02-26-2006, 04:39 AM
<b>INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR: PAPER NO.26 PORT SECURITY IN US</b>
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->9. While the UAE Government might be viewed by the US Government as a sincere ally in the war against terrorism, the following worrisome factors have not received the attention they deserve in the debate in the US on this subject:
<b>Dubai is an important hub of hawala money transactions in the Gulf area</b>. The informal money transfers through the hawala method without leaving any paper trail are used by heroin smugglers and other international criminal mafia groups for money-laundering and terrorist groups for funding their operations.Â
<b>Dubai has always been a safe haven for the trans-national criminal mafia gangs of South Asia, which invest their ill-gotten wealth in the real estate and other business activities in the UAE.</b> For many years, the trans-national criminal gang of Dawood Ibrahim used to operate from Dubai, without the UAE authorities taking any action against him and his gang members.Â
The explosions in Mumbai (Bombay) in March 1993, organised by Dawood Ibrahim and Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), which killed about 250 innocent civilians, were orchestrated by Dawood and the ISI from Dubai. <b>The terrorists, who participated in the operations at Mumbai, were first taken to Dubai and from there to Pakistan on the basis of plain paper visas issued by the ISI officer posted in the Pakistani Consulate in Dubai.</b> The ISI got them trained in the training camps of the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM), a founding member of bin Laden's IIF, and then sent them back to Mumbai via Dubai. The HUM was designated by the US as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation under a 1996 law in October 1997. The explosives used in the Mumbai terrorist strikes were sent by the ISI to Dawood Ibrahim in Dubai, who had them clandestinely sent to Mumbai in his boats. The investigation by the Mumbai Police into the explosions brought out the details of the use of Dubai by the ISI and Dawood Ibrahim for organising the terrorist strikes. The airport authorities of Dubai had helped the terrorists to travel to Pakistan for clandestine training with plain paper visas without any entry in their Indian passports regarding their clandestine travel to and from Pakistan. The UAE authorities never alerted India to the activities of this gang directed against India from the UAE territory. After the explosions, they pressurised Dawood Ibrahim to leave Dubai, but did not arrest him and hand him over to India for facing trial. He shifted to Karachi, from where he has been operating now. He and his cohorts frequently visit Dubai from Karachi in connection with their smuggling and other operations, but they have not been arrested by the UAE authorities despite the existence of red corner notices repeatedly issued by the INTERPOL since 1993 for arresting them and handing them over to India. The intelligence and security agencies of the UAE and Pakistan have been colluding with each other in protecting Dawood Ibrahim from the legal consequences of his involvement in trans-national crime and international terrorism. In October 2003, the US Treasury designated Dawood Ibrahim as an international terrorist following evidence of his links with Al Qaeda, but even then no action has been taken against him and his business empire in the UAE and Pakistan by either the UAE or Pakistan.Â
<b>In December 1999, some Pakistani terrorists belonging to the HUM hijacked an aircraft of the Indian Airlines and took it to Dubai. Instead of terminating the hijacking, arresting the hijackers and handing them over to India, the UAE authorities allowed the aircraft to fly to Kandahar, the then headquarters of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. </b>During the negotiations conducted from Kandahar, the hijackers forced the Government of India to release Omar Sheikh, who subsequently masterminded the kidnapping and murder of Daniel Pearl, the US journalist, and Maulana Masood Azhar, who subsequently formed the Jaish-e-Mohammad, which has joined the IIF.Â
<b>In December 2001, a group of terrorists attacked the security guards posted outside the US Consulate in Kolkata. After the commission of the offence, the leader of this group fled to Dubai, where he was arrested by the local authorities and handed over to the Indian Police</b>. During the investigation, it came out that in the past he had been frequently traveling to Pakistan via Dubai for meeting officials of the ISI and terrorist leaders based in Pakistan.Â
<b>In August 2004, Qari Saifullah Akhtar, the Amir of the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI), one of the members of bin Laden's IIF, was found to be operating from Dubai. He was arrested by the UAE authorities and handed over to the Pakistani police</b>. He was a close adviser to Mulla Mohammad Omar, the Amir of the Taliban. Before 9/11, the HUJI was running a number of training camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan for training terrorists from India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, southern Thailand, the Central Asian Republics, the Xinjiang region of China and Chechnya in Russia.Â
The Lashkar-e-Toiba of Pakistan has active branches in the UAE and Saudi Arabia for co-ordinating its activities in India, South-East Asia and Australia and for transmitting money through the hawala channel. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->9. While the UAE Government might be viewed by the US Government as a sincere ally in the war against terrorism, the following worrisome factors have not received the attention they deserve in the debate in the US on this subject:
<b>Dubai is an important hub of hawala money transactions in the Gulf area</b>. The informal money transfers through the hawala method without leaving any paper trail are used by heroin smugglers and other international criminal mafia groups for money-laundering and terrorist groups for funding their operations.Â
<b>Dubai has always been a safe haven for the trans-national criminal mafia gangs of South Asia, which invest their ill-gotten wealth in the real estate and other business activities in the UAE.</b> For many years, the trans-national criminal gang of Dawood Ibrahim used to operate from Dubai, without the UAE authorities taking any action against him and his gang members.Â
The explosions in Mumbai (Bombay) in March 1993, organised by Dawood Ibrahim and Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), which killed about 250 innocent civilians, were orchestrated by Dawood and the ISI from Dubai. <b>The terrorists, who participated in the operations at Mumbai, were first taken to Dubai and from there to Pakistan on the basis of plain paper visas issued by the ISI officer posted in the Pakistani Consulate in Dubai.</b> The ISI got them trained in the training camps of the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM), a founding member of bin Laden's IIF, and then sent them back to Mumbai via Dubai. The HUM was designated by the US as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation under a 1996 law in October 1997. The explosives used in the Mumbai terrorist strikes were sent by the ISI to Dawood Ibrahim in Dubai, who had them clandestinely sent to Mumbai in his boats. The investigation by the Mumbai Police into the explosions brought out the details of the use of Dubai by the ISI and Dawood Ibrahim for organising the terrorist strikes. The airport authorities of Dubai had helped the terrorists to travel to Pakistan for clandestine training with plain paper visas without any entry in their Indian passports regarding their clandestine travel to and from Pakistan. The UAE authorities never alerted India to the activities of this gang directed against India from the UAE territory. After the explosions, they pressurised Dawood Ibrahim to leave Dubai, but did not arrest him and hand him over to India for facing trial. He shifted to Karachi, from where he has been operating now. He and his cohorts frequently visit Dubai from Karachi in connection with their smuggling and other operations, but they have not been arrested by the UAE authorities despite the existence of red corner notices repeatedly issued by the INTERPOL since 1993 for arresting them and handing them over to India. The intelligence and security agencies of the UAE and Pakistan have been colluding with each other in protecting Dawood Ibrahim from the legal consequences of his involvement in trans-national crime and international terrorism. In October 2003, the US Treasury designated Dawood Ibrahim as an international terrorist following evidence of his links with Al Qaeda, but even then no action has been taken against him and his business empire in the UAE and Pakistan by either the UAE or Pakistan.Â
<b>In December 1999, some Pakistani terrorists belonging to the HUM hijacked an aircraft of the Indian Airlines and took it to Dubai. Instead of terminating the hijacking, arresting the hijackers and handing them over to India, the UAE authorities allowed the aircraft to fly to Kandahar, the then headquarters of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. </b>During the negotiations conducted from Kandahar, the hijackers forced the Government of India to release Omar Sheikh, who subsequently masterminded the kidnapping and murder of Daniel Pearl, the US journalist, and Maulana Masood Azhar, who subsequently formed the Jaish-e-Mohammad, which has joined the IIF.Â
<b>In December 2001, a group of terrorists attacked the security guards posted outside the US Consulate in Kolkata. After the commission of the offence, the leader of this group fled to Dubai, where he was arrested by the local authorities and handed over to the Indian Police</b>. During the investigation, it came out that in the past he had been frequently traveling to Pakistan via Dubai for meeting officials of the ISI and terrorist leaders based in Pakistan.Â
<b>In August 2004, Qari Saifullah Akhtar, the Amir of the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI), one of the members of bin Laden's IIF, was found to be operating from Dubai. He was arrested by the UAE authorities and handed over to the Pakistani police</b>. He was a close adviser to Mulla Mohammad Omar, the Amir of the Taliban. Before 9/11, the HUJI was running a number of training camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan for training terrorists from India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, southern Thailand, the Central Asian Republics, the Xinjiang region of China and Chechnya in Russia.Â
The Lashkar-e-Toiba of Pakistan has active branches in the UAE and Saudi Arabia for co-ordinating its activities in India, South-East Asia and Australia and for transmitting money through the hawala channel. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->