U.S. PROBES BIN LADEN'S FINANCES

WASHINGTON -- U.S. officials believe Osama bin Laden's terrorist
network is financed largely through charities and a variety of
businesses. Government experts also suspect illegal drugs and weapons
trafficking are enriching bin Laden's group.

There are strong indications bin Laden's al-Qaida network has profited
handsomely from the opium trade, with fighters used as smugglers and
to protect smugglers, said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., a member of the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Al-Qaida's part in drug trafficking likely continued at least until
Afghanistan's ruling Taliban cracked down on opium production last
year, Kerry said.

Opium, used in the manufacture of heroin and morphine, has an added
attraction for terrorists because such drugs head to the United States
and lead to problems such as addiction and crime, he said.

"That's part of their revenge on the world," Kerry said. "Get as many
people drugged out and screwed up as you can."

Jonathan Winer, deputy U.S. assistant secretary of state for
international enforcement in the Clinton administration, said those
who deal in drugs usually also traffic in guns, although the extent to
which bin Laden is profiting from the gun trade is unknown.

The world is now awash in light weapons, making their sale less
profitable, Winer said. The question then becomes whether bin Laden is
trafficking in higher-powered weapons, he said.

U.S. investigators are tracking the money behind bin Laden and
al-Qaida, prime suspects in last week's terrorist attacks on the World
Trade Center and the Pentagon.

A new multiagency task force pursuing terrorist finances will go
beyond bin Laden's group, Deputy Assistant Treasury Secretary Rob
Nichols said.

"Our mission is threefold. One, deny terrorist groups access to the
international financial system. Two, impair the ability of terrorists
to raise funds. And three, expose, isolate and incapacitate the
financial holdings of terrorists," Nichols said.

Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill said the government is investigating
whether terrorists tried to profit from stock and options trading
before the suicide hijackings of commercial airliners on Sept. 11.
Tracing such transactions to people behind the hijackings could be
very difficult, he told the Senate Banking Committee.

The United States believes bin Laden is tapping several sources of
finance, but not his own fortune. Whatever is left of an estimated
$300 million he inherited from his family, it is considered unlikely
that bin Laden is using it for al-Qaida's activities.

Instead, government officials believe he is drawing much of his cash
from charities and wealthy individuals, including some in the United
States.

The U.S. government believes all the money raised here is sent abroad.
How it gets there is a key part of the investigation. Islamic
charities, as religious organizations, do not have to disclose the
sources or destinations of their fund raising.

Kerry said U.S. efforts to track bin Laden's finances may be
complicated by his network's use of the "hawala" system, an
underground money system that in part lets people in different
countries swap cash, eliminating the need for cross-border transfers
and avoiding exchange laws.

According to testimony in this year's trial of men charged in the 1998
bombing of U.S. embassies in Africa, during bin Laden's years in Sudan
he ran several businesses that served the dual purposes of raising
cash and procuring equipment needed by al-Qaida.