The US investigators are currently looking into large volumes of clandestine (hawala) financial transactions by various terrorist fronts connected with the AlQaeda. Especially, the movement of escalating volumes of gold in innumerable unaccountable transactions since the collapse of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Indeed, Dubai is a veritable Utopia as a secure base for criminal and for terrorist financial operations that target other countries.
Sources indicate that UAE authorities have pleaded helplessness in the Anees Ibrahim case on the grounds that the country has a 'loose federal structure' and cannot exercise direct control over decisions taken in Dubai. The present structures of international law, moreover, make the Interpol - and its 'Red Corner notices' - completely toothless tigers when it comes to uncooperative regimes, as is evident not only in the Dubai case, but in innumerable cases in Pakistan as well.
The present Anees Ibrahim case has, however, one positive aspect: it has demonstrated clearly that Pakistan's President, General Pervez Musharraf, has lied blatantly, repeatedly, and on public record. He - and numberless senior officials of his government - have denied again and again that the Ibrahim brothers were in Pakistan. UAE authorities, however, disclosed that Anees Ibrahim's 'port of origin' on his present journey was Pakistan, that he was in possession of, not one, but two Pakistani passports, and that he was 'deported' to Pakistan after his release in Dubai.
December 13, the day Anees Ibrahim was released by Dubai, gifted another victory to the forces of Islamist terrorism in the region, this time in Pakistan. Maulana Masood Azhar, the head of the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), a group on the US list of international terrorist organisations, and which is also banned in both Pakistan and India, was released from jail by a 'Court order'. The Jaish remains among the most active terrorist organisations on Indian soil, and has been closely associated with the Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, and is believed to be an active facilitator in the rehabilitation and resurgence of Al Qaeda survivors currently in Pakistan.
Clearly, the current international legal regime is not equipped to deal with the scourge of international terrorism. All the benefits of the entire range of modern facilities - travel, banking, documentation, finance and communications - are made available to the forces of disorder by collusive regimes that wink at, or actively support their activities.