U.N. Group Says Al Qaeda Has New Afghan Camps

18/12/2002| IslamWeb

Al Qaeda has recently set up several new training camps in eastern Afghanistan  near the border with Pakistan, the head of a United Nations  group monitoring the flow of money to the network said on Tuesday. "A large number of al Qaeda operatives and others trained by al Qaeda remain at large," said Michael Chandler, who heads the U.N. group, which tracks financing links with al Qaeda.

"Adherents continue to join their ranks and it continues to develop alliances with national or regional extremist groups bent on using terror as their means to their objectives."

The U.N. group said a number of new training camps were recently activated, near the Pakistan border.

Chandler told reporters the unspecified number of camps were located in a region, near the Khyber Pass.

However, a U.S. official told Reuters there was no evidence of any new camps.

"I don't know of any al Qaeda camps being reactivated," said the official, who asked not to be identified.

The U.N. report cited the recent bombings aimed at tourists in Bali, Indonesia and Mombasa, Kenya as evidence of al Qaeda's wide reach and the existence of a coalition of extremist groups in Southeast Asia and East Africa.

"The al Qaeda network remains a significant threat globally to peace and security," said Chandler, noting that many operatives who had been trained in such areas as explosives and hijacking methods have never been identified.

"The ones who got trained in all these evil techniques have melded back into different societies and they're the ones we have to worry about," he said.

A U.N. watch list of individuals and entities associated with Osama bin Laden , al Qaeda and the former Taliban regime in Afghanistan, was crucial to disrupt the network, said Chandler.

Some 233 individuals, including Taliban, and 91 entities are named on the list. The names of another 104 people said to be linked to al Qaeda were also included, he said.

The report noted that regulatory measures have been taken to monitor charity groups in various countries that have been used to channel funds to al Qaeda as well as hawalas, the informal banking and remittance networks widely used in Asia and the Middle East. While Saudi Arabia has offered to regulate its charities more effectively, many other countries have not signed on to the effort.

After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States the United States froze some 112 million dlrs in assets tied to al Qaeda and groups believed to be associated with it.

PHOTO CAPTION

A report in The New York Times on Dec. 15, 2002, said the CIA has been authorized to kill individuals described as 'terrorist leaders' on a list approved by the White House. The list includes al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden (left) and his chief deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri. They are shown in a November 2001 photo. Photo by Reuters (Handou