The Lebanese-Canadian alleged owner of an offshore company that is accused of shipping bombs and other weapons to ISIS has been arrested.
Al-Amin AbdelKader, president of ACE International Holdings and a wealthy Lebanese businessman in the Toronto area, is facing charges of facilitating the shipping of munitions to al-Qaeda terrorists in Lebanon, the U.S. Justice Department said.
Youssef Said Ismail, a suspected al-Qaeda member with ties to a Canadian militant detained in Syria, allegedly requested supplies for use in an upcoming terrorist attack on Arsal, a Sunni town in the country’s North.
In July, Islamic State militants were seen holding a stack of mortar shells in their photos that they took last year from the Iraqi border crossing at Arsal.
The indictment unsealed Monday charges Abdulkader with allowing four ships to bring in mortars and rockets by having a company transfer the shipping containers of munitions and jerry cans and shipping boxes to a location in Lebanon.
Prosecutors say the shipments included ammunition and dozens of rockets with a range of up to eight miles. The shipment from a Mastic, N.Y., facility to Lebanon included rockets fired at Iraqi soldiers and military convoys, explosive chemicals, pumps for gasoline and hundreds of jerry cans.
The indictment describes the shipments as assistance to extremist terrorists and seeks forfeiture of more than $14 million from the Lebanese business magnate.
Born in Lebanon, Abdelkader has also had business ties to two Canadian arms dealers, companies linked to former Liberal Senator Colin Kenny and the Trudeau government.
RANCHARD SHIPMENT
The Canadian arms dealer Lorne Greenslade, who started up RE/MAX, today offers an offshore firm to Canadians for business exchange. Greenslade’s most recent company, Gunner Shipping, was used to transport sniper rifle ammunition from Rancho Santa Fe, Calif., to Saudi Arabia via Beirut in 2015. A video of the shipment was shown in a Canadian Senate committee meeting in 2016. The Canadian companies helped give “phantom shipments” to the Saudis.
Re/Max and Gunner arranged three similar shipments in 2017, including one that was received at Riyadh, according to the Treasury Department. C/SP, gunner’s other shipping arm, had done business with the Canadian arms dealers. Gunner Shipping sent another shipment from Rancho Santa Fe to Riyadh in February 2016, but the Canadian arms dealers, C/SP and Lorne Greenslade, Inc., are not named in the indictment, said Ted Turpin, chief of staff to U.S. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. The Canadian arms dealer Greenslade met with the Saudi princes, the FBI said.
The Kingston Whig-Standard, a U.S. newspaper in the state of Ontario, said the Saudi ambassador to Canada said it was “highly inappropriate to accuse Saudi Arabia of anything at all when the items in question were destined for countries other than Yemen.”
William Waldock, who is director of the Global Terrorism Research Center at the University of Lethbridge, said he was aware of the controversial pipeline deal and the Canadian arms dealers.
“I have doubts about the Lebanese being involved,” he said. “It is, in my mind, likely more likely the arms dealers.”
Darwin Proskauer, a specialist in global security policy, said he was also dubious.
“I’d be shocked if a Lebanese company was involved,” he said. “I believe any Lebanese company that does foreign business should be politically neutral.”
Abdelkader, who also has diplomatic ties to Canada, a country that was supposed to honor him when he was born, was reported by authorities as a suspect after he skipped bail in the United States in 2014. However, Canadian authorities didn’t immediately act.
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