Friends Of Sierra Leone Newsletter
Blood from Stones: The Secret Financial Network of Terror
by Douglas Farah
Reviewed by Michael O’Neill
"A pile of horseshit," is how Bill Harlow, chief CIA spokesman, critiqued
Douglas Farah’s 2002 journalistic piece that established explicit connections
between Al Qaeda and the illicit diamond trade in West Africa. Two years, many
interviews and in-depth research later Mr. Farah has written Blood from Stones, a
remarkably well-documented exposé of Al Qaeda’s complex financial network. His
revelations, never convincingly refuted by the CIA, describe a system of grand
strategies and seemingly petty schemes that have bankrolled Al Qaeda for more than
a decade.
As West Africa bureau chief for the Washington Post, Mr. Farah covered the gruesome
conflicts in Sierra Leone and Liberia. Through his extensive network of local
informants, among them rebel commandos, government officials and local business
people, Mr. Farah discovered the then unknown connection between the blood
diamonds-for-weapons trade and high ranking Al Qaeda officials determined to
protect their assets from international banking oversight and sanctions. One would
have expected the resulting articles, first published in November 2001, to have
garnered accolades from an administration reeling from the 9/11 terrorist attacks
and the subsequent questions raised about faulty intelligence. Instead, Mr. Farah’s
assertions were dismissed by a beleaguered CIA as unfounded and wrongheaded.
Undeterred, Mr. Farah persisted with his research into "the secret financial
network" of Al Qaeda resulting in this riveting book. With his attention to detail
and a passion for certitude Mr. Farah was soon on the trails of drug-addled rebel
commandos and international arms merchants, diamond financiers and Islamic
terrorists; a journey that spanned the globe. While the cast of characters and
narrative style reads like a spy thriller, the people are real and the threat is
genuine. We learn that Al Qaeda is a flexible, innovative and formidable
fund-raising machine. And their activities are not limited to the remote African
bush or the capitals of Europe. In very precise detail Mr. Farah describes several
US-based Al Qaeda funding schemes that include credit card fraud, using charities
as front operations, smuggling cigarettes, dealing drugs, and scamming grocery
coupons. While law enforcement and security agencies are beset by turf battles and
political infighting, Al Qaeda is filling its coffers and bankrolling its terror
campaign against the United States.
In Blood from Stones Douglas Farah has accomplished something that the CIA and FBI
have been incapable of doing ? he has connected the dots.
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