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By Martin Bentham
Every time a soft drink is sold in the
world, there is a chilling possibility that Osama Bin Laden's
wealth increases - and with it the power of his terrorist
network to wage war on the West.
Most drinks contain gum Arabic, a substance
that prevents particles settling in the bottom of a can or
bottle. Much of it is produced in Sudan by the Gum Arabic
Company, in which Bin Laden
has owned a large slice.
Although it is unclear precisely how much
involvement he now has in the gum Arabic trade, he has already
earned tens of millions
of dollars from the soft-drinks industry - providing
years of finance for his Islamic terrorists.
"It is possible that every time someone
buys an American soft drink, they are helping to fill Osama
Bin Laden's coffers," said Simon Reeve, the author of
The
New Jackals, a recent book on the Saudi dissident's network.
Bin Laden's earnings from gum Arabic,
which is also used in other foodstuffs and cosmetics, comprise
only a part of his fortune.
The exact extent of his fortune can only
be guessed at. The most authoritative estimates indicate that
he is worth up to £300 million.
He was born in Riyadh, in 1957 - one of
more than 50 children of Mohammed Bin Laden, the founder of
a construction firm with a vast turnover. When his father
died, he used his share of the wealth to enjoy a playboy life
in Beirut in the early 1970s. Soon, however, he married and
trained in management and civil engineering.
After the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan,
he funded Islamic resistance
fighters. Money flowed in to help him - notably
from the CIA - but also, it is thought, from other governments.
When the Red Army pulled out in the late
1980s, Bin Laden concentrated on expanding his al'Qaeda organization
- also known as The Base - which had been set up during the
Afghan war. It began supporting the worldwide "Islamic
struggle" through terrorist actions against those deemed
to be oppressing Muslims.
Paul Wilkinson, of the center for the
study of terrorism and political violence at St Andrews University,
in Scotland, said al'Qaeda's various components were used
to move money, information and people around the world. This
allowed Bin Laden to act as a "super facilitator"
for terrorists - some linked to other groups such as Islamic
Jihad.
"His is a hydra-headed organization,"
said Prof Wilkinson. "Its trans-national nature makes
it very difficult to stem
the flow of funds."
A rare glimpse of al-Qaeda's inner workings
came at the New York trial of four Bin Laden-sponsored terrorists,
convicted in July for their role in two US embassy bombings
in Africa in 1998 that killed 224 people.
Jamal Ahmed al-Fadl, who says he was once
the group's paymaster, told the court of a global web of bank
accounts. One, he claimed, was at Barclays Bank in London.
The terrorist group was highly
organized, he said, with its own finance committee.
Mr al-Fadl fled al-Qaeda in 1996 after
he was caught taking illicit commissions from its international
trading business. He turned himself over to American investigators.
Barclays Bank said yesterday that there
was no record of any of its accounts being linked to Bin Laden.
A spokesman said: "We have carried out extensive checks
to ensure that we are adhering to the legal guidelines."
Telegraph.co.uk
September 16, 2001
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