What is Going on in Madagascar?
By Douglas Farah
It is passing strange that Madagascar, the large island off of East Africa, has come up several times in the past week in relation to terrorism and terror finance.
The first was the death of Osma bin Laden's brother-in-law Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, well-known for his support of radical Islamists. He happened to be on the island as a gemstone dealer.
Seems as though the group that killed him took his computer and some personal belongings, but not the stones that were there. Seems somewhat unlikely for a robbery. Given Khalifa's extensive ties to al Qaeda financial activities and various designated terrorist financiers and charities, the connection to the gemstone trade is tantalizing.
From the earliest days of my diamond coverage I was told of a strong al Qaeda connection to rubies and sapphires in Madagascar, begun at about the same time as al Qaeda's interest in diamonds in West Africa and tanzanite in Tanzania.
This fits with the timeframe of al Qaeda making a concerted move to put their assets into commodities. The move came after the August 1998 bombing of two American embassies in East Africa and the subsequent freezing of some $220 million of Taliban and al Qaeda gold in the Federal Reserve system by the Clinton administration. My full blog is here.
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Douglas Farah posts about What is going on in Madagascar? at the Counterterrorism Blog in regard to terrorist activity. Farah notes that lately the brother-in-law Jamal Khalifa of Osama bin Laden was killed - a noted gemstone dealer. He notes [Read More]
