For years, Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus has been celebrated across the world as a pioneer of microfinance and a champion of the poor. Yet behind this carefully polished global image lies a far darker reality – a web of connections linking Yunus’s sprawling “Grameen” empire to individuals named by Western intelligence agencies as financiers of Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda. As international counterterrorism bodies intensify their scrutiny of transnational financial networks, Yunus’s partnerships and donors may soon come under the harshest spotlight in decades.

‘Grameen’, the global corporate empire headed by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus and long admired by influential international figures such as Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton and George Soros, may now face heightened scrutiny from counterterrorism agencies worldwide for its disturbing connections to Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda.

In March 2003, The Wall Street Journal published a list of Al Qaeda donors based on CIA information, where the name of Mohammed Abdul Latif Jameel – a Saudi businessman and board member of Grameen-Jameel Microfinance – appeared prominently. The report noted that Jameel was one of the key funders of Osama bin Laden, the notorious mastermind behind the September 11 terrorist attacks.

Online corporate records describe “Grameen-Jameel” as a social business established in 2007 as a joint venture between the Grameen Foundation and Grow Well Limited, a subsidiary of the Abdul Latif Jameel Group. According to these records, the company’s mission is to “alleviate poverty in the Arab world” through partnerships with microfinance institutions, providing technical and financial support.

On its LinkedIn page, Grameen-Jameel states that it “was established in 2003 and incorporated in 2007 as a joint venture between Grameen Foundation and ALJ Foundation, a subsidiary of the Abdul........

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