I'm not a big antiwar.com fan, but this was an interesting article, the links are real good reads too (the Lavon Affair- never heard of it until now), go to the article and check some of them out.
http://www.etherzone.com/2003/raim081503.shtml
THE REAL TERROR MASTERS
TERRORISM EMBRACES ETHNIC 'DIVERSITY'
By: Justin Raimondo
In the terrorism business, it seems, diversity is all the rage. What Hemant Lakhani, an international arms dealer of British nationality and Indian ethnicity, Moinuddeen Ahmed Hameed, a Muslim from Malaysia, and Yehuda Abraham, a Jewish-American gem dealer who works out of New York City's diamond district, have in common is that they are all being held in connection with a plot to purchase surface-to-air missiles on behalf of terrorists. Except that the alleged terrorists they were dealing with were really FBI agents and informants, who had been tracking them for over a year in an effort to smoke out the rest of Osama bin Laden's worldwide network.
A leak to the media, however, forced the feds to go public before the trap could be fully sprung, at least according to Newsweek's Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball.
Several aspects of this case are extremely odd, starting with the ethnic "diversity" of the players.
Hemant Lakhani, a.k.a. Hemad, a.k.a. Hekyat – Beginning with his exact name, we get conflicting accounts of just who and what this guy is. By some accounts he's an "international arms dealer," yet his neighbors described him as "Mr. Average" and were shocked when the cops beat down the doors of the Lakhanis' home in the predominantly Jewish neighborhood of Hendon, a north London suburb. The Guardian and others characterize the 68-year-old Indian-born British national as an amateur in the arms trade, whose last known profession was as a garment trader and the manager of a West End clothing store. Julian Borger disdains him as "a blusterer, rather too anxious to impress on his contact that he is a 'serious businessman' capable of getting hold of 'high-class stuff."
Yet in the same newspaper we read:
"A source close to British intelligence yesterday described Mr. Lakhani as a 'known arms dealer' who was thought to conduct most of his business offshore. He put 'feelers' out and 'clearly knew who he was selling the missile to,' the source added, making the point that Mr. Lakhani would not have been involved in a 'blind deal."
The internet turns up sparse evidence of Lakhani or what he does for a living.
Yehuda Abraham – If Lakhani's neighbors were somewhat surprised to see his house swarming with police, Yahuda Abraham's family and friends are even more mystified. What possible connection could this 76-year-old pillar of the Orthodox Jewish community in New York City have to do with international terrorism? Mr. Abraham is described by the New York Times as "a slight, stooped 76-year-old gem dealer, with a house in Queens, an office in New York's diamond district and shops around the world." Pretty much the last person you might expect to be involved in a scheme to sell SAMs to Al Qaeda. And yet:
"One night last October, prosecutors say, a client entered Mr. Abraham's 12th-floor Midtown office and handed him $30,000 in hundred dollar bills, an odd, if believable transaction in the world of international gem dealers. Mr. Abraham, by the government's account, counted out every note, then gave the client his business card. But this was not a jewelry sale, prosecutors allege. It was a secretive deal, with a code number and a cash commission, in which Mr. Abraham agreed to transfer the client's money to a bank account in Europe, out of the sight of federal regulators."
The code number, which was used to identify the FBI agent posing as a "client," consisted of the serial number of a $1 bill in Abraham's possession, It was like something out of a James Bond movie: hardly the sort of elaborate precaution an ordinary criminal would take.
Abraham's family is predictably indignant, and his colleagues in the diamond trade are baffled. Says one:
"For a Jew to do something like that, I cannot believe it or understand it,' said a 49-year-old jewelry wholesaler whose shop is on 47th Street. 'He's a prominent member of our community. To do something like that is crazy."
But we are living in crazy times, an era that might even be termed the Bizarro Age, like the Bronze Age. So it is not only possible it is altogether all too probable that what the FBI says has some basis in fact:
"Mr. Abraham was the money man, a shadowy figure who facilitated the work of terrorists by giving them the means to finance their actions – the purchase of the missiles – through an informal money transfer system, known as hawala, which is common in the Middle East and a preferred method of finance for terrorists."
The third member of this disparate trio, Moinuddeen Ahmed Hameed, is even more shadowy than the others: described as a "Malaysian resident," he turned up on the scene the week before the final transaction was to occur, apparently to launder the proceeds. The Washington Post reports:
"Hameed, who is charged with operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business, was allegedly brought into the deal only this week to handle a scheduled down payment of $500,000 on the purchase of 50 more missiles, officials said."
Hameed is described in some news accounts as an employee of Abraham's Ambuy International, a.k.a. Ambuy Gem Corp., probably the only Jewish-owned company to boast of offices in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Both Hameed and Abraham are charged with operating an illegal money-laundering scheme, which could get them a mere 5 years and a $250,000 fine. As Abraham's lawyer was quick to point out:
"It was not alleged that Mr. Abraham engaged in conversations discussing missiles and terrorist activity."
Lakhani is the only one who has actually been charged with aiding and abetting terrorism, but can you imagine what would have happened if any Saudis had been involved?
With far less evidence, the government of Saudi Arabia has been tried and convicted in the court of bipartisan public opinion of financing – through the hawala system – a worldwide terrorist conspiracy, including the 9/11 terrorist attacks. We are supposed to believe that it's "us" against "them," that, as George W. Bush put it, "you're either with the terrorists, or you're with us." But who is "them" – and who be "us"?
I am struck by what Lakhani said to the FBI informant as they planned in a hotel room looking out on Newark International Airport. Planes winged their way into the horizon while Lakhani declaimed:
"Make one explosion...to shake the economy."
Surely this threat was directed at the American people, in general. ln a more specifically political sense, however, the one American who would be dealt a terrific blow by another successful terrorist operation on American soil would be George W. Bush. But who would want to bring down the economy, and this President, aside from the usual Islamic fundamentalist suspects?
It is interesting that, in all the news accounts of the recorded conversations between Lakhani and the informant, the former never endorses the Islamist ideals of Bin Laden. He merely expresses approval for bringing down the U.S. a notch or two: Lakhani disdains Americans as "bastards," who deserved what they got.
Abraham's central role in all this, as the chief financier of the terror deal, makes it hard to believe that he was merely acting as a purely functional go-between, and was motivated by greed. The actual amount of money involved in the attempted transaction never amounted to more than half a million, with a small commission for Abraham, hardly enough to justify the high risks.
We are at war. 9/11 made that plain enough. But the problem with the "war on terrorism" from the beginning has been the elusive nature of the enemy. We're supposed to believe it's the Muslim world, personified by Osama bin Laden, versus America, Israel, and parts of the West (not including France). The 28 blank pages of the recent congressional report on 9/11 have provided ample opportunity for conspiracy theorists like Dore Gold to put Riyadh at the center of the terrorist web, and we constantly hear that 15 out of 19 hijackers were Saudis.
So let's take a look at the nationality of the latest terrorist operatives, and extrapolate similarly. Let's see: we have an Indian of British nationality, who may or may not be a Hindu, depending on which version of his name is correct; a Malaysian, presumably a Muslim, and an American of Jewish ethnicity. It would it be too politically incorrect to note that two out of three of the conspirators might be said to embody the Indo-Israeli alliance. So I shall refrain from doing so, except to note that ethno-religious analysis of that sort is allowed only when it applies to Saudis.
Both Israel and India have their increasingly bitter grievances against the U.S. The former is being pressured to accept a peace settlement that high-placed extremists in the government find unacceptable, and the latter on account of American support for Pakistan's heroic General Musharraf, a moderate Muslim who risked his position, and his life, to side with the Americans against terrorism.
If the intelligence agencies of either nation were involved, albeit peripherally and in a "rogue" manner, with the activities of the Lakhani-Abraham terror ring, it would hardly be surprising. The Lavon Affair, in which Israeli agents masquerading as Muslim fanatics bombed American interests in Egypt, is infamous throughout the Arab world, and largely unknown in the West. More recently, the spate of stories that the Israelis had some foreknowledge of the events leading up to 9/11, yet failed to inform us, points to the dark side of our relations with our closest ally.
We don't know enough, yet, to come to any definite conclusions about this case, but one thing is for sure: the exclusively Muslim-Arab face of terrorism is changed forever.
http://www.etherzone.com/2003/raim081503.shtml
THE REAL TERROR MASTERS
TERRORISM EMBRACES ETHNIC 'DIVERSITY'
By: Justin Raimondo
In the terrorism business, it seems, diversity is all the rage. What Hemant Lakhani, an international arms dealer of British nationality and Indian ethnicity, Moinuddeen Ahmed Hameed, a Muslim from Malaysia, and Yehuda Abraham, a Jewish-American gem dealer who works out of New York City's diamond district, have in common is that they are all being held in connection with a plot to purchase surface-to-air missiles on behalf of terrorists. Except that the alleged terrorists they were dealing with were really FBI agents and informants, who had been tracking them for over a year in an effort to smoke out the rest of Osama bin Laden's worldwide network.
A leak to the media, however, forced the feds to go public before the trap could be fully sprung, at least according to Newsweek's Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball.
Several aspects of this case are extremely odd, starting with the ethnic "diversity" of the players.
Hemant Lakhani, a.k.a. Hemad, a.k.a. Hekyat – Beginning with his exact name, we get conflicting accounts of just who and what this guy is. By some accounts he's an "international arms dealer," yet his neighbors described him as "Mr. Average" and were shocked when the cops beat down the doors of the Lakhanis' home in the predominantly Jewish neighborhood of Hendon, a north London suburb. The Guardian and others characterize the 68-year-old Indian-born British national as an amateur in the arms trade, whose last known profession was as a garment trader and the manager of a West End clothing store. Julian Borger disdains him as "a blusterer, rather too anxious to impress on his contact that he is a 'serious businessman' capable of getting hold of 'high-class stuff."
Yet in the same newspaper we read:
"A source close to British intelligence yesterday described Mr. Lakhani as a 'known arms dealer' who was thought to conduct most of his business offshore. He put 'feelers' out and 'clearly knew who he was selling the missile to,' the source added, making the point that Mr. Lakhani would not have been involved in a 'blind deal."
The internet turns up sparse evidence of Lakhani or what he does for a living.
Yehuda Abraham – If Lakhani's neighbors were somewhat surprised to see his house swarming with police, Yahuda Abraham's family and friends are even more mystified. What possible connection could this 76-year-old pillar of the Orthodox Jewish community in New York City have to do with international terrorism? Mr. Abraham is described by the New York Times as "a slight, stooped 76-year-old gem dealer, with a house in Queens, an office in New York's diamond district and shops around the world." Pretty much the last person you might expect to be involved in a scheme to sell SAMs to Al Qaeda. And yet:
"One night last October, prosecutors say, a client entered Mr. Abraham's 12th-floor Midtown office and handed him $30,000 in hundred dollar bills, an odd, if believable transaction in the world of international gem dealers. Mr. Abraham, by the government's account, counted out every note, then gave the client his business card. But this was not a jewelry sale, prosecutors allege. It was a secretive deal, with a code number and a cash commission, in which Mr. Abraham agreed to transfer the client's money to a bank account in Europe, out of the sight of federal regulators."
The code number, which was used to identify the FBI agent posing as a "client," consisted of the serial number of a $1 bill in Abraham's possession, It was like something out of a James Bond movie: hardly the sort of elaborate precaution an ordinary criminal would take.
Abraham's family is predictably indignant, and his colleagues in the diamond trade are baffled. Says one:
"For a Jew to do something like that, I cannot believe it or understand it,' said a 49-year-old jewelry wholesaler whose shop is on 47th Street. 'He's a prominent member of our community. To do something like that is crazy."
But we are living in crazy times, an era that might even be termed the Bizarro Age, like the Bronze Age. So it is not only possible it is altogether all too probable that what the FBI says has some basis in fact:
"Mr. Abraham was the money man, a shadowy figure who facilitated the work of terrorists by giving them the means to finance their actions – the purchase of the missiles – through an informal money transfer system, known as hawala, which is common in the Middle East and a preferred method of finance for terrorists."
The third member of this disparate trio, Moinuddeen Ahmed Hameed, is even more shadowy than the others: described as a "Malaysian resident," he turned up on the scene the week before the final transaction was to occur, apparently to launder the proceeds. The Washington Post reports:
"Hameed, who is charged with operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business, was allegedly brought into the deal only this week to handle a scheduled down payment of $500,000 on the purchase of 50 more missiles, officials said."
Hameed is described in some news accounts as an employee of Abraham's Ambuy International, a.k.a. Ambuy Gem Corp., probably the only Jewish-owned company to boast of offices in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Both Hameed and Abraham are charged with operating an illegal money-laundering scheme, which could get them a mere 5 years and a $250,000 fine. As Abraham's lawyer was quick to point out:
"It was not alleged that Mr. Abraham engaged in conversations discussing missiles and terrorist activity."
Lakhani is the only one who has actually been charged with aiding and abetting terrorism, but can you imagine what would have happened if any Saudis had been involved?
With far less evidence, the government of Saudi Arabia has been tried and convicted in the court of bipartisan public opinion of financing – through the hawala system – a worldwide terrorist conspiracy, including the 9/11 terrorist attacks. We are supposed to believe that it's "us" against "them," that, as George W. Bush put it, "you're either with the terrorists, or you're with us." But who is "them" – and who be "us"?
I am struck by what Lakhani said to the FBI informant as they planned in a hotel room looking out on Newark International Airport. Planes winged their way into the horizon while Lakhani declaimed:
"Make one explosion...to shake the economy."
Surely this threat was directed at the American people, in general. ln a more specifically political sense, however, the one American who would be dealt a terrific blow by another successful terrorist operation on American soil would be George W. Bush. But who would want to bring down the economy, and this President, aside from the usual Islamic fundamentalist suspects?
It is interesting that, in all the news accounts of the recorded conversations between Lakhani and the informant, the former never endorses the Islamist ideals of Bin Laden. He merely expresses approval for bringing down the U.S. a notch or two: Lakhani disdains Americans as "bastards," who deserved what they got.
Abraham's central role in all this, as the chief financier of the terror deal, makes it hard to believe that he was merely acting as a purely functional go-between, and was motivated by greed. The actual amount of money involved in the attempted transaction never amounted to more than half a million, with a small commission for Abraham, hardly enough to justify the high risks.
We are at war. 9/11 made that plain enough. But the problem with the "war on terrorism" from the beginning has been the elusive nature of the enemy. We're supposed to believe it's the Muslim world, personified by Osama bin Laden, versus America, Israel, and parts of the West (not including France). The 28 blank pages of the recent congressional report on 9/11 have provided ample opportunity for conspiracy theorists like Dore Gold to put Riyadh at the center of the terrorist web, and we constantly hear that 15 out of 19 hijackers were Saudis.
So let's take a look at the nationality of the latest terrorist operatives, and extrapolate similarly. Let's see: we have an Indian of British nationality, who may or may not be a Hindu, depending on which version of his name is correct; a Malaysian, presumably a Muslim, and an American of Jewish ethnicity. It would it be too politically incorrect to note that two out of three of the conspirators might be said to embody the Indo-Israeli alliance. So I shall refrain from doing so, except to note that ethno-religious analysis of that sort is allowed only when it applies to Saudis.
Both Israel and India have their increasingly bitter grievances against the U.S. The former is being pressured to accept a peace settlement that high-placed extremists in the government find unacceptable, and the latter on account of American support for Pakistan's heroic General Musharraf, a moderate Muslim who risked his position, and his life, to side with the Americans against terrorism.
If the intelligence agencies of either nation were involved, albeit peripherally and in a "rogue" manner, with the activities of the Lakhani-Abraham terror ring, it would hardly be surprising. The Lavon Affair, in which Israeli agents masquerading as Muslim fanatics bombed American interests in Egypt, is infamous throughout the Arab world, and largely unknown in the West. More recently, the spate of stories that the Israelis had some foreknowledge of the events leading up to 9/11, yet failed to inform us, points to the dark side of our relations with our closest ally.
We don't know enough, yet, to come to any definite conclusions about this case, but one thing is for sure: the exclusively Muslim-Arab face of terrorism is changed forever.