Fast Facts: Dubai's Ties

WASHINGTON — The United Arab Emirates has not had a major terrorist attack. But its largest city, Dubai, is a banking center that is believed to attract funds from groups such as Al Qaeda. Some of Dubai's brushes with terror groups:

— In 2004, Qari Saifullah Akhtar, a Pakistani suspected of training thousands of Al Qaeda fighters, was arrested in the UAE and turned over to officials in his homeland.

— In 2002, Emirati authorities arrested and turned over to the United States Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the suspected mastermind of the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, which killed 17 U.S. sailors. UAE officials said he had planned to attack economic targets in the Emirates and inflict high casualties. He was sentenced to death in absentia by a Yemeni court. Al-Nashiri was also suspected of helping direct the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

— The father of Pakistan's nuclear program, Abdul Qadeer Khan, has acknowledged heading a clandestine group that, with the help of a Dubai company, supplied Pakistani nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea. The head of U.N.'s nuclear watchdog agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, has said the UAE was among more than 20 countries with a role in the nuclear black market.

— A 2004 report from the U.S. commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks found 11 Saudi hijackers had traveled to the United States via the airport in Dubai.

— Usama bin Laden's alleged financial manager, Mustafa Ahmed al-Hisawi, received a Dubai bank transfer of $15,000 two days before the Sept. 11 attacks and then left the UAE for Pakistan, where he was arrested in 2003.

— Marwan Al-Shehhi, a UAE citizen and one of the Sept. 11 hijackers, received $100,000 via the UAE. Another Sept. 11 hijacker, Fayez Banihammad, also was from the Emirates.

— About half the $250,000 spent on the Sept. 11 attacks was wired to Al Qaeda terrorists in the United States from Dubai banks, authorities said. Al Qaeda money in Dubai banks also has been linked to the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.

Source : FOX NEWS

www.spfpalocal7777.org/MGMMIRAGEandDubaiWorld.html