The al-Qaeda terrorist network spent less than 50,000 dollars apiece to carry out major attacks around the world, except the suicide hijackings against the United States on September 11, 2001, which were "over six figures", said a U.N. Security Council report published Friday. The report was prepared by the council's committee on sanctions against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, which was set up before the 2001 attacks and the subsequent U.S.-led war in Afghanistan that ousted the Taliban regime. The cost of the attacks against the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998 was estimated at less than 50,000 dollars, the attack on the USS Cole warship in Aden in October 2002 cost less than 10,000 dollars, the bombing against the nightclub in Bali in October 2002 cost less than 50,000 dollars, the attacks in Istanbul in November last year was less than 40,000 dollars, the attack against Jakarta's Marriott Hotel in 2003 was about 30,000 dollars and the bombings of the commuter trains in Madrid this March were about 10,000 dollars. Al-Qaeda might not have provided the bulk of funding for those attacks, which were supported locally from collections through crime or diverted from charitable donations, the report found. --More 2245 Local Time 1945 GMT
