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Source: http://www.nypost.com/news/worldnews/7087.htm
Qaeda Ties to Pilgrim GIs
(New York Post) Niles Lathem - The Pentagon is investigating a trip by 100 Muslim members of the U.S. armed forces for a pilgrimage to Mecca that was paid for by a Saudi charity accused of financing al-Qaeda. The so-called "Hajj Tour" in March 2001 for Muslim servicemen and chaplains was organized by the Muslim World League, a major charity group financed in part by the Saudi royal family and which is dedicated to the spread of Wahhabism, the extreme form of Islam embraced by Osama bin Laden. Government sources say that even though the Pentagon originally approved the trip, it is now being looked at as part of the overall investigation into the spy scandal at Guantanamo. Probers want to determine whether the trip was part of a process in which some Muslim chaplains and U.S. servicemen may have been indoctrinated into Wahhabism - and possibly recruited as spies for al-Qaeda. The Virginia offices of the group that helped arrange the tour were raided in March 2002 as part of a Treasury Department probe into terror financing.