The repressive government of Eritrea imposes a 2 percent income tax on Eritreans living abroad. Eritrea uses revenues from the tax for operations of its ruling party, payouts to the terrorist group al-Shabaab, and to buy weapons for potential use by Eritrea against Ethiopia. The tax is usually collected by Eritrean diplomats in violation of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations.
Canada told the Eritrean consulate in Toronto to stop the tax collections last year. The consulate agreed in writing, but CBC reports that the Eritrean consul is still personally soliciting tax payments.
In an article accompanying the video report, CBC offers further detail:
…The regime relies on diaspora cash for hard currency. But according to the UN, it also uses its money to support armed rebels opposing Ethiopia, and others with ties to the notorious al-Shabaab movement in Somalia.
Because of Eritrea’s destabilizing role in the troubled Horn of Africa, the UN imposed sanctions on the country in 2009, hoping to choke off its access to arms and money.
Canada later adopted them, meaning those who pay are violating UN sanctions and may also be breaking Canadian law according to past reports.
Through it all, the consul has not been shy about his country’s intention to keep collecting cash no matter how Canada views it…
The documentary “Terror’s Advocate” about French lawyer Jacques Verges spends a few minutes examining the role of Francois Genoud, an unreformed Nazi from Switzerland, in sponsoring Palestinian terrorism and the legal defense funds of prominent Islamic terrorists from the 1950s to the 1970s:
Wikipedia, which calls Genoud “a noted Swiss financier and a principal benefactor of the Nazi diaspora,” also compiles additional details on Genoud’s support for “Arab liberation” (internal citations omitted):
Genoud became a passionate supporter of Arab liberation causes, funding many nationalist and left-wing organisations.
Algerian Liberation Front
While in Egypt in the 1950s, through contacts in Gamal Abdel Nasser’s government, he was introduced to the leaders of the Algerian Liberation Front, which he would eventually finance by 1954 after originally supplying weapons. In 1958 he founded the Arab Commercial Bank, which would be active in lending to Arab nationalist groups and as the chief repository for the Algerian National Liberation Front.
Palestine
In the 1960s Genoud began supplying arms for Palestinian causes. The Lausanne-based New European Order organisation, met in Barcelona in April 1969 where Palestinian groups received financial support and Genoud placed them in contact with former Nazis who would assist their military training, including pledged support designated for the Palestinian Liberation Organisation. He was a close associate of Dr. George Habash and Jacques Verges, and in September 1969 he contributed finances for the legal expenses of three Palestinians from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine following their attack on an El Al flight in Zurich, where he personally sat at their defense table.
Sixteen Palestinian immigrants have been arrested for a cigarette smuggling ring, and at least three of the men have ties to terrorists (h/t El Grillo). Officials are “very seriously concerned about where the profits of this enterprise went,” suggesting that revenues may have been transferred to fund terrorist groups overseas. The smuggling investigation itself originated from a counter-terror probe into the suspects’ activities.
Local Somali activist says financier “deserves the Nobel Prize”
Amina Farah Ali was convicted in 2011 of supporting terrorism by collecting donations and transferring them to al-Shabaab for jihad in Somalia. Her sentencing took place last week. Ali could have been sent to prison for 195 years, but the federal judge Michael Davis imposed a 20-year sentence.
Despite Judge Davis’s lenience toward Ali, CAIR is filing a complaint against him over questions he asked her during sentencing (h/t @1389).
The Minneapolis Star Tribune recorded the reaction from the Somali community following the sentence. Activist Abdinasir Abdi declared “Amina was a good woman, a mother, a teacher, educator, humanitarian worker. I think she deserves the Nobel Prize because she is a great humanitarian.” Other Somali leaders blamed the situation on U.S. foreign policy, and one woman brandished a sign saying that Ali is her hero:
Ali’s partner in crime, Hawo Mohamed Hassan, was sentenced to 10 years. The Tribune also has the report:
Two Rochester women get 10, 20 years for aiding Somalia terrorists
Article by: RANDY FURST , Star Tribune
Updated: May 17, 2013
One got 10 years in prison, the other 20 for funneling money to a group fighting in Somalia.
Two Rochester women were sentenced to federal prison Thursday for their roles in funneling money to an organization the U.S. government has called a terrorist group fighting in Somalia.
Hawo Mohamed Hassan, 66, who got 10 years in prison, and Amina Farah Ali, 36, who got 20, were the last of nine people sentenced in federal court in Minneapolis this week.
The group was the first set of defendants sent to prison from Minneapolis in this country’s largest anti-terrorism investigation since Sept. 11, 2001.
U.S. Chief Judge Michael Davis handed down the sentences before a courtroom packed with the defendants’ families and members of the Somali-American community.
The drama capped a federal investigation that lasted more than four years in which U.S. authorities sought to shut down a recruiting effort that lured more than 20 young men to Somalia, several of whom died fighting or in suicide bombings.
The women, both U.S. citizens who came here from Somalia, were convicted in 2011 of conspiring to provide material support to Al-Shabab in fundraising in Rochester that prosecutors have called “a deadly pipeline” of money and fighters from the United State to Somalia.
They have had wide support in the Twin Cities’ Somali-American community, and many in the courtroom were stunned by the sentences, especially the 20-year sentence for Ali.
Hassan Mohamud, a St. Paul imam, said he believes the sentences were too long and that both women should have been released.
“All they did was aid the poor and the orphans,” he said.
But prosecutors said it was clear from the phone conversations they monitored that the women knew they were raising money for Al-Shabab, a group labeled a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department in 2008.
While Ali said she never knew that funds she raised were going to Al-Shabab, Hassan claimed that she came to realize the organization was getting the money and broke with Ali, preferring that the money go to set up a senior health center.
But prosecutor Jeff Paulsen cited telephone wiretaps that he said showed there had been no rift between the two and that Hassan had a financial investment in the health center and planned to continue to work with Ali.
Ali, sentenced first, denied she did anything wrong. She said she had no knowledge that the money she collected went to Al-Shabab.
Asked by Davis what she knew about Al-Qajda, she indicated she knew nothing about it.
Her attorney, Dan Scott, said “she chose the wrong horse,” adding, “She thought she was doing good work. She was wrong.”
Defendants in the Somali cases have argued that Ethiopia invaded Somalia to support a newly created transitional government that lacked support from the Somali people. They have said that their clients backed the resistance to the invasion.
However, prosecutors argued that the transitional government was recognized by foreign nations, so any support for Al-Shabab, which was fighting the invasion, was against U.S. law as well as support for a terrorist group.
Steven Ward, who prosecuted the case, said Ali was heard on a wiretap supporting Al-Shabab, saying she supported a suicide bombing and “let the civilians die”…
The illicit trade in endangered species has been a growing source of terrorist revenues. A new dog training program will help detect items illegally trafficked through the U.S. Take a look at this video from the Fish & Wildlife Service and a related article by Russell McClendon of the Mother Nature Network (h/t CITES):
U.S. trains dogs to sniff out wildlife traffickers
The first graduating class of ‘wildlife detector dogs’ will soon be stationed at ports around the U.S., part of a growing effort to stem the illegal trade of flora and fauna.
If you’re a poacher hoping to smuggle rhino horns through a U.S. port, Uncle Sam wants you to know you’re barking up the wrong tree. And he has a new team of elite, hard-nosed cops to help him deliver that message: Butter, Viper, Lancer and Locket.
The first class of “wildlife inspector dogs” graduated this week from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Detector Dog Training Center (NDDTC) in Newnan, Ga., where they spent 13 weeks learning to identify the scent of endangered species — whether it’s South American rosewood or African elephant ivory. The four graduates, along with their human handlers, will soon be stationed at key ports around the country, where they’ll join a nationwide effort to stem the illegal trade in plant and animal parts.
“The recent rapid growth in the global trade in protected wildlife is pushing some species perilously close to extinction,” says Ed Grace, deputy chief of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Office of Law Enforcement, in a press release. “Elephant and rhino populations in particular are declining at alarming rates. The battle to stop wildlife smuggling is one we simply cannot afford to lose, and using dogs and their phenomenal sense of smell to catch smugglers will give us a real leg up in this effort.”
Dogs already have a long history in law enforcement, from hunting fugitives to helping police detect bombs and drugs. But while they’ve been man’s best friend for millennia, their high-powered noses are increasingly ingratiating them to Mother Nature, too. Florida wildlife officials train dogs to sniff out invasive pythons in the Everglades, for example, while conservationists at the University of Washington train them to track endangered native animals by smelling their scat. On a small island in Australia, sheepdogs have even been entrusted to protect a population of endangered penguins.
But the task facing Bullet, Viper, Lancer and Locket — as well as future NDDTC cadets — is much broader than patrolling a single ecosystem. They will soon accompany agents with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on the front lines of an expanding battle, one that pits international crime syndicates against a wide array of rare wildlife.
This comes on the heels of an unusually fruitful wildlife-trade summit held in Bangkok last month, one that highlighted both the gravity of the problem and the emerging possibilities for containing it. Conservationists pulled off several victories during the 2013 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), including new trade protections for sharks, turtles, elephants and great apes. But as critical as such regulations are, they’re only as effective as their enforcers. The U.S. is a major market for illegally traded wildlife, and human officers can only inspect so many packages.
“On an average day, I as a human being can physically inspect, if I’m pushing myself hard, anywhere from 70 to 100 packages,” FWS wildlife inspector Denise Larison says in a video about the new dog program. “And as you can see, the dogs can do 70 to 100 packages in a matter of minutes”…
“People would be very shocked to know who is involved,” with the growing number of fraudulent claims, says an insurance industry expert. Indeed. From WCCO, the CBS affiliate in Minneapolis, earlier this year:
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – Mark Kulda of the Insurance Federation of Minnesota says anyone involved in even a slight car accident could be at risk for insurance fraud.
“You might be driving down the street and maybe have a very minor accident and that could trigger a case where there could be insurance fraud,” Kulda said. “People would be very shocked to know who is involved.”
Organized crime involved in insurance fraud has gone up from 16 claims five years ago to 53 in 2011.
“There’s evidence that the Russian mafia is here in south Minneapolis setting up fake clinics, staging fake accidents, overbilling, billing for accidents that never happened,” he said.
The criminals cash in by making out on staged collisions and fake personal injury claims – getting as much as $40,000 per person.
“There’s direct evidence to show that those fraudsters are coming here to Minn. and setting up shop,” he said…
Staged accidents. The “swoop & squat.” Fake “paper cases.” It’s a growth sector and revenue generator for organized crime. You pay the price in increased premiums. From KSAT in San Antonio earlier this year:
During an interview with CNN last week, auto mechanic Gilberto Junior discussed Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s behavior between the time of the Boston Marathon bombing and before his capture. The interview offered some clues on Dhokhar Tsarnaev’s financial situation. H/t Lea Savoy:
The reference to the $900 Louis Vuitton shoes, which Junior repeated in interviews with other news outlets, raised a lot of eyebrows, but the bigger question—about why Dzhokhar was shuttling friends back and forth for repair work at Junior’s shop in the first place—has received scant attention.
One of the websites that did pick up on it, The Slate, ran the headline, “Dzhokhar Tsarnaev May Have Had Two Shady Side Businesses. Only One Involves Pot,” elaborating:
… But perhaps the more puzzling nugget in the [Boston] Globe piece is what the paper calls his “mysterious side enterprise involving repairing damaged cars”:
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev regularly brought cars to Junior’s Auto Body, a well-worn shop on the Cambridge-Somerville line, on a road lined with scrap metal and auto repair garages.
Why a 19-year-old college student was bringing cars in for work for people he said were friends remains unclear, though his father had worked as a garage mechanic before he returned to the family’s native Russia. The shop owner, Gilberto Junior, said Dzhokhar Tsarnaev sometimes accompanied friends to the shop, riding in the passenger’s seat. Often, the friends told Junior they were students at MIT, he said…
It is legal for Junior to have paid possible commission fees to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev for legitimate referrals. But Dzhokhar Tsarnaev may have been skirting the law if he received cash for the referrals and failed to report it on income tax returns or student financial aid applications. (It may be worth noting that encouraging unnecessary repairs is commonscam reported by consumer advocates.)
But no large amounts of money appear to have changed hands. Junior told the Boston Globe that “I don’t think he ever brought any friends in here that spent more than $500.” These were minor repairs like removing dents after fender benders. Tsarnaev’s final visit to Junior’s auto body shop provides an example of the type of work involved:
Two weeks ago, said 44-year-old Gilberto Junior, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev had brought in a white Mercedes 1967 station wagon to have the damaged rear bumper repaired. He said it belonged to his girlfriend.
That was not unusual: Tsarnaev often brought in cars for wealthy friends from Boston University and MIT, Junior said, and always paid in cash.
We have known for months that Saudi Arabia and Qatar have been financing and supplying Syrian rebels, but a recent interview with Zayd Alisa on Iranian television details increased arms shipments by the Saudis purchased from Croatia and routed through Jordan. The beneficiaries include the al-Nusra Front—the Al Qaeda front group in Syria.
Iran is extremely hostile to Saudi Arabia, and Iranian news is grossly biased—which should be kept in mind while watching this—but the details discussed are largely based on solid reporting in New York Timesarticle from late February.
The New York Times notes that Iran’s “shipments to Syria’s government, still outstrips what Arab states have sent to the rebels,” so Saudi Arabia and Qatar certainly aren’t the only ones to blame for funding the bloodshed in Syria.
More recently, the London Telegraphhas reported that the U.S. and Europe have airlifted 3,000 tons of weapons to Syrian rebels.
Thrillers about terrorism focus on adventure, explosions, and tension; while they may depict specific terrorist attacks and the logistics behind them, such movies rarely address the financing. Meanwhile, movies about bank robberies, jewel heists, and corporate malfeasance show how bad guys finance themselves, but these financial crime films tend to boil down to greed, or the acquisition of money for personal use, rather than raising money for broader social objectives.
We are left with a handful of movies dealing with the actual financing of terrorism or rebel insurgencies, and those that do often address the subject briefly. Although it’s tough to find movies that incorporate both elements, it’s worth the investment. These five movies help illuminate important concepts in terrorist financing in ways that news articles and scholarly research cannot, and in ways that simple bank heist movies can’t either. They’re also sure to entertain you along the way.
By the way, it took a long time to compile this short list, so please acknowledge Money Jihad if this ranking is reproduced elsewhere.
“Casino Royale”—Le Chiffre is a bankroller to the world’s terrorists. But he is being pursued by terrorists who want access to their funds immediately. Le Chiffre sets up a high stakes poker game in Montenegro to get more money and restore his credibility with his terrorist clients. His rival? None other than James Bond, 007, who enters the match with money fronted by the British government. If Bond wins, the international financing of terrorism will be setback; if he looses, the government will have directly funded terrorists. While the men play their game, is Bond’s love interest being forced to work for an unnamed terrorist group in Algeria?This film shows how skill, charm, and a little bit of luck by Britain’s best spy can triumph over shadowy but well-connected forces behind the international financing of terrorism.
“The Path to 9/11″—The television miniseries (especially Part I) that aired on ABC in 2006 includes an ensemble cast and multiple story lines, one of which focuses on the money trail that led U.S. intelligence to recognize the threat posed by Osama Bin Laden in the 1990s. The trail begins with the cunning bomb maker, Ramzi Yousef, who bombs the World Trade Center and becomes and international fugitive. From the Philippines to Pakistan, Yousef works on his explosives, causing mayhem wherever he goes. He’s planning a massive attack–bombs detonating aboard flights, but to do it he needs money—real money—for materials, equipment, electronics, and men. His comrade tells him about a Saudi millionaire who can help. Meanwhile, tired of going after “small fish,” the FBI’s John O’Neill and other senior members of the U.S. counter-terrorism community try to find out who’s funding Yousef. The U.S. gets a nervous informant who is about to depart with Yousef on a trip to Afghanistan, where Yousef says they can meet his financier, whom he calls “the tall one.” The money chase story line earns this miniseries its place on the list, but even without it, the movie is a devastating portrayal of bureaucracy and politics getting in the way of mid and lower level agents who are trying to stop Bin Laden 9/11. This important film is unfairly maligned by liberals who have flooded the Internet with an endless stream of angry, overly politicized criticism.
“The Long Good Friday”—Unbeknownst to an English mafia boss, one of his lieutenants delivers cash to the Irish Republican Army, but skims a little for himself along the way. The lieutenant ends up dead, and the boss, played by Ed Hoskins, and his loved ones wind up the target of a seemingly inexplicable bombing campaign. It turns that out another of his key gang members, a real estate developer who employs Irish workers, was the one responsible for the ongoing payments to the IRA. While the bombs are exploding, Hoskins is trying to complete a major business deal with an American investor played by Eddie Constantine (who also appears in another noteworthy terrorist financing movie, “The Third Generation,” as a West German businessman who funds terrorism in order to sell equipment to security forces fighting it.) His best advisers tell him to back down, but Hoskins thinks he can go toe-to-toe against one of the most dangerous terrorist organizations in the world. It’s a tense, exciting film, and it’s somewhat unique among movies for providing a glimpse into how front companies can be used to fund terrorism. Hoskins was widely praised for his performance, and Helen Miren who plays his wife is absolutely superlative.
“Baader Meinhof Complex”—The movie portrays the terrorist acts committed by the Red Army Faction, or Baader-Meinhof group, in West Germany in the late 1960s and ’70s. The group also carried out bank robberies which they regarded as legitimate “expropriation” to finance the revolution—a common Marxist terrorist fundraising technique. Ultimately the first generation of the Red Army Faction fell apart. It’s a well-done film that illustrates how the terrorists’ search for bigger and better attacks ultimately destroys and shatters not just the lives of their victims, but their own lives too.
“Nighthawks”—Wulfgar, an international terrorist mercenary—sets off a bomb in England, striking “a blow against British colonialism” in Northern Ireland. But children are killed in the attack, and the IRA refuses to pay him. Struggling to overcome a shortage of pay and his damaged reputation, Wulfgar gets plastic surgery and sets off for New York. There he hopes he can launch a major terrorist attack that will be covered by the news media capital of the world, and prove his worth again to international terrorist organizations that would hire him again if he succeeds. He is aided by “Shakka Kappour,” a ruthless Moroccan terrorist in her own right. Only cop-on-the-beat Sylvester Stallone can stop them, with assistance from his partner Billy Dee Williams and counter-terrorist expert LeGard, who does as good a job as anybody since Col. Mathieu from “The Battle of Algiers” in getting inside the mind of terrorists to defeat them at their own game. Explosions, dramatic tension, and great pacing earn this overlooked thriller a place in the top five.
Honorable mention: “A Bullet for the General”–Chuncho (or sometimes Chucho) and his bandits traffic arms for General Elías, a rebel leader during the Mexican Revolution. Chuncho is joined by “El Niño,” an American man with mysterious motives. They conduct a good, old-fashioned train robbery, seize rifles from a military garrison after assassinating its commandant, and dispossess the richest man in San Miguel of his wealth. The film may not be the best of the Italian produced “Zapata westerns” set during the Mexican Revolution which all touched on similar themes, but it is one is quite germane to how an insurgent movement is armed and financed.
A problem worth noting about terror finance movies is that about half of them are designed convince audiences that terrorism is an artificial phenomenon created and funded by capitalists to increase profits circuitously. While movies in this mold such as “The Third Generation,” “Burn!” and “The International” are relevant to the subject of financing terrorism or a revolution, and are entertaining, they are based on fundamentally flawed premises about the nature of the threat and cannot be wholly recommended.
UAE-based money transfer business accused of plotting contract killing of two East African musicians
The Dahabshiil money transfer company is promising a $3 million reward for the murder of Djibouti singer Nimo Djama after singing about Dahabshiil’s role in financing terrorism. This allegation by Djama herself was nearly impossible to find in English-language print media (or even by the blogosphere) when the story began circulating among Somali sources last fall.
One outlet that did report on it was the Somali-Dutch news site, the Suna Times, excerpted below with some light editing for readability:
Dahabshiil—Facts, Violations, and Terrorism
The Djiboutian singer Nimo Djama accused Dahabshiil company of putting a three million dollar bounty for her death.
“Dahabshiil Bank, Ottawa branch has been assigned to assassinate me. They have received three million dollars to carry out the assassination. Dahabshil or Dhiigshiil wants to kill me. I’ve informed the Canadian law enforcement agencies. They installed cameras in my home,” said Nimo Djama in an audio interview on Oct 13, 2012.
Nimo Djama, aka the Mother of Djiboutian Singers, is a popular figure, and was part of the independence struggle in her country, but fled from Djibouti after being arrested by the administration of president Guelleh.
The well-known Somali singer Sado Ali Warsame who overthrown [sic] said Barre regime with her songs also accused Dahabshiil of putting a two million dollar bounty for her death, shortly after she released a song called Dahabshiil ha dhigan (“Don’t Deposit with Dahabshiil”).
Concern over Dahabshiil’s threat, which lost around 70% of its customers, resulted [in] reinforcement of Sado’s security…
A written description accompanying a video published on YouTube on Feb. 11 reveals further details about the hit ordered against Ms. Warsame (whose name may also be written as Saado Cali Warsame):
A Somali super star singer sings against Dahabshiil money transfer
A top Somali super star Sado Ali Warsame, had released an album against the Dahabshiil money transfer which she warns the people to send their money to the company because of what the singer called ‘a linkage to tribalism and extremism’.
The nationalist icon of Somalia top ten super stars, Sado Ali Warsame, who is well respected for her role in fighting against the military dictatorship through her cultural-rich music, is now taking the platform to challenge against all the actors against the pan-Somalia.
Her new song “Ha dhigan Dhiigshiil” which means don’t send your money through Dahabshiil, is a great challenge to the company which currently lost a court case against a well-known investigative journalist Dahir Abdulle Alasow in Breda Netherlands after the company accused the reporter of humiliating figures in the company, goodwill defamation and accusation related to Dahabshiil’s attempt to assassinate singer Sado Warsame.
The song relates Dahabshiil to Alshabab [al-Shabaab], a militant group allied to Alqaeda [Al Qaeda] which rules much of Southern Somalia with brutal laws, and a slow genocide going on in the Sool, Sanag and Ceyn (SSC) regions in Somalia by Somaliland forces, which Warsame is originally from.
Dahabshiil rejected the accusation and sued the investigative reporter whose website waagacusub.com published the articles relating Dahabshiil attempt to assassinate the artist Warsame and the linkage to the terror group and the slow genocide in SSC regions.
But the judge in Breda district court ruled out Dahabshiil’s argument and ordered the reporter to keep doing his job freely, and states the accusation as baseless.
The company’s name Dahabshiil means Goldsmith, while the singer calls it in the song as Dhiigshiil, which means Bloodsmith, a previous name of the company in early 2000s, which the company owners refute to be called now for their business goodwill.
The song had attracted a big number of listeners who clicked more than 30,000 times on one link in waagacusub website and the controversial comments on the songs divided the public opinion.
A comment with anonymous person says, “The song is true, Dahabshiil feeds Alshabab, and I agree that we don’t need to send our money to it”…
It’s not just an anonymous person on Youtube, or even an enterprising Somali-Dutch reporter. A presiding judge at a 2005 hearing in Guantanamo Bay told detainee Mohammed Sulaymon Barre, “I am convinced that your branch of the Dahabshiil company was used to transfer money for terrorism.”
Now, we leave you with a music video by Warsame. She sings about peace, national unity, satirizes the terrorists, and tells the truth about the financing of extremists. For this she gets death threats from Dubai?
UPDATE—FEB. 28, 2013:
Money Jihad has again (see comment below) been contacted by legal counsel for Dahabshiil, who makes the following response to this post:
Dahabshiil refutes the allegations made about it in this article in the strongest possible terms. The allegations are absurd and entirely false. For the avoidance of doubt, Dahabshiil has no involvement whatsoever in violence or terrorism of any kind.Dahabshiil considers these allegations to be highly defamatory and has accordingly commenced legal proceedings in The Netherlands to restrain further publication of them by their original author [of the Suna Times].
By way of background, Dahabshiil is a major international financial organisation, founded in 1970. Dahabshiil operates in approximately 150 countries across the world (including the USA and most European territories) with over 5,000 employees. Dahabshiil has a large and loyal customer base and a number of major international organisations rely on Dahabshiil to provide payment services for their staff, contractors, government institutions and partner NGOs. Dahabshiil has its headquarters in the United Kingdom where it is regulated by the Financial Services Authority.
For further general information about Dahabshiil , please visit Dahabshiil’s website at www.Dahabshiil.com
“Go forth, light-armed and heavy-armed, and strive with your wealth and your lives in the way of Allah!”—Koran (Sura 9, Verse 41)
“The warrior gets his reward, and the one who equips him gets his own reward and that of the warrior”—Muhammad (Sunan Abu Dawud, Book 14 No. 2520)
“Your duty is to support the Mujahideen with money and men... The Zakat of one affluent Muslim merchant is enough to finance all the Jihadi front against our enemies”—Osama Bin Laden
Terror finance termagant finally sentenced
May 20, 2013Local Somali activist says financier “deserves the Nobel Prize”
Amina Farah Ali was convicted in 2011 of supporting terrorism by collecting donations and transferring them to al-Shabaab for jihad in Somalia. Her sentencing took place last week. Ali could have been sent to prison for 195 years, but the federal judge Michael Davis imposed a 20-year sentence.
Despite Judge Davis’s lenience toward Ali, CAIR is filing a complaint against him over questions he asked her during sentencing (h/t @1389).
The Minneapolis Star Tribune recorded the reaction from the Somali community following the sentence. Activist Abdinasir Abdi declared “Amina was a good woman, a mother, a teacher, educator, humanitarian worker. I think she deserves the Nobel Prize because she is a great humanitarian.” Other Somali leaders blamed the situation on U.S. foreign policy, and one woman brandished a sign saying that Ali is her hero:
Ali’s partner in crime, Hawo Mohamed Hassan, was sentenced to 10 years. The Tribune also has the report:
Posted in News commentary, Video | Tagged al-Shabaab, Amina Farah Ali, material support, Minnesota, Somalia, terrorist financing | 1 Comment »