Bin Laden: Not that rich
2004-09-02 13:58
Washington - Recent investigations into al-Qaeda, including by the September 11 commission, have substantially altered the commonly held view that Osama bin Laden's inheritance and massive fortune are being used to finance his international terror operations.
While bin Laden isn't poor, he's not worth the $300-million once believed. Nor is he thought to be directly financing his terror group with his personal wealth or a network of businesses in Sudan, where he operated from 1991 to 1996.
"There has been a revision of collective thinking," said Kenneth Katzman, a Congressional Research Service expert who has studied terror groups. "The new thinking is that bin Laden's fortune didn't really enter into al-Qaeda that much, or wasn't the driving force in al-Qaeda."
Donations
The report from the September 11 commission concluded that al-Qaeda has many financing avenues and could easily find new sources, particularly given the attack's price tag of just $400 000 to $500 000 over two years.
While the report said the government has been unable to determine the source of the attack's financing, the commission said it appears al-Qaeda's financial support doesn't come from bin Laden personally.
"The CIA now estimates that it costs al-Qaeda about $30- million per year to sustain its activities before 9/11 and that this money was raised almost entirely through donations," the report said.
The belief that bin Laden was worth such staggering sums gathered steam shortly after the September 11, 2001, attacks when Katzman released a report - drawing on a 1996 state department fact sheet, he said recently - indicating that al-Qaeda was tapping bin Laden's $300-million personal fortune, along with other sources.
By February 2002, Katzman had updated the estimate, indicating that bin Laden may be worth anywhere from $50-million to $300-million, but that the group had apparently become self-sustaining. The change got little notice.
Bin Laden was believed to have inherited money from his father, who oversaw the growth of a construction empire, making the bin Laden's one of the richest families in Saudi Arabia. The 17th of 52 children, bin Laden was thought primarily to be using the money to finance operations in Afghanistan and Sudan, as well as to help him secure his place as the leader of al-Qaeda.
Bin Laden was effectively cut off from the money in a 1994 crackdown, the commission said, when the Saudi government revoked his citizenship, forced his family to find a buyer for his share of the company and later froze the proceeds of that sale. His family disavowed him.
However, in a recent interview, bin Laden's estranged sister-in-law said she does not believe that family members have cut him off entirely.
- Dow Jones