Terrorist Financing: Status Update

Most of the charges against Saudi businessmen, senior members of the Al-Saud family and institutions accused of financing Al-Qaeda in civil litigation led by South Carolinabased law firm Motley Rice have been dismissed by US judges.

Other US lawsuits against members of the Saudi elite have also failed, but the lawsuits just keep coming. Thus a mogul of the Arab/Islamic financial and media scene, Al-Baraka Investment and Development CorporationAl-Baraka Investment and Development Corporation chairman Sheikh Saleh Abdullah Kamel - who was among those accused in the Motley Rice case - had a suit filed against him last December on behalf of US insurance companies focusing on suspicions of terrorist financing;within the month the case was dismissed by US judge Richard Conway Casey.

A legal source active in defending terrorism finance cases was highly critical of the way such litigation was being dealt with in the USA, calling it a "big mess." Talking to GSN from the Gulf, he argued that there were still no specific procedures in place to fight against claims of links to terrorism, while defence teams suffered from a lack of co-operation from US authorities and the abuse of information; he described this as a "Kafka-like jurisprudence targeting Muslims."

Civil litigation lawyers have not given up on Saudi and other Gulf nationals, but they are increasingly focusing their efforts on major international banks and their alleged role in terrorist financing - representing a shift away from Al-Qaeda towards Hamas and Lebanon's powerful Hizbollah movement.

The Rest @Zawya.com

Al Qaeda Action in Algeria Spreads to Morocco

CASABLANCA, Morocco - Two car bombs in Algeria Wednesday provided jarring reminders of the Islamic insurgency that wreaked havoc there in the 1990s. It was a signal that yet another large-scale battle with militants may be brewing.

For weeks, the government has been fighting Al Qaeda-linked insurgents in the remote highlands of the North African nation. But these are the first attacks on the capital, Algiers , in years – one hit the prime minister's office in the city center and the other a police station in the eastern outskirts. Together the attacks killed at least 30 people.

In neighboring Morocco on Tuesday, three suspected terrorists exploded suicide belts and another was shot dead as police were chasing them. They were all wanted in connection with another suicide bombing on March 11.

The governments of this region, ruled by entrenched authoritarians, face a confrontation with a growing Islamist movement. Some groups are rising up to challenge the government in elections, and others are becoming more violent.

Source: Christian Science Monitor via the SITE Institute

South Sudan preparing for seccesion

The National Congress Party (NCP) in Khartoum is growing increasingly anxious about national elections in 2009 and referenda to be held in 2011. The referenda will first decide whether the South secedes from the country and second whether the oil-laden Abyei region joins North or South.
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The comprehensive peace agreement went into effect in 2005, and most of the key elements have not been implemented.
We need to watch closely to see what actions the military government in Kartoum may do to try and undermine the agreement.
Unless resolution on division of oil fields etc. is accomplished in the bext two years, it is likely the war will erupt again in 2009.

-Shimron