Qatar’s money jihad on Europe

More on Qatar’s money being used to support Wahhabi Islam abroad.  This excellent piece from Soeren Kern describes the Qatari infiltration of Muslim populations of France, Spain, and other countries of Europe:

Qatar Financing Wahhabi Islam in France, Italy, Ireland and Spain

Qatar, the most fraudulent “moderate,” is “sparing no effort” to spread Wahhabi Islam across “the whole world,” discouraging integration, encouraging jihad.

The Persian Gulf Emirate of Qatar says it plans to invest €50 million ($65 million) in French suburbs that are home to hundreds of thousands of disgruntled Muslim immigrants.

Qatar says its investment is intended to support small businesses in disadvantaged Muslim neighborhoods. But Qatar, like Saudi Arabia, subscribes to the ultra-conservative Wahhabi sect of Islam, and critics say the emirate’s real objective is to peddle its religious ideology among Muslims in France and other parts of Europe.

Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, who has long cultivated an image as a pro-Western reformist and modernizer, recently vowed to “spare no effort” to spread the fundamentalist teachings of Wahhabi Islam across “the whole world.”

The promotion of Islamic extremist ideologies — particularly Wahhabism, which not only discourages Muslim integration in the West, but actively encourages jihad against non-Muslims — threatens to further radicalize Muslim immigrants in France, analysts say.

The Qatari investments are being targeted in blighted French suburban slums known in France as banlieues, where up to one million or more mostly unemployed Muslim immigrants from North Africa and the Middle East eke out an impoverished existence.

The banlieues are already being exploited by Islamist preachers from countries such as Morocco and Turkey, which are leveraging the social marginalization of Muslim immigrants in France to create “separate Islamic societies” ruled by Islamic Sharia law, according to a recent study which examines the rise of Islam in France.

The 2,200-page report, “Banlieue de la République” (Suburbs of the Republic) — commissioned by the influential French think tank L’Institut Montaigne, and directed by Gilles Kepel, a well-known specialist on the Muslim world — describes how Muslim immigrants are increasingly rejecting French values and identity in favor of Islam.

The report shows how Sharia law is rapidly displacing French civil law in many parts of suburban Paris and warns that France is on the brink of a major social explosion because of the failure of Muslims to integrate into French society.

2011: Taliban revenue victories

Financially speaking, 2011 was another banner year for the Taliban.

France paid perhaps the largest ransom in world history when it handed $15 to $20 million over to the Taliban to release two abducted journalists in June.

Meanwhile, American leaders like Gen. David Petraeus and Sec. Hillary Clinton continued endorsing a program to pay members of the Taliban if they would “reintegrate” with… somebody… other than the Taliban… we hope.

And we learned more than we cared to know about U.S., UN, and British aid and reconstruction money ending up in the hands of the Taliban through insufficient oversight of subcontracting processes, Afghani corruption, and possibly, local political bet hedging.

The Kajaki Dam, a joint U.S.-Afghan project, became known as a “watershed of waste” for whom the Taliban will become the ultimate beneficiary.

It was reported in June that $1 billion has “disappeared” from Kabul Bank.  While the Afghan government itself is responsible for the graft within the bank, one doubts the wisdom of international financing and loans that have flowed to Afghanistan over recent years.

At the same time, the Taliban can continue receiving funding from Islamic taxation of the people in the territories it controls, and can tap into financial resources from Pakistan’s spy service and the Haqqani network.

While the U.S. and international partners have been somewhat successful in limiting the financial pipelines of Al Qaeda, no evidence suggests that the same can be said for the Taliban.

International aid to Gaza that invariably funds Hamas is highly irrational and even suicidal.  The only relationship that resembles it is the West’s relationship with the Taliban—an organization that we actually hand money to through subcontracts and ransom payments.  Meanwhile, we pat ourselves on the backs for declaring that we have “frozen” the bank accounts of men like Mullah Omar, who literally keep their money in a treasure chest, and for creating some little office of financial analysts in Kabul to watch for “suspicious transactions”.

If we were serious about bankrupting the Taliban, we would hunt them down and kill them one by one rather than paying them to pretend to tolerate our presence for a brief period of time.

Al Qaeda to France: your money or their lives

More on the great ransom boomerang hurled by the French to the jihadists of the world after France gave the Taliban $15 to $20 million…

Al Qaeda in Yemen (AQAP) is demanding $12 million in fida’ (Koran-based Islamic ransom) for three French aid workers that they abducted in May.  Their abductors had been quiet about their asking price until now.  Perhaps they’ve discovered in the meantime what the French market will bear?  From Agence France Presse via France 24 on July 27:

Abducted French aid workers in al Qaeda hands

Three French aid workers abducted in Yemen are being held by men linked to the country’s al-Qaida offshoot who are demanding $12 million in ransom, security officials and local tribesmen said Wednesday.

The two women and one man were abducted three months ago while working for the aid group Triangle Generation Humanitaire, which is based in Lyon, France. They were seized in eastern Yemen’s Hadramawt province, which is home to al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula.

Intelligence chief Ghaleb al-Qamish and other senior government officials have asked prominent figures in the town of Sayoun to try to mediate their release, the security officials and tribesmen said.

They said the three were being held by al-Qaida members or by people affiliated with the militants. They spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

After the aid workers’ disappearance on May 28, Yemeni officials initially said they feared the group had been taken by tribesmen, who frequently use abductions – including of foreigners – to press the government for concessions, such as the release of fellow tribesmen in prison.

In most of those cases, the captives are freed unharmed. In the past few years, however, al-Qaida has begun kidnapping foreigners as well, sometimes with lethal results.

The director of the French aid group, Patrick Verbruggen, said it has had no contact with the kidnappers since the abduction in May.

He said he had no information on whether the aid workers were being held by al-Qaida or if a ransom had been demanded.

French Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said Wednesday that the ministry also had not heard that the group is being held by al-Qaida and that they are demanding a ransom.

“We have been fully mobilized since the beginning to obtain the release of our compatriots, and in their interest, we should observe the greatest discretion to preserve the effectiveness of our actions,” he told an online briefing.

French ransom payments boomerang

France brought it on itself. France’s payment of a $15 to $20 million ransom to the Taliban reported earlier this month has emboldened Al Qaeda to demand $90 million in ransom for four French hostages in Africa. La Belle France has turned its French citizens into merchandise over which to haggle at an Arab bazaar. For the West, horrifying; for al Qaeda, jackpot.

From Ansamed (h/t RoP):

TUNIS, JULY 25 – More than 300 days into an imprisonment that risks prolonging even further. The four French nationals who were captured in September of last year have literally disappeared into a “black hole” created by Al Qaeda in the Maghreb. The hostages appear to be an investment for the future of the terrorist organisation, which does not intend to lower the enormous ransom set at 90 million euros, according to the most recent reports. For Delie Larribe, Theirry Dole, Marc Feret and Pierre Legrand, a positive end to the story in a short period of time seems unlikely because they are pawns in a larger game being played by AQMI in the Sahel, which is perhaps the most potentially at risk zone on the global terrorism panorama. The situation has escalated to the point that the countries in the area (with Algeria leading the way) have allied themselves in their anti-terrorism efforts. But this is only true in terms of their military operations, and certainly does not involve searching for hostages swallowed up in the abyss that Al Qaida has succeeded in creating around their prisoners, like Italian national Maria Sandra Mariani, who disappeared in Algeria in February. It is difficult to say where the hostages are being held, even for French intelligence officials who are extremely active in the area and who have built up a solid collaboration with their Algerian counterparts. Recent events in the area have fuelled worries regarding the increasingly “professional” operations conducted by AQMI following their affiliation with the “mother ship”, which has translated into constant military pressure, especially along the border between Mali and Mauritania (with Algeria and Niger ready to collaborate) and into an attempt to manage the flourishing kidnapping industry, which, has raised the stakes with the four French hostages, and therefore, their potential revenue.

Ransom money could be reinvested to acquire weapons, especially after a thriving parallel market opened up with the war in Libya, for the most part regarding the weapons in the Libyan arsenal that have been recently acquired, mainly from Russia.

Sacré bleu, France arms Libyan rebels!

It might not be as bad as giving $15 to $20 million to the Taliban, but it sure ain’t good.  The Libyan rebels are known to include Al Qaeda.  It was troublesome enough when Hillary Clinton bowed to fundamentalist appetites by gaving the rebels halal meals with “secular” U.S. taxpayer dollars, but at least you can’t kill anybody with a sack lunch.

The “40 tonnes of weapons” will be a bit more dangerous.  From Agence France Press (with the original reporting by Le Figaro) via Expatica on June 29 (h/t GoV).  Egh, enough attributions, on with the news!

France has begun parachuting arms shipments to Berber rebels fighting Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi’s forces in the highlands south of Tripoli, the French daily Le Figaro reported on Wednesday.

According to the paper, which said it had seen a secret intelligence memo and talked to well-placed officials, the air drops are designed to help rebel fighters encircle Tripoli and encourage a popular revolt in the city itself.

“If the rebels can get to the outskirts of Tripoli, the capital will take the chance to rise against Kadhafi,” said an official quoted in the report.

“The regime’s mercenaries are no longer getting paid and are scarcely getting fed. There’s a severe fuel shortage, the population has had enough.”

French officials could not immediately confirm or deny the report, but a well-placed non-government source told AFP that 40 tonnes of weapons including “light armoured cars” had been delivered to rebels in western Libya.

According to Le Figaro the French arms shipments are dropped from planes in the Djebel Nafusa region, where Berber tribes have risen to join the revolt against Kadhafi’s rule and seized several provincial towns.

The crates hold assault rifles, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, it said, and also European-made Milan anti-tank missiles, a powerful addition to the rebel arsenal that can destroy a tank or a bunker.

France has taken a leading role in organising international support for the uprising against Kadhafi’s four-decade old rule, and French and British jets are spearheading a NATO-led air campaign targeting his forces.

Rebel forces are based in Benghazi in the east of the country, and hold a besieged enclave supplied by sea in the western coastal town of Misrata, but have been unable to mount a convincing advance on the capital.

Move over Pizarro. Taliban gets biggest ransom ever?

The Abduction of Atahuallpa

In 1532, the Incas famously paid a room full of gold to Francisco Pizarro to secure the release of their emporer, Atahuallpa.  In the end, the Incas would lose Atahuallpa and their civilization.

Four hundred and eighty years later, France has just been reported to have paid $15 to $20 million to the Taliban to release two French journalists.

Link teases

• To ease Taliban peace talks, the U.N. will split its list of terrorists in two:  the irreconcilables & those to slip under the sheets with… more>>

• Congressional staffers aren’t happy about a growing “a culture of aid dependency” in Afghanistan.  But what do the Republicans think?  more>>

• We’ll just need a few of your British tax dollars to fund a lawsuit that my cocooned wife and I have against the French burqa ban… more>>

• “What’s wrong?” she asked. “Oh nothing,” said the dismayed inspector looking up from his ledger, “just the largest theft of funds in national history”… more>>

• “Engaging in riba, or the charging of interest? Haram! Blowing up the bank and making off with the cash? Halal!” writes Marisol… more>>

Young French Muslim revivalists push zakat

Union des jeunes musulmans (UJM), or the Union of Muslim Youth, is a French organization created by second generation Muslims who didn’t care so much about the cultural traditions of their parents’ home countries (or of France’s traditions for that matter) as they cared about a renewed Islamic religiosity.  UJM was created with the blessing of the Muslim Brotherhood-linked Union of Islamic Organizations of France (UOIF).  UJM has also supported Hamas donor Tariq Ramadan’s presence in France (see here).

Now the UJM is busy at work creating a new generation of zakat-givers, which is certainly only for benign humanitarian purposes, no?  From Ahlul Bayt News Agency on Mar. 1:

An educational workshop on the concept of Zakat (alms giving) for Muslim children has been underway since February 28 at Tawheed Islamic Center in Lyon, France.

According to the website of the union, it has been organized by the Union of Muslim Youth (UJM).

Children’s questions on Zakat will be answered during the educational sessions which will continue until March 5.

The union was established in 1987 in Lyon by a group of French Muslim youth and Muslim citizens to introduce the true image of Islam and defend religious identity of the Muslims of the country.

Most of the activities of the union include religious, social and cultural programs such as holding courses on Arabic language and Islamic teachings as well as make up classes for Muslim students, organizing programs on various religious occasions, and holding Islamic forums.

Remember, the Koran 9:60 mandates that the mujahideen, the holy warriors of Islam, are eligible recipients of zakat.

L’énergie nucléaire for Saudis & bin Ladens

Ah, another Gaullist day in Arabia.  The French company Areva is “excited” to have signed a deal to furnish Saudi Arabia with nuclear power.  Areva, which is 90 percent government-owned, is including a solar power deal for the sunbaked desert kingdom for good public show, too. 

Behind the convenient cover story of a depleting energy supply and a desire to diversify civil energy sources, the Saudis are probably pursuing the technology as a counterweight to Iran’s nuclear program.  On one hand, the initiative may be a beneficial deterrent to Iran.  On the other hand, considering the rising tide of Islamist protests against the existing regimes of the Islamic world, selling technologies to a “rational” actor like the Saudi royal family could prove to be disastrously shortsighted.

Oh, and the bin Laden Group will also be a co-partner in the power plant construction, but that is but a petit detail, oui?  Read it all, mes amis, from The National last month (with hat tip to Crossroads Arabia):

Saudi Binladin Group and the French nuclear reactor designer Areva are to sign an agreement on nuclear and solar power, advancing Saudi plans for diversifying the kingdom’s electricity supply.

Anne Lauvergeon, the chief executive of Areva, announced the prospective deal in Riyadh on Sunday, saying the companies would sign a partnership agreement to develop both types of power. She declined to give further details.

“We are in a major energy evolution in the region,” Ms Lauvergeon told a conference in the Saudi capital. “In the past it was oil and gas, and that was it. Now it’s oil, gas, renewables and nuclear.

“We are very excited about this evolution and we would like to be a long-term partner of these developments.”

“We think that on solar thermal in Saudi Arabia there’s an important market and we are partnering with Saudi Binladin Group to develop this,” Ms Lauvergeon added on the sidelines of the conference.

A spokeswoman for Areva, reached at the company’s Paris headquarters yesterday, said any deal signed in Saudi Arabia would mainly concern solar power. She said Ms Lauvergeon travelled to Riyadh in response to Saudi requests for discussions on possible solar projects and advice on the direction of the kingdom’s nuclear programme.

Saudi Arabia has responded to soaring power demand as it pursues industrial development by burning oil in its power plants to supplement an insufficient gas supply. As a result, air quality in its cities has deteriorated, while power cuts remain frequent in summer.

Moreover, Saudi Arabia has burnt increasing amounts of crude oil in its power plants in the past two years, limiting foreign revenue from oil exports as the kingdom has also sought to comply with the output cuts on which Opec agreed in late 2008. It is the only major economy dependent on oil for more than 50 per cent of electricity supplies.

Hashim Yamani, the president of Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah Atomic and Renewable Energy City, said power diversification would free up more oil for export.

“Saudi will need to invest upfront in nuclear energy but the oil saved will contribute significantly to the costs,” Mr Yamani told Reuters. “Nuclear and renewable energy will reduce dependence on fossil fuels by 2050”…

France & Credit Agricole plan sukuk issuance

The French government and the biggest French bank both have big plans for issuing Islamic bonds in 2011.  Happy New Year!

Last year, France developed new rules to sell sukuk, and the Accounting and Auditing Organisation for Islamic Financial Institutions (AAOIFI) blessed off on them.  In December, Thierry Dissaux, the chief executive of the French Deposits Guarantee Fund, announced that France would indeed follow through on the new rules with actual bond sales.  Thierry told the Khaleej Times that, “We still have to work on some issues for it but it’s a matter of weeks and then we will be ready in the beginning of 2011.”

Thierry Dissaux, CEO of the French Deposit Guarantee Fund

Bloomberg reports separately that the French bank Credit Agricole is “is working on two or three benchmark Islamic bonds from the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council and they will be sold before the end of the first quarter, Simon Eedle, global head of Islamic banking at the bank, said…”

Credit Agricole is also slated to be the lead issuer for a $1 billion sukuk issuance by Saudi Aramco in 2011.

Although they may not yet match the sukuk size planned for 2011 by Dubai World’s Nakheel PJSC ($3.2 billion), by the government of Thailand ($1.3 billion), or by the Dubai government itself ($1-1.5 billion), the growth of French involvement in sukuk markets is noteworthy.

Meanwhile, Pres. Barack Obama has announced that the U.S. has no stronger ally than France (h/t GoV) , even at a time when France has sacrificed only one-seventh the number of troops as wartime ally U.K. while fighting alongside the Americans in Afghanistan.

France prosecutes 8 Muslims

Terror finance ringleader Ouassini Cherifi (left)

Most terrorist financing comes from Islamic law, not from criminal activity per se.  The mainstream media usually get that backwards.  That being said, a group of Muslim men are currently on trial in France for attempted robbery and other seemingly conventional financial crimes.

But it’s not a garden variety financial crime to meet with jihadists in Turkey, to recruit jihadists in French jails, and transfer funds to Al Qaeda—all of which occurred in this case.  And it bears repeating that Islamists often have an innate antipathy toward Western currencies and financial institutions.  There are imams and Islamic jurisprudence that help justify robbery, counterfeiting, etc., against infidels because our financial system runs contrary to Allah’s will in the first place.

It appears as criminal activity with a financial motive to us.  But to the Islamist, it is cleansing activity with a religious motive.

French Trial For 8 Suspects In Terror Finance Ring

The Associated Press

PARIS January 3, 2011

Eight men went on trial on Monday in Paris for their alleged roles in an armed gang accused of using explosives and the threat of violence to finance Islamic terror operations.

Prosecutors say the gang set up a restaurant and a cybercafe to try and hide their criminal activities — an “elaborate strategy to promote and finance the cause” of terror, the indictment alleges.