Homeland Security

DATE=12/1/03

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

TITLE=U-N/AL QAIDA (L-O)

NUMBER=2-310421

BYLINE=PETER HEINLEIN

DATELINE=UNITED NATIONS

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO: United Nations monitors say al-Qaida is stepping up attempts to acquire weapons of mass destruction. As we hear from Peter Heinlein at U-N headquarters, experts are painting a bleak picture of efforts to clamp down on the terrorist network.

TEXT: A report issued by the U-N's al-Qaida Sanctions Committee says there is a growing risk that the group will acquire and use weapons of mass destruction. The only thing stopping them, it says, is a lack of technical expertise.

U-N experts who wrote the report say Iraq -- administered as it is by U-S-led occupation forces -- is fertile ground for the al-Qaida network. The Sanctions Committee Chairman, Chilean Ambassador Heraldo Munoz, says the organization is rapidly spreading its tentacles worldwide, making sanctions virtually unenforceable, especially in southeast Asia.

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They have ability to circumvent sanctions we have applied, so we are worried about the extension of al- Qaida not only to Asia but to other new theaters, and in that sense it has become a truly global terrorist organization.

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The U-N expert report says one of the more difficult tasks it faces is preventing donations to charitable groups from winding up in the pockets of terrorists. The document names two groups -- the International Islamic Relief Organization and the Al Haramain Charitable Foundation -- that have been used to finance al-Qaida's operations.

Ambassador Munoz expressed disappointment that fewer than half the U-N's 191 member countries are cooperating in efforts to monitor al-Qaida's activities. He is leading a delegation to Saudi Arabia and Pakistan this week in an attempt to encourage greater support for the sanctions regime. (Signed)

NEB/NYC/PFH/RH/FC