Gambling on terror

Two dozen cases of cyber-crimes to steal money by exploiting gambling websites are under investigation according to the director of World Check, a private intelligence company.  This revelation comes from The Register (a U.K.-based tech news site) on Feb. 5:

The security services are running 23 ongoing investigations into the exploitation of gambling websites to finance terrorism.

The revelation shows the online gaming industry is still vulnerable, and a prime target for criminals and terrorists, even after being at the centre of the conviction of the man described as the “godfather of cyber-terrorism for al-Qaida” and two of his associates back in 2007.

Paks ignore mosque fundraisers for jihad

S.M. Krishna, India’s foreign minister, has asked the government of Pakistan to hurry up its investigation into those responsible for the 26/11 Mumbai terrorist attacks.  According to this news article from The Economic Times, not only has Pakistan ignored this plea, but Pakistan is allowing Jamaat-ud-Dawa and Lashkar-e-Taiba, which are responsible for the attacks, to collect zakat for jihad openly in Kashmir mosques:

NEW DELHI: Pakistan appears far from taking the “few steps” sought by External Affairs Minister SM Krishna to bring the 26/11 perpetrators to book.

Not only has the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), a reinvented version of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and a UN-proscribed outfit, been freely organising public meetings, training conventions and protest marches across Muzaffarabad, Karachi and Lahore, but LeT has even taken to collecting donations for jihad from mosques in PoK [Pakistan occupied Kashmir].

According to sources in the security establishment, JuD has of late stepped up its activities by floating legitimate fronts and “charitable/educational trusts”, though with the underlying mission of realising its central purpose of waging jihad against India and “anti-Muslim” nations like the US.

Modern Muslims defend the jizya

Over at Yanabi.com, an online Islamic forum, a participant named “Waxing Crescent” recently started a thread entitled, “Jizya – is it a means tested poll tax?”.

The correct answer (which was artfully dodged by all those who responded to Waxing Crescent’s question on the message board) is that nothing in the Koran or Hadith exempts impoverished non-Muslims from paying the jizya. 

Somebody named “Faraz Hasan” answered the question by quickly changing the subject to state that Muslims pay more in zakat than non-Muslims pay in jizya.  This is not necessarily true and it is misleading. 

Saudi bank to U.S. prosecutors: See you in court!

The Blog of Legal Times has reported that Al Rajhi Bank (a big-time Islamic bank known for its ties to terrorism) is challenging the U.S. Patriot Act in federal court and asking for a subpoena for the bank’s records to be quashed.  From BLT by Jordan Weissmann on Jan. 20:

A major Saudi Arabian bank is challenging a portion of the Patriot Act, claiming it unconstitutionally allows U.S. officials to punish foreign financial institutions that refuse to cooperate with demands for their records.

Update on Al Qaeda finances

Greg Bruno at the Council on Foreign Relations has written a thorough and timely backgrounder on Al Qaeda’s financial state.  One of the valuable takeaways from the article is that Al Qaeda is an “adaptive, financially savvy foe,” that does not necessarily need tremendous revenues or direct command & control over its affiliates in order to sustain its terrorist operations.

Unlike many reporters and politicians, Bruno gives appropriate attention to the role of Islamic “charity” in funding Al Qaeda.  I encourage readers to check out the full piece, but here’s a short excerpt:

Keeping financial pressure on bin Laden and his affiliated networks remains a work in progress. Some Middle Eastern states, for instance, including Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, have resisted calls for tighter regulations on charities and nonprofits. And many countries have been reluctant to regulate the ad hoc hawala remittance network of informal money-transfers–a vital component of economies in the Islamic world…

Rachel Ehrenfeld, author of Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed and How to Stop It, tells CFR.org she worries about another terrorist funding conduit: the Islamic banking system, and loopholes she says have been exploited by corrupt financiers. Banks in Saudi Arabia have come under particular scrutiny for their financial dealings (WSJ).

One quibble.  One section of the article suggests that abductions and ransoms are a “new” method to raise funds.  I’d say the increase of ransoms in Africa is a growing trend, but the practice has been practiced by jihadists for centuries (most notably in recent years in the Philippines).

Time Magazine goes to bat for batty bill

Ken Stier at Time Magazine has written an illogical piece of “journalism,” that reads like a lobbyist’s brief in behalf of S. 569, Carl Levin’s “incorporation transparency” bill that would supposedly help control terrorist financing.

Stier starts off his article by suggesting that nobody knew and no action could be taken against the Iran’s shell Alavi Foundation (which owns property in the United States to help funnel money back into Iran’s nuclear program) because we lack a law such as the one proposed by Levin.  But Rachel Ehrenfeld has been writing for years about the failure to crackdown against the Alavi Foundation.  The nature of its ownership was not unknown.  The delay in action against Alavi was a failure of reluctant law enforcement, not a failure of existing federal law.

From Time:

Managers of an Iranian charity started by the Shah faced a dilemma with its American properties, as Washington tightened a squeeze on all entities tied to the Islamic Revolutionary Government. But U.S. law allowed a simple solution for the renamed Alavi Foundation: disguise its properties’ real owners through the use of shell companies, multiple ones if need be.

So, its 36-story skyscraper in midtown Manhattan, registered as the 650 Fifth Avenue Company, was owned by Assa Corporation, a New York shell company, which listed its owner as Assa Company Ltd., a Jersey, Channel Islands entity. In most cases that’s as far as investigators get — but here authorities were eventually able to determine that Assa was in fact entirely owned by the state-owned Bank Melli, which is banned in the U.S. for supporting Tehran’s nuclear program.

Exposing this entirely legal labyrinth of ownership took years of interagency pick-and-ax work. In the end it demonstrated how nefarious activity — even as high profile as this — can go on for years, right under authorities’ noses.

Philippines to let MILF collect taxes

In a chilling decision, Filipino negotiators are poised to put the Moro Islamic Liberation Front in charge of tax collection in the South.  Thanks to Rantburg for headlining this story yesterday.  Their source for this article was Iran Press TV:

The Filipino government has agreed to offer expanded autonomy to the Muslim minority in the country’s south.

Officials hope the move will pave the way for sealing a peace deal aimed at ending the 40-year-long conflict in the region with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

Annabelle Abaya, the presidential adviser on the peace process, was hoping that the offer would convince the MILF to sign a peace accord before a new president is sworn in on June 30. “In enhanced autonomy, the president is offering to share powers,” Abaya told reporters on Monday.

The autonomy allows the Muslim minority to control tax collection and natural resources in the south.

As I commented on Rantburg, this means that as in Pakistan, South Filipinos will be forced to pay the 2.5% zakat tax plus secular Philippine taxes, that Muslim farmers will pay the discriminatory ushr tax on harvests, that Christians will be subjected to the jizya, and in the Philippines we may even see the restoration of Islam’s ancient & hated kharaj tax on land seized from non-Muslims.

Then tax revenues will be skimmed off the top by the tax collectors, who will claim that they’re spending it on the poor, but the bulk of it will actually be spent to propagate Islam and to wage jihad.

Prediction:  MILF autonomy will not “solve” militant Islam in the Philippines, it will exacerbate it.

CAIR brags about tax-exempt status, then runs afoul of IRS

Scary accounting standards by Islamic organizations are not unique to Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Britain.  World Net Daily has exposed U.S.-based Council on American-Islamic Relations for its failure to file required disclosures with the Internal Revenue Service.  (Hat tip to Puneet Madaan).

But its delinquent filing hasn’t stopped CAIR from actively continuing to solicit donations and advertise itself as a valid 501(c)(3) organization.  (While CAIR technically remains tax-exempt, that status will be revoked if it fails to file 990s for another year.)

As of this posting, CAIR still has on its website 1) a lengthy explanation of how donations to CAIR qualify as zakat under Islamic law, and 2) references on several of its pages trumpeting their 501(c)(3) status.

CAIR made a fund-raising blitz in December to take advantage any Muslim taxpayers who wanted to increase their itemized deductions before the end of 2009.  Through Facebook and other media, national executive director Nihad Awad made this breathless appeal:

Earlier this week, I urged you to take advantage of the last few days of 2009 to make a tax-deductible donation to CAIR – and many people did.

Alhamdulillah (praise be to God), we’ve raised almost $25,000 so far. But we still haven’t met our goal of raising $175,000 by the end of the year to support CAIR’s important work.

I would like to thank all those who have already donated, and I ask those who can donate to do so in the remaining hours of 2009…

Anti-Israel play debuts in Atlanta

“Tennis in Nablus,” a new play that opened this weekend at Atlanta’s Alliance Theater, celebrates the Arab revolt against Britain and Zionists in late 1930s Palestine.

As drama, the play is successful and even enjoyable.  As politics, “Tennis in Nablus” is trashy and offensive.  I’ve written a lengthy review of the play here at TheaterReview.com (under the moniker “Terminus”).  One striking element of the play, and the most relevant for our readers, is the character of Tariq, an Arab businessman in Palestine who starts off the play as a friendly partner to British and Jewish business and political class.

But after a painful journey of wrongful imprisonment in the dungeons of the British occupying force, Tariq is radicalized into becoming a supporter of the revolt and a bankroller of Palestinian terror.  In so doing, Tariq becomes a champion of the Arab street and the hero of the play.

The anti-Israel political message of “Tennis in Nablus” is one-sided and may be upsetting for Jewish audiences.  The glib celebration of financing the Arab revolt should be equally disturbing anybody concerned about money laundering and terrorist financing.

Authorities move against terrorists. Judges say, “not so fast”

Recent news stories about government actions against terrorists being hampered by their court systems have caught my attention:

• In Britain, the Supreme Court has ruled that Treasury’s efforts to freeze the assets of five terrorists without parliamentary approval were unlawful.
• In Bahrain, their Constitutional Court has banned “authorities from freezing or seizing assets belonging to families of suspects in money-laundering cases or criminals.”  Yes, you read that right.  Bahrain’s government can no longer freeze terrorist assets.
• According to a Kuwaiti economic expert, Kuwait lacks serious judicial enforcement mechanisms against money laundering cases.

Am I missing any other stories in the same vein?