U.N.: Al Qaeda's Afghan Camps Reopening

UNITED NATIONS – Al Qaeda training camps have recently been reactivated in Afghanistan, and new volunteers are making their way into these camps, a U.N. report said Tuesday.

While Usama bin Laden's financial network has been mostly dismantled, the group still has "access to substantial funding from its previously established investments," said the report, which monitors sanctions on Al Qaeda.

The new camps were "simple," the report by the group led by British expert Michael Chandler said. It said the activation of such camps in eastern Afghanistan was increasing the long-term capabilities of the Al Qaeda network.

Chandler was expected to give more details on the findings later Tuesday.

The Oct. 12 bombings in Bali, Indonesia, confirmed the extent of relationships between Al Qaeda and the loose coalition of extremist groups in Southeast Asia, while the Nov. 28 attacks in Mombasa, Kenya, demonstrated a shift in tactics by the group to hit soft targets, the report said.

The blasts in two nightclubs in Bali killed 192 people, mostly foreign tourists. In Mombasa, a vehicle packed with explosives plowed into the Paradise Hotel, 12 miles north of the Indian Ocean port. Ten Kenyans, three Israelis and at least two bombers died. Minutes earlier, unidentified assailants fired two missiles at an Israeli jet taking off from Mombasa airport, narrowly missing the aircraft which was filled with Israeli tourists returning to Tel Aviv.

"Soft targets, preferably with maximum casualties, would now appear to be the order of the day," the report said.

Under U.N. sanctions, which the expert group is monitoring, all nations are required to freeze the finances and impose arms embargoes and travel bans on individuals and groups associated with bin Laden, Al Qaeda, and Afghanistan's former Taliban leaders — wherever they are in the world.

According to the United Nations, the list currently has 311 names, including about 220 individuals and 90 groups.

About one year after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the report had warned the United States and other nations involved in the campaign against terror that Al Qaeda still had the money and recruits to strike.

It has repeatedly urged countries to abide by U.N. sanctions to freeze funding to suspected terror groups and provide names of terror suspects so that they can be tracked down.

"Many countries have refrained completely from providing names of such persons or entities," the report said.

Most of these nations, which he did not identify, cited legal complications in accusing people or organizations of being linked to terrorism without enough evidence.