For some reason the BBC only tells us he was a relative of Ben Laden...no hints about his terror ties...Nah, no bias here, folks, just move along.
The Manila Times however points out his connections with charities and the funding of Al Qaeda linked groups in the Philippines, including Ramzi Yousef, who was involved both in bombing a Philippine airliner and with the first world trade center bombing in the 1990's.
Khalil was deeply involved in legitamate businesses and with charities that did some charity but essentially were fronts for sending money to terrorist groups.
Arrested after 9-11 in Saudi Arabia, he was freed for lack of evidence; arrests in the US and Jordan also did result in convictions thanks to lack of evidence and witnesses changing their minds.
However, one of his "charities" was closed last year here in the Philippines last year because of evidence it was involved in money laundering for terror groups, including the AbuSayyaf, who bombed towns and a ferry that killed one hundred local people, and also kidnapped and murdered tourists.
Bill Roggio calls Khalif the "poster child" for the problem of the "for failure in exclusively relying on the law-enforcement model for counterterrorism operations".
Roggio also wonders if the death was a political assasination. However, in these days when the ex premier of Malaysia is trying to set up war crimes trials (but only for those suffering from Israel or in Iraq), and Germany is in the midst of a scandal about CIA agents kidnapping terror suspects, one suspects that, just like the BBC pretends that Khalil was a simple businessman, the US and other will simply pretend his murder was a simple murder by local thieves.
(dual posted to BNN)
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