An Al-Qaeda/China/Australian stock market link? From WND, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:
Al-Qaida is financing its worldwide terror operations by investing in blue-chip Australian stocks with the assistance of Beijing's powerful Secret Intelligence Service (SIS).Citing information from Britain's MI6 and European intelligence services, Gordon Thomas, security correspondent for the London Sunday Express, writes that the bin Laden organization's investment strategy includes "leading technology and defense corporations in Australia, Singapore and other Pacific Rim countries." Billions, earned through illegal drug dealings with China's SIS, are being laundered into the stock market through banks in Australia, Japan, Germany and Ireland.
The article appears in today's Melbourne Sunday Herald.
Thomas cites Brian McAdam, a former Canadian Foreign Service officer who worked closely with the FBI to identify some 3,000 U.S. companies that are fronts for CSIS or have financial links to al-Qaida. "Only now are Western intelligence agencies becoming aware of the links that CSIS has with drugs, money laundering and the support it provides for terrorists. We are talking of billions of dollars," said McAdam.
China's exports can be greatly diminished if the United States decides to turn away from free trade -- and there are considerations, such as survival, that transcend being ideologically wed to the idea of the free market.
If this SIS-Al Qaeda connection were to be proven, one might think it strictly a business deal. Or, those Chinese who see America as a rival and enemy, rather than as a cooperative customer, may see AlQaeda as an instrument of state policy, to weaken the Americans. Whatever it is, if the connection turns out to be true, the Chinese should be told that access to American markets, and to American training in science, may not any longer be taken for granted. There are many ways, short of warfare, to get attention, and results.
I would be interested in seeing this corroborated. One of the weekend Toronto papers (either the Globe and Mail or National Post - I forget which) had an article on how China has suppressed Muslim fundamentalists in the far western regions of China. There had been unrest and terrorist activity in the past but it was repressed with the expected communist party ruthlessness.
Still, as Hugh says, perhaps China may be using an al-Qaeda connection for strategic ends. If so, it seems short sighted since China needs western markets more than the west needs inexpensive Chinese goods (which can increasingly be supplied by India anyway).