[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 17 (Tuesday, February 26, 2002)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E202-E203]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                 ARREST AIDS PURSUIT OF WEAPONS NETWORK

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. TONY P. HALL

                                of ohio

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, February 26, 2002

  Mr. HALL of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I commend your attention and that of 
our colleagues to a report in today's Washington Post, ``Arrest Aids 
Pursuit of Weapons Network.''
  This article is part of reporter Douglas Farah's continuing expose of 
the role conflict diamonds are playing in funding terror in Africa and 
terrorist attacks on America. Today's page-one story details 
significant progress in our intelligence agencies' effort to cut off 
the flow of sophisticated arms to Al Qaeda, the Taliban, Abu Sayyaf, 
and rebel groups in Africa. It notes that United Nations investigators 
working independently have documented the shipment of ``hundreds of 
tons of arms to UNITA rebels in Angola, the government of President 
Charles Taylor in Liberia and several factions involved in the civil 
war in Congo.'' And, of particular interest to this House, it spells 
out the role that conflict diamonds play in an underground network that 
funds those weapons.
  Mr. Speaker, at a hearing this month before a Senate Government 
Affairs Committee panel, Chairman Dick Durbin and Senators Mike DeWine, 
Russ Feingold, Judd Gregg, Susan Collins, and George Voinovich focused 
on the role conflict diamonds are playing in undermining the United 
States' efforts to freeze Al Qaeda's assets. As a witness from the 
State Department testified, ``reports that terrorists may be buying and 
hoarding diamonds are cause for immense concern.'' I share this 
concern.
  As you know, ending the trade in conflict diamonds has been a 
priority for me and Congressman Frank Wolf, since we first met some of 
the victims of Sierra Leone's war over diamonds in 1999. Last year, we 
joined Charlie Rangel and Amo Houghton in pressing Congress to act 
against this blood trade and were proud to see the House approve our 
Clean Diamond Trade Act by an overwhelming margin.
  Today, I commend the U.S. and Belgian authorities who are working to 
stop what probably is ``the biggest weapons-trafficking network in the 
world.'' I salute Mr. Farah, who first broke this important story last 
year and has pursued it doggedly. And I urge everyone working on the 
problem of conflict diamonds to redouble their efforts. For the sake of 
the African victims of this blood trade, on behalf of Americans who 
deserve any protection from future terrorist attacks that our 
government can provide, and to ensure the legitimate industry is not 
penalized by the 10-15 percent of diamonds that are tainted by this 
scourge--this work must be finished.

                 Arrest Aids Pursuit of Weapons Network

                           (By Douglas Farah)

       U.S. and European law enforcement officials say they have 
     scored an important advance in their efforts to disrupt what 
     some officials describe as the biggest weapons-trafficking 
     network in the world, responsible for supplying the Taliban 
     and terrorist groups from al Qaeda in Afghanistan to the Abu 
     Sayyaf in the Philippines, as well as rebel forces in Africa.
       For the past three years, U.S. intelligence agencies have 
     covertly been trying to thwart the sprawling arms empire of 
     Victor Bout's, a former Soviet military officer whose 
     operation is based in the United Arab Emirates, according to 
     U.S. and European officials. Bout's network is unique, U.S., 
     British and U.N. investigators said, because of its ability 
     to deliver sophisticated weapon systems virtually anywhere in 
     the world.
       A suspected top associate of Bout's is under arrest in 
     Belgium, and investigators say he is providing fresh, inside 
     information on how the arms network functions.
       While Bout has long been suspected of supplying weapons to 
     the Taliban, U.S. and European officials said intelligence 
     gathered in recent months in Afghanistan and elsewhere has 
     provided new details about his flights and deliveries in the 
     months before the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States. The 
     intelligence suggests he was flying weapons into Afghanistan 
     more recently than had been believed, according to U.S. and 
     U.N. officials familiar with the material.
       Bout specialized in breaking arms embargoes around the 
     world, according to four separate U.N. Security Council 
     reports on weapons trafficking that were issued between 
     December 2000 and last month. His activities were also 
     described in interviews with U.S., British and U.N. 
     investigators. He traffics almost exclusively in weapons 
     bought in the former Soviet bloc, chiefly Bulgaria and 
     Romania, according to these officials.
       ``There are a lot of people who can deliver arms to Africa 
     or Afghanistan, but you can count on one hand those who can 
     deliver major weapons systems rapidly,'' said Lee S. Wolosky, 
     a former National Security Council official who led an 
     interagency effort to shut down Bout's operations during the 
     last two years of the Clinton administration. ``Victor Bout 
     is at the top of that list.''
       U.S. and European officials said the suspected top 
     associate of Bout, Sanjivan Ruprah, was arrested in Belgium 
     earlier this month on charges of criminal association and 
     using a false passport.
       Before the arrest, Ruprah, a Kenyan, had secretly been in 
     contact with U.S. officials in recent months, providing them 
     with information about Bout, according to U.S. officials and 
     Ruprah's attorney. The U.S. officials said they were given no 
     warning Ruprah was about to be arrested by the Belgians.
       U.S. officials also said they had made no deal with Ruprah. 
     They said that since the arrest, Ruprah has divulged more 
     information about Bout's suspected arms pipeline to the 
     Taliban, which ruled Afghanistan until last November, and al 
     Qaeda, which the Taliban had sheltered there.
       ``We are very, very interested in this case because we 
     understand Ruprah is talking about the supply of weapons to 
     al Qaeda and the Taliban,'' said a senior U.S. official. 
     ``His basic line with us was that, while he had done some bad 
     things, he didn't deal with al Qaeda and he understood that 
     being linked to that now would be very, very bad.''
       Ruprah was especially valuable to Bout, U.S. and U.N. 
     investigators said, because he was tied to the illicit 
     diamond trade in West Africa and arranged for Bout to be paid 
     for his weapons deliveries with diamonds from Sierra Leone, 
     Congo and Angola.
       Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations have used an 
     underground network that stretches across Africa to trade in 
     diamonds, weapons and other valuable commodities.
       Last year both Bout and Ruprah were placed on a U.N. list 
     of individuals banned from international travel because of 
     their ties to Liberia and the Sierra Leone rebel movement 
     known as the Revolutionary United Front, or RUF.
       Johan Peleman, a Belgian weapons expert who has 
     investigated Bout for several years on behalf of the United 
     Nations and has spoken regularly to Ruprah in recent months, 
     said Ruprah was knowledgeable about Bout's financial 
     dealings, especially in the diamond trade. Belgium is 
     interested because Bout's financial network was based in 
     Antwerp, the center of the world diamond trade.
       Ruprah's attorney, Luc de Temmerman, said in a written 
     statement that his client engaged only in legal activities in 
     Africa. While acknowledging that Bout and Ruprah knew each 
     other, he said they were not in business together.
       De Temmerman said Ruprah had recently been in touch with 
     the FBI, the CIA, the United Nations and British intelligence 
     officials to provide them with information in an effort to 
     have the U.N. travel ban on him lifted. He denied Ruprah knew 
     anything about arms shipments to al Qaeda or the Taliban.
       The U.N. reports said Bout originally based his operations 
     in Ostend, Belgium, in 1995, and moved to the UAE in 1997 
     when Belgian officials began investigating his air freight 
     operations.
       The reports, compiled independently by separate groups of 
     U.N. investigators monitoring U.N. embargoes, document Bout's 
     shipments of hundreds of tons of arms to UNITA rebels in 
     Angola, the government of President Charles Taylor in Liberia 
     and several factions involved in the civil war in Congo. All 
     are under U.N. weapons bans.
       Ruprah was identified in U.N. reports as a key intermediary 
     between Bout and Taylor. A December 2000 report said Ruprah 
     was issued a Liberian diplomatic passport in the name of 
     Samir M. Nasr, and was identified as Liberia's deputy 
     commissioner for maritime affairs.
       Ruprah helped arrange for three flights to Liberia in July 
     and one in August 2000, the report said, delivering two 
     combat-capable helicopters, surface-to-air missiles, armored 
     vehicles, machine guns and almost a million rounds of 
     ammunition. The weapons originated in Bulgaria.
       U.S. and U.N. investigators say they believe Bout has also 
     run guns for the radical Muslim Abu Sayyaf guerrilla movement 
     in the Philippines and has flown weapons for Libyan leader 
     Moammar Gaddafi.
       ``Victor Bout, as the largest player in the world in the 
     illicit air logistics business, is a critical alder and 
     abettor to criminal and terrorist organizations, rogue heads 
     of state and insurgencies--whoever is able to pay,'' Wolosky 
     said.
       According to a U.N. Security Council report issued in April 
     2001, Bout is 35 years old. Bom in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, he 
     is a graduate of Moscow's Military Institute of Foreign 
     Languages and speaks six languages fluently, according to the 
     report.
       The report also describes Bout as a former air force 
     officer who holds at least five passports. Investigators said 
     Bout was known as the ``Lone Wolf'' because he operates by 
     himself. They describe him as short, stocky and usually 
     sporting a bushy mustache.
       Telephone calls and faxes to Bout's offices in the UAE went 
     unanswered. An associate of Bout's there said all of Bout's 
     employees in the Emirates had left. The associate said he no 
     longer knew where they were. Bout's brother Sergei, based in 
     Islamabad, Pakistan, also did not return phone calls.
       Bout has refused to talk to U.N. investigators or 
     reporters.
       He has a fleet of about 60 aircraft, including large 
     Russian cargo planes, according to investigators. His 
     operation is tied together by a complex web of overlapping 
     airlines, charter companies and freight-forwarding operations 
     that give him a global reach. His main company is registered 
     as Air Cess.

[[Page E203]]

       In an effort to confound investigators, Bout continually 
     changed the registration of his aircraft from one African 
     country to another, all the while basing his air operations 
     in Sharjah, one of seven emirates that make up the UAE.
       Bout's alleged dealings with the Taliban and al Qaeda are 
     the subject of an ongoing, classified U.S. operation that 
     began in early 2000. ``There was a concerted effort at the 
     tail end of the Clinton administration, continued into the 
     Bush administration, to put him out of business,'' said one 
     former U.S. official.
       U.N. and U.S. officials said Bout cut a deal with the 
     Taliban in 1996 in UAE, one of only three countries in the 
     world that recognized the regime.
       The deal called for Bout's Air Cess to supply and service 
     Afghanistan's Ariana Airways and the Afghan air force, both 
     of which used Soviet-era aircraft. Another company that Bout 
     had an interest in, Flying Dolphin, provided charter flights 
     from Dubai to Afghanistan, the sources said, and soon there 
     were several flights a week from Dubai to the Taliban 
     stronghold of Kandahar.
       U.N. investigators say they now believe many of those 
     flights were loaded with weapons. When U.N. sanctions shut 
     down Ariana in November 2000, Flying Dolphin obtained a U.N. 
     waiver, for reasons that are not clear, and continued flying 
     the Dubai-Kandahar route until being shut down by the United 
     Nations in January 2001.
       ``Bout undoubtedly did supply al Qaeda and the Taliban with 
     arms,'' Peter Hain, Britain's minister of European affairs 
     and lead investigator into Bout's global arms trade, told the 
     Associated Press on Feb. 19.
       A 1998 Belgian intelligence report on Bout's activities, 
     obtained by The Washington Post, says he made $50 million in 
     Afghanistan, selling heavy weapons to the Taliban. However, 
     Peleman and other investigators said they had doubts that 
     Bout had earned that much money from the Taliban and al 
     Qaeda, in part because Bout also supplied weapons to anti-
     Taliban leaders, some of whom were his close friends.
       Nonetheless, the United States launched an effort to 
     disrupt Bout's arms trading, trying to freeze his assets and 
     pressuring other nations, especially the UAE, to expel him. 
     U.S. officials said they were limited in what they could do 
     because they believed Bout had violated no U.S. laws. One of 
     Bout's companies, Air Cess Inc., based in Miami, was 
     dissolved on Sept. 19, according to public records, and its 
     telephone number no longer works.
       In late 2000 the Clinton administration asked the UAE at an 
     ``extremely high level'' to shut down Bout's operation, a 
     former U.S. official said. UAE officials reponded that they 
     had no evidence of criminal wrongdoing by Bout.
       ``We would have preferred they shut him down completely but 
     they took helpful incremental steps that disrupted his 
     operation,'' the source said, including imposing new and 
     costly equipment requirements on his air fleet.
       When President Bush took office, the Bout project received 
     less attention, U.S. officials said. Then came the Sept. 11 
     attacks. ``Suddenly, he was back on our radar screen in a 
     very significant way,'' a senior U.S. official said. ``His 
     importance suddenly loomed very large.''

     

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