US launches crackdown on terror assets

The Bush administration cracked down on Osama bin Laden’s multimillion-dollar financial networks at home and abroad, closing businesses in four states, detaining US suspects and urging allies to help choke off money supplies in 40 nations.

‘‘By shutting these networks down, we disrupt the murderers’ work,’’ President George W Bush said, announcing the first major dragnet of companies, organisations and people suspected of aiding terrorists from US soil.

Across Europe and from coast to coast in America, police conducted raids designed to unravel two Islamic financial networks accused of laundering and raising money and providing logistical support to bin Laden’s al Qaida organisation.

Investigators said they believe tens of millions of dollars a year flowed overseas through the Al-Barakaat network of stores, groceries and money exchanges, much of it from funds that Somalis living in America send home to relatives.

Some of that money was skimmed for use by al Qaida and other terrorist networks, investigators said.

The chairman of the Al-Barakaat group, which operates in 40 nations including the United States, vehemently denied the White House allegations.

‘‘This is all lies,’’ Ahmed Nur Ali Jim’ale said in an interview from Dubai. ‘‘We are people who are hard working and have nothing to do with terrorists.’’

The second network, al Taqua, is a loosely-organised band of companies in Switzerland, Liechtenstein, the Bahamas and Italy, the White House says.

It is controlled by Youssef Nada, a naturalised Italian citizen, whose assets the United States wants frozen in overseas banks.

Acting on the United States’ request, officials from Switzerland, Italy and Liechtenstein moved to block al Taqua assets. Two Arab financiers, Youssef M. Nada and Ali Himmat, were questioned by Swiss police for several hours before being released.

In all, the names of 62 entities and people were added to a list of suspected terrorist associates targeted by Bush in an executive order signed last month.

The earlier list included 88 groups or people whose assets had been frozen because of their ties to al Qaida and other terrorist groups.

In co-ordinated raids yesterday, Customs agents seized evidence and shut down Al-Barakaat companies in four cities: Boston, Minneapolis, Seattle and Columbus, Ohio. The Treasury Department froze assets of nine organisations and two people in the United States, most with links to Al-Barakaat.

In addition, FBI agents raided two businesses seeking evidence of terrorist transactions. The companies cater to the Somali community in northern Virginia, not far from the Treasury Department office where Bush announced the crackdown.

In Boston, Mohamed M Hussein and Liban M Hussein were charged with running an illegal money-transmitting business, according to a criminal complaint. Officials said Mohamed Hussein was in custody.

The two men ran Barakaat North America Inc in Massachusetts, a foreign money exchange, without a state licence, according to a US Customs Service affidavit.

The business moved over $ 2m through a US bank from January through September, the government said.

A man was briefly detained in Seattle after federal agents raided a Muslim grocery store containing a wire-transfer operation.

Five organisations and one person, Garad Jama, were targeted in Minnesota. Agents detained at least one man.

‘‘Today, we take another important action to expose the enemy to the light and to disrupt its ability to threaten America and innocent life,’’ Bush said.

Secretary of State Colin Powell said: ‘‘Money is the oxygen of terrorism.’’

The event was designed to show progress in the broad anti-terrorism campaign, countering doubts about the US-led military operations in Afghanistan and the administration’s response to anthrax scares.

The United States also asked allies to freeze assets on terrorist-aiding organisations based in Switzerland, Somalia, Liechtenstein, the Bahamas, Sweden, Canada, Austria, Italy and the United Arab Emirates.

The United Arab Emirates, a hub of Islamic financial activity, seized assets and records of Al-Barakaat.

The United States has blocked $26m in assets of the Taliban and al Qaida; an additional $17m has been blocked by other countries, bringing the worldwide total to $ 43m, a US Treasury spokeswoman said.

To date, 112 countries have blocking orders in force.