Unravelling the al-Qaeda money trail

The transfer last year of $100,000 from a United Arab Emirate account to one in the US controlled by Mohammed Atta almost certainly kicked off the final phase of the planning of the September 11th attacks. The payment to Atta, an Egyptian-born and German-educated pilot, who was one of the hijackers and is believed to have been their US leader, is one of the key clues in the complex money trail which US investigators are unravelling. It is central to linking Osama bin Laden's al- Qaeda organisation to the September 11th attacks.

All told, investigators now believe, the operation cost some $500,000, a far cry from the $20,000 cost of the first World Trade Centre attack. According to yesterday's Washington Post,they believe they can link that first transfer to one Mustafa Mohammed Ahmed, known to be a senior al-Qaeda money man.

Among scores of other money transactions being investigated are the links to a man in US custody, a former Boston taxi-driver Mr Nabil Almarabh, who has ties to bin Laden associates. He may have laundered about $15,000 through a Canadian bank, funds which went to other men now under arrest in the US, according to reports in Toronto.

Investigators also believe they have identified the bin Laden aide who actually planned the attacks, the Post says.

A US bounty of $5 million is being offered for information leading to the apprehension of Mohammed Atef, a former Egyptian policeman, who is believed to have been responsible for organising the attacks on US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 and to have encouraged attacks on US marines in Somalia in 1993. He is now also being seen as central to September 11th.

Atef's role reflects the central place of Egyptian militants in al-Qaeda. Indeed, Mr Ayman Zawahiri, founder of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and sentenced to death in absentia by the Egyptians, is widely seen as the intellectual driving force of the organisation. Atef was a long-time aide to Mr Zawahiri and a participant in the anti-Soviet war in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Their group merged with bin Laden's al-Qaeda three years ago.

Born in Egypt in about 1944, Atef sits on al-Qaeda's military committee and has "primary responsibility" for supervising the training of new members at camps in Afghanistan, US prosecutors told the Post. Prosecutors confirmed his identity following comments by the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, on Thursday to the effect that "one of bin Laden's closest and most senior associates was responsible for the detailed planning of the attacks".

The complexity of the money trail cannot be understated. Bin Laden, in denying responsibility for the attacks in a recent interview with a Pakistani newspaper, boasted of his group's ability to take advantage of loopholes in US and European financial systems. He said global efforts to freeze assets connected to terrorism "will not make any difference for al-Qaeda or other jihad groups".

To date the investigation has resulted in some 150 arrests in the US and 25 countries. About $100 million in suspected terrorist assets has been frozen in banks around the world since the attacks. Some 591 people have been detained in the US, including 140 still held on immigration warrants; 383 searches have been conducted and 4,407 supoenas have been served requiring companies or individuals to reveal information.

The US authorities have received 246,000 tips and potential leads.