FBI financed Hamas in anti-terror op

[emad]

The UK's Times reports that:

The FBI secretly funnelling money to suspected Hamas figures to see if the militant group would use it for terrorist attacks, while President Bill Clinton was trying to broker an elusive peace between Israelis and Palestinians. The counter-terrorism operation in 1998 and 1999 was run out of the FBI's Phoenix office in co-operation with Israeli intelligence and was approved by Attorney General Janet Reno, FBI officials told The Associated Press. Several thousand dollars was sent to suspected terror supporters during the operation as the FBI tried to track the flow of cash through terror organisations, the FBI said in a rare acknowledgement of an undercover sting that never resulted in prosecutions.

breaking news story: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/section/0,,144,00.html