africa Confidential, Volume 42, No. 19, September 28, 2001)
The latter point here is that those in Khartoum who are in a position to provide the most valuable
intelligence to US anti-terrorist efforts are precisely the ones most likely to be implicated by such
intelligence, given their past involvement in terrorism. And they are not of suicidal bent.
Page 2 of 6
Approved for Release: 2020/09/24 C05595190
Approved for Release: 2020/09/24 C05595190
Khartoum is still deeply complicit in the financing and supporting of world terrorism. The
regime is still engaged in a brutal and savagely destructive campaign of terror against its own
people. US policy toward Sudan should keep these realities firmly in mind
******************************************************
The Boston Globe, September 27, 2001, Thursday
AMERICA PREPARES THE GLOBAL DIMENSION / TRACING THE NETWORK; BIN
LADEN DELIVERED WEAPONS, PROFITS
By Michael ICranish, Globe Staff �
WASHINGTON - One of Osama bin Laden's companies in Sudan would export sugar to
Afghanistan and return with a cargo that included US-made Stinger missiles.
Another firm appeared to deal with finance, but some of its employees
were allegedly traveling the world as terrorists. A third company was in the fishing business, but
allegedly used the profits to pay for the bombing of the US embassy in Kenya. Bin Laden also
had a $50 million investment in a Sudanese bank.
The businesses are part of bin Laden's six-year sojourn in Sudan. It was
there, in northern Africa, where bin Laden appears to have built much of the financial, fund-
raising, and terrorist empire now under intensive investigation by US authorities. Yesterday, a
Senate committee heard testimony that bin Laden not only appears to retain a stake in the
Sudanese bank, but also has a network of more than 100 businesses and self-described charities
that stretches around the globe and has so far eluded the grasp of US law enforcement.
Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat, said bin Laden's investment in al-Shamal, a bank in
Sudan, gave him access to banks around the world.
"Bin Laden could be using the Shamal bank to gain access to US banks," Levin said, calling for
new laws that would prevent such access. Levin cited an instance in which $250,000 was wired
from Shamal Bank to a bin Laden associate in Texas, who used the money to buy a plane for bin
Laden.
Despite President Bush's order Monday to freeze assets of 27 entities
linked to bin Laden, Levin said his staff has found that accounts at several banks linked to al-
Shamal are still open to bin Laden.
The bank and the businesses in Sudan are part of a large empire. Bin
Laden's funds come from a "network of financial donors, international
investments, legal businesses, criminal enterprises, smuggling mechanisms, Muslim charitable
organizations, Islamic banks, and underground money transfer," William F. Weschler, a former
National Security Council official who has tracked bin Laden's finances, said in testimony
yesterday to the Senate banking committee.
Page 3 of 6
Approved for Release: 2020/09/24 C05595190
Approved for Release: 2020/09/24 C05595190
Much of that network was developed during bin Laden's years in Sudan, from about 1990 to
1996. US officials said bin Laden controlled some of the largest commercial enterprises in
Sudan, generating both profits and a cover for terrorist activities.
An examination by the Globe of thousands of pages of trial transcripts,
State Department reports, and other material shows a clear trend: The
terrorists and their operations may operate on a low budget, with bin
Laden himself eschewing his Saudi mansions for an Afghan cave, but the
overall enterprise is funded well enough that large expenses have been
covered routinely.
Senator John F. Kerry, a former member of the Senate Intelligence
Committee, estimated that bin Laden's assets probably still exceed $200
million. Moreover, some of bin Laden's cells, perhaps including the Sept. 11 hijackers, have
raised money independently.
The depth of bin Laden's financial assets greatly concerns US officials,
because evidence has been presented in a series of trials that bin Laden
associates have tried to buy items for a possible nuclear device, as well as
chemical weapons. In one case, a bin Laden associate tried to buy a
cylinder of uranium for $1.5 million.
When President Clinton ordered a missile strike against a Sudanese factory in response to the
1998 bombing of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, White House officials said the factory
was targeted because it was part of bin Laden's Sudanese financial empire and was suspected of
producing chemical weapons. (The factory's owner has denied any connection to bin Laden or
chemical weapons and has sued the United States. The source of bin Laden's initial wealth is
clear. He inherited an estimated $300 million after his father died; he is the 17th son of 52
children born to numerous wives. Bin Laden reportedly used much of that money to help finance
the war in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union, particularly by buying heavy machinery.
Bin Laden was helped in that effort by the United States, which supplied
Afghan resistance fighters with many resources, including sophisticated
Stinger missiles and other weaponry. By some estimates, the United States covertly pumped $3
billion to $6 billion of weapons and other goods into the Afghan resistance.
Bin Laden also raised money through a self-described charity called al-Kifah, or the Struggle,
which had perhaps 30 offices in the United States, including one with a Boston mailing address.
The offices reportedly were financed by bin Laden and raised money and recruited Arab
immigrants to fight in Afghanistan.
When the war in Afghanistan ended in 1989, bin Laden moved to Sudan to set up a string of
businesses. Some of the Kifah centers in the United States then re focused on raising money for
terrorism, US officials said.
Page 4 of 6
Approved for Release: 2020/09/24 C05595190
Approved for Release: 2020/09/24 C05595190
Bin Laden chose Sudan as a base because the ruling party, the National
Islamic Front, shared much of his ideology. Bin Laden presented himself as a businessman who
would help develop Sudan, an impoverished country that recently has been in the news for the
selling of slaves.
Bin Laden arrived in Sudan angry at the US presence in his former homeland of Saudi Arabia.
He soon began to wage a campaign against US troops who went to Somalia in 1993 in a mission
called Operation Restore Hope. Bin Laden's method was "to establish fake businesses, cover
businesses that help fighters infiltrate through to Somalia," Assistant US Attorney Paul Butler
said in court this year.
The bin Laden businesses were coordinated in a suite of offices on Khartoum's McNimr Street,
with his personal office on the first floor.
Company travel was arranged through a committee that would supply fake
passports and fake names, possibly from documents that had been stolen,
according to testimony in the African bombing cases. Similar techniques may also have been
used in the case of some of the hijackers involved in the Sept. 11 attacks.
There were also committees on the military, Islamic study, and a media
organization that published a newspaper, all overseen by Wadi al-Aqiq, the "mother of all
companies."
During his years in Khartoum, bin Laden gave interviews to a Saudi journalist, Jamal Khashoggi.
"He had companies," Khashoggi, deputy editor of Arab News, said in a
telephone interview from Saudi Arabia. "He had shares in banks. He was
building a major road. He began to settle down there as a businessman.
"The last time I talked to him [about five years ago], he talked more about economics than
politics," he said.
His businesses were not just focused on the bottom line, US prosecutors
say. In one transaction, a bin Laden company sent sugar from Sudan to
Afghanistan. But on its return flight, the rented Sudan Airways cargo plane was loaded with
Milan rockets and Stinger missiles, apparently including some of the weaponry the United States
had sent to Afghan resistance fighters, according to US officials.
The role of Hijra Construction was vital. The company's main business was road-building, just as
bin Laden's father built his fortune in Saudi Arabia. Hijra Construction built a road linking
Khartoum with Port Sudan and a major airport. The company also bought explosives that were
used in road construction.
But explosives also were used at a training camp at a farm in Sudan owned by another bin Laden
company, Themar al Mubaraka, according to trial testimony.
Page 5 of 6
Approved for Release 2020/09/24 C05595190
Approved for Release: 2020/09/24 C05595190
Taba Investment, another bin Laden company, appeared to make a profit for bin Laden. Trial
testimony showed that the company figured out how to make extra money by processing peanuts
rather than shipping the raw crop to Europe. The State Department report says bin Laden
"secured a near monopoly over Sudan's major agricultural exports of gum, corn, sunflower, and
sesame products."
By 1996, under pressure from the United States, Sudan had forced bin
Laden to leave. Khashoggi, the Saudi journalist, believes that this may have required bin Laden
to quickly liquidate his holdings, costing him millions of dollars. "This is one of the reasons" that
bin Laden hates the United States, Khashoggi said. "I believe he lost a good portion of his money
in Sudan."
US officials dismiss such suggestions, saying that bin Laden attacked US
interests long before he left Sudan. Bin Laden himself said he wanted to
strike Americans because of the US presence in Islamic countries. In any
event, US officials said, upon returning to Afghanistan, bin Laden used some of his funds to help
finance the Taliban, which now controls most of the country.
During the last five years in Afghanistan, bin Laden has received money
both from the self- described charitable organizations and from the web of companies and
investments he has scattered in dozens of countries. In
addition, there have been reports that some of Saudi Arabia's wealthiest
businessmen paid millions in "protection money" to prevent attacks on their businesses.
Some observers, including Khashoggi, have wondered whether it was a
mistake for the United States to have forced bin Laden out of Sudan. Now, instead of knowing
bin Laden's exact whereabouts in Khartoum, the United States is facing a difficult search in the
desolate terrain of Afghanistan.
Page 6 of 6
Approved for Release: 2020/09/24 C05595190