U.S. Gave Millions to Charity Linked to al Qaeda, Anwar Awlaki

From INTELWIRE.com:

U.S. Gave Millions To Charity Linked To Al Qaeda, Anwar Awlaki | By J.M. Berger

The U.S. Department of Labor gave millions of dollars to a joint venture that included a Yemeni charity with extensive links to Al Qaeda.

At least $3.5 million was allocated by the Labor Department to fund a three-year partnership between the Charitable Society for Social Welfare (CSSW), based in Yemen, and CHF International, a Maryland-based foundation, to fight child labor and child trafficking starting in fiscal year 2008.

The money was provided through a grant by the Labor Department’s Office of Child Labor, Forced Labor, and Human Trafficking (OCFT), according to a Labor Department press release, the agency’s Web site and Middle Eastern news sources (link, link).

CSSW, based in Yemen, was founded by Abdul Majid Al Zindani, a veteran of the jihad against the Soviet Union and its civil war aftermath. Zindani was an associate of Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, according to published reports and exclusive documents obtained by INTELWIRE. The U.S. government believes he is an Al Qaeda recruiter and fundraiser.

Zindani was named as a specially designated global terrorist by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2004, nearly four years before the grant was issued.

Wanted fugitive and radical Yemeni-American cleric Anwar Awlaki served as a vice president for the organization during the 1990s. Awlaki is also believed to be associated with Al Qaeda (link).

The CSSW Web site lists partner organizations including the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO) and the Qatar Charitable Society, both of which are believed by the U.S. government to be Al Qaeda financing vehicles.

The U.S. alleges that IIRO helped finance the Manila-based Bojinka plot to blow up U.S. airliners in 1995. According to an Al Qaeda informant, Osama bin Laden has stated that Qatar Charitable Society funds were used to pay for an attempt to assassinate Egyptian President Hosni Mubarek, also in 1995.

CSSW was also the subject of an FBI terrorism financing investigation in 2003, five years prior to the Department of Labor grant approval.

UPDATE 6/7/201: Click here to read extensive documentation of the claims in this article as well as CSSW’s response. CSSW denied all claims made in the article as “baseless and fabricated.”