Nations at the heart of Al Qaeda’s network lack financial safeguards, and the global alliance is weaker. Cells are now deeper underground. A U.S.-led campaign to eradicate terror networks by choking off their sources of money is running into roadblocks in many countries that will make it difficult, if not impossible, to prevent the groups from financing attacks, U.S. and other officials say. Two years after Al Qaeda paymasters helped fund the Sept. 11 attacks from Dubai, one senior U.S. Treasury Department counter-terrorism official says this modern financial crossroads of the Middle East, Africa and Asia remains “a central switching station” of banks, money changers and gold and diamond traders through which terror organizations move cash. Many countries believed to be at the epicenter of Al Qaeda’s re-emerging network — including Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia — are, at best, years away from establishing the financial and legal infrastructures needed to freeze terrorist assets or gain intelligence on how cells are raising, moving and spending money, say U.S. officials and their counterparts in other countries. Full Story
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