US lawmaker finds Pak connection with Nidal Hasan
Source: SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT November 14, 2009 WASHINGTON-An American Congressman said on Thursday that he has confirmed that Nidal Malik Hasan, the suspect in last week’s shooting spree at the Army base in Texas wired money to Pakistan, according to The Dallas Morning News.
The newspaper said extremist groups use Pakistan as a base to raise funds and carry out terrorist attacks.
Congressman Michael McCaul’s statement followed an earlier report that authorities were looking into whether such wire transfers had occurred. It also came as Army officials announced charges of premeditated murder against major Hasan, who could face the death penalty.
‘I have confirmed through independent sources that there were communications and wire transfers made to Pakistan’, McCaul said in a prepared statement provided by his spokesman.
‘This Pakistan connection just raises more red flags about this case and demonstrates why it’s important for Congress to exercise its oversight authority’. The spokesman, Mike Rosen, said McCaul wouldn’t name his sources.
The Congressman’s statement didn’t address who Hasan’s contacts in Pakistan were, when he communicated with them or how much money he sent.
McCaul is the top Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee’s intelligence subcommittee. He typically is briefed on classified material but had yet to be formally briefed on the Fort Hood killings.
He ‘has been actively seeking information from as many credible sources as possible’, Rosen said.
‘It has been more difficult than usual to obtain information from our intelligence community’.
Asked about McCaul’s comments, an FBI spokesman in Washington said he couldn’t comment on any aspect of the investigation.
Evan Kohlmann, a terrorism expert who has consulted with the FBI and the Defence Department, noted that Hasan is a US citizen of Palestinian descent, with no known family ties to Pakistan.
Kohlmann said that leaves only two reasons for the psychiatrist to wire money to the South Asian country: to support charity or to support jehad.
Westerners who want to give to a legitimate Pakistani charity typically would do so by putting money in a US or British bank account, he added.
‘It raises huge alarm bells’, Kohlmann said of Hasan’s reported wire transfers.