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OPERATION GREENQUEST MEETINGS (2002)

Treasury Secretary O’Neill meets with Muslim Brotherhood front groups 

after Operation Greenquest raids

Following the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. Customs Service initiated a large-scale investigation into terrorist financing activities known as Operation Greenquest. This investigation included a series of raids on Islamic charities in Northern Virginia on March 20, 2002, including the International Institute for Islamic Thought, the Fiqh Council of North America and the homes of several prominent Muslim activists. According  to the 132-page affidavit supporting the search warrants, investigators were looking for evidence that these groups and individuals had supported Hamas, Palestinian Islamic  Jihad and other terrorist groups.

In a virtually unheard of move, two weeks after the raids business associates of the individuals being investigated had a meeting with Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill initiated by the department in response to the criticism of the raids by segments of the Muslim community. Leading the delegation of Islamic groups was Talat Othman, a former business associate of President George W. Bush and Yacub Mirza, who had established and funded many of the groups targeted in the raids. Assisting in arranging the meeting was Khaled  Saffuri of the Islamic Free Market Institute, the group co-founded by Al-Qaeda operative Abdurahman Alamoudi and GOP strategist Grover Norquist. Newsweek later reported that the Islamic Free Market Institute had received $20,000 from the Safa Trust, one of the raided organizations. Lobbying records showed that another target of the raids, Jamal Barzinji, a top Muslim Brotherhood leader, was listed as a client of Norquist’s lobbying firm, Janus-Merritt Strategies LLC.

SOURCES

Tom Jackman, “N. VA. Sites raided in probe of terrorism,” Washington Post, March 21, 2002

Mary Jacoby, “Terror raid warrant names Al-Arian,” St. Petersburg Times, March 21, 2002

Glenn Simpson, “O’Neill met Muslim activists tied to charities,” Wall Street Journal, April 18, 2002

Eunice Moscoso and Rebecca Carr, “Targets of terror financing prove had political clout,” Atlanta Journal Constitution, December 12, 2003

Glenn Simpson, “Tangled Paths: A sprawling probe of terror funding centers in Virginia,” Wall Street Journal, June 21, 2004