Backstabbed: How Iraq helps Iran skirt sanctions

Nobody has been as good at tracking the painful truth of Iraqi-facilitated evasion of international sanctions on Iran as financial crime consultant Kenneth Rijock.  Consider:

• The Kurds in northern Iraq have “allowed both rampant money laundering, and widespread facilitation of global Iran sanctions evasion” though their banks. In central Iraq, U.S. dollars are flowing in bulk from Baghdad to Iran… more>>
• Lebanese banks and Bank Melli, a sanctioned Iranian bank, are operating in northern Iraq.  EU and North American businesses that use Lebanese banks may not be taking sufficient steps to prevent their transactions from benefiting Iranian end-users… more>>
• “Iraq blatantly disregards UN sanctions on Iran” in accepting an Iranian-flagged vessel‘s shipment at its Um Qasr port, for example… more>>
• Five Turkish banks in Iraq may be facilitating Iran’s sanction dodging behavior… more>>
• Iran will reap $16 billion annually from a new natural gas deal with Iraq… more>>

Reading about the dangerous anti-money laundering (AML) and combating the financing of terrorism (CFT) policies of Iraq may be upsetting to those who have made personal sacrifices fighting for Iraqi freedom, but we have to face the current facts.  How does Rijock describe the Iraq invasion?  “Military success, yes; but AML/CFT utter failure.”

Iraq convicts Arab-American of terror funding

Omar Rashad Khalil, a Muslim Palestinian Arab who acquired U.S. citizenship, has confessed to helping finance terrorist activities in Iraq.  Khalil is said to have received money from an unnamed Syrian while both men were in the U.A.E.—a well-known hub for money laundering and terror financial transactions.

An engineer, Khalil probably brought skills that would have been helpful to Al Qaeda in Iraq in their attacks against the government of Iraq, its security forces, and U.S. and coalition soldiers.  From AP via ABC News:

An Iraqi court has sentenced an American citizen to life in prison on charges of assisting al-Qaida and financing terrorist activities in Iraq, according to a government statement released Thursday.

The Interior Ministry said Omar Rashad Khalil, 53, was recruited by al-Qaida in Iraq in 2005. Khalil, an architectural engineer, is of Palestinian descent and entered the country in 2001, the ministry statement said.

The ministry released excerpts from a confession it said Khalil made in which he allegedly admitted to receiving money from a Syrian man in the United Arab Emirates to pay for terror attacks.

Khalil, who the ministry said was also known as Abu Mohammed, was sentenced by Baghdad’s central criminal court on Wednesday. Iraqi government officials could not immediately be reached for more details.

U.S. embassy spokesman Frank Finver issued a statement saying that the embassy officials were aware of the reports…

Iraqi-Canadian financed deadly truck bomb attack

Sayfildin Tahir Sharif transferred money to a fellow jihadist in Iraq to sponsor a bombing that killed five American soldiers.  The “Albertan,” actually a Muslim Kurd living in Canada, could be extradited to the U.S.

The money in question, $2,800, may not seem like much, but it’s similar to the amounts that Amina Farah Ali transferred from Minnesota to al-Shabaab, and the amount that a Long Island hawaladar gave to the failed Times Square bomber.

From the Canadian Press via the Calgary Herald:

Albertan facing extradition to U.S. on terror charges sent cash to holy warriors

EDMONTON – An Alberta man facing extradition to the United States on terrorism charges told police he sent money to a group of holy warriors in the Middle East.

Sayfildin Tahir Sharif (SAY’-fill-din TA’-here SHAW’-reef) is accused of supporting a terrorist group that took part in a suicide bombing in Iraq in 2009 that killed five American soldiers.

His extradition hearing is being held in Edmonton, where he was arrest on Jan. 19, 2011.

A videotape of a police interrogation shows that Sharif told police after his arrest that he sent $2,800 to a mujahedeen group.

Sharif, who has been held in custody since his arrest, said the money was to repay a debt.

The video was shown to determine if it can be used as evidence in the hearing, which is expected to continue until at least October.

There is no publication ban on its contents.

The video shows that RCMP Cpl. Ian Ross also questioned Sharif about counselling a young woman in Morocco named Fatima over the Internet to become a suicide bomber, asking if she wanted to go to heaven and have angels all around her.

“She was saying she wanted to die, to strap on a belt (of explosives) and die for you,” Ross says on the video.

Sharif says he was just showing off to get her attention and wanted to have a relationship with her, perhaps marry her. He says his comments were just talk.

“The girl is in love with me.”

Ross suggests police gleaned the information from monitored Internet conversations and information from Sharif’s computer, which officers seized when he was arrested.

Sharif tells police he just talks too much, didn’t help anyone and doesn’t believe in suicide bombers.

Sharif, an ethnic Kurd, was born in Iraq but moved to Toronto as a refugee in 1993 and became a Canadian citizen in 1997…

The Americans accuse him of being part of a terrorist network that helped a Tunisian man enter Iraq and drive and detonate a truck filled with explosives at a military checkpoint, killing the U.S. soldiers…

Index reveals corruption rife in Islamic world

When we post articles about financial crimes, corruption, graft, bribery, and theft in predominantly Muslim nations, we are sometimes told that we’re being biased, because corruption is a “global” or a “third world” problem.

Of course corruption is universal, but we shouldn’t just through our hands up in the air and say, “everybody does it,” and willfully ignore where it is the biggest problem.  Any suggestion that there may be a correlation between such activity and religion or culture is immediately dismissed as “racist,” “Islamophobic,” etc.

But shouldn’t we at least look at the evidence?  Transparency International’s annual corruption index provides some insight.  Their list is based on “surveys and assessments [that] include questions related to the bribery of public officials, kickbacks in public procurement, embezzlement of public funds, and the effectiveness of public sector anti-corruption efforts.”

Notice that of TI’s top 10 cleanest nations–those perceived to have the smallest levels of public corruption–nine are predominantly Christian while one, Singapore, is plurality Buddhist:

1. New Zealand
2. Denmark
3. Finland
4. Sweden
5. Singapore
6. Norway
7. Netherlands
8. Australia
9. Switzerland
10. Canada

Further notice that of the worst 10 countries, six are majority Muslim, with North Korea and Somalia coming in last out of 182 countries rated:

173.  Venezuela
174.  Haiti
175.  Iraq
176. Sudan
177. Turkmenistan
178. Uzbekistan
179. Afghanistan
180. Myanmar
181. North Korea
182. Somalia

Iraq’s jihadists short on bombs, money

The commander of the Iraqi infantry reports that Al Qaeda in Iraq is broke and busted.  This is consistent with the trend of American successes in the wake of the Iraq surge in draining the financial capacity and bomb-making ability of AQI.

This does not mean, however, that there is no fundamentalist Islamic threat in Iraq—there are plenty of Shia militias and non-AQI Sunni radicals afoot in that country today.  But it does suggest that Iraq’s security forces are strong enough to at least keep Al Qaeda crippled.  From UPI last week:

BAGHDAD, May 25 — A high ranking Iraqi military officer says al-Qaida in Iraq is facing financial and logistic difficulties in the country.

Commander of the Iraqi army’s ground forces, Lt. Gen. Ali Ghaidan, told al-Shorfa newspaper Friday that al-Qaida militants in Iraq were losing ground; stressing recent attacks had proven the terror militants’ inability to access explosives and finance grand scale attacks.

“The quantity of explosives in each car bomb or locally made improvised explosive device has dropped by half in the last two months,” Ghaidan said. “Investigations conducted by the Iraqi forces have confirmed that there is a severe shortage in explosives and money needed to finance terrorist operations.”

Ghaidan attributed this “to the success of Iraqi security forces in discovering dozens of weapons caches this year and to tighter control along the borders with neighboring countries”.

“Near East” dominates U.S. foreign aid budget

The Congressional Research Service published a report on Jan. 6 with a title dreadful enough to guarantee that nobody will read its contents.  Buried within “State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs: FY2012 Budget and Appropriations” was this chart on U.S. foreign aid distribution by region:

Note that the smallest amounts of foreign aid go to Christian Europe, Buddhist East Asia, and Catholic Latin America.  The largest amounts go to Africa and South and Central Asia (88 percent of which is for Afghanistan and Pakistan only), and the region that will get the most in FY2012 is the “Near East,” which is mostly Islamic.

Israel will get a share of the Near East aid, but Muslim countries will get major chunks of outlays for Africa and Asia.

The FY2012 budget would provide aid of a billion dollars or more to five countries.  One is Israel; the other four are Islamic.

We’re not just funding “both sides of a conflict.”  We’re giving money to those who are hostile to America in a time we can least afford it.

 

2011: Salute the troops

Apart from hijacked aircraft, the terrorist weapon that has caused the highest body count against Americans since 9/11 has been the improvised explosive device (IED) used against military and contractor personnel serving overseas.

Roadside bombs probably caused two-thirds of combat deaths in Iraq during the eight-year conflict.

But IED attacks were down in 2011 compared to 2010, and 2010 was better than 2009.

The Iraq surge and IED-jamming technologies began a reversal of IED casualties several years ago.  During the final year of direct U.S. military involvement in Iraq, the IED numbers fell even lower thanks in part to aggressive infantry operations often led by U.S. and Iraqi forces working together.  The relevance of this story to terrorist financing is that U.S.-Iraqi cooperation and military intelligence contributed to the unraveling of the cell-structured financial network behind the insurgent plots.

Often operating in a cells with a bomb maker, an emplacer, a leader, and the money man behind the attack, U.S. and Iraqi forces were able to identify and detain many cell members throughout the year.  The detention of money men behind Al Qaeda in Iraq and other insurgent groups slowed and impeded the ability of the cells to buy bomb parts and emplace more IEDs.

As usual, U.S. civilian bureaucrats have tried to snatch credit for the military’s success in Iraq; for example, the Department of Justice made a last minute indictment against Malaysian and Iranian businessmen who conspired to ship IED components into Iraq.  That’s an important legal case, but it should by no means distract from the main effort and sacrifice which was borne by U.S. troops.

Unfortunately, the insurgents will continue using IEDs against the legitimate government of Iraq in an effort to destabilize and discredit it.  But U.S. forces made remarkable progress against the weapon before departing in 2011, and we should acknowledge that success.

Archbishop of Baghdad confirms that Iraqi Christians pay jizya

This corroborates with the findings of the U.S. State Department in its annual reports on international religious freedom.  Far from being a dead tax of caliphates past, the jizya remains alive against Sikhs in Pakistan, Copts in Egypt, Jews in Yemen, the Greek Orthodox in Cyprus, and yes, Christians in Iraq.  From Catholic World News on Dec. 12:

Baghdad: some Christians reduced to dhimmitude

The Latin Rite archbishop of Baghdad says that some Christians have been reduced to dhimmitude and are being forced to pay the jizya, a special tax that permits them to practice their faith.

Christians are “helplessly witnessing crime, mafia, or militia,” says Archbishop Jean Benjamin Sleiman, who told Aid to the Church in Need that Christmas Mass will be “celebrated during the day, for safety reasons. It will be a Christmas between fear and sturdy faith.”

The prelate called upon the international community to support Iraq’s government “so that Iraq once again becomes a [place of] rule of law.”

Similar but more detailed coverage is available at Independent Catholic News about Iraq’s Christians being “under siege.”

How U.S. products were used in Iraq IEDs

U.S. officials announced the indictment of four men from Singapore and one man from Iran on Oct. 25 for conspiring by fraud to import 6,000 sensitive American-made radio frequency modules into Iran.  From there, Iranian citizen and resident Hossein Larijani trafficked the equipment to Iraq where it was used by insurgents who made at least 16 improvised explosive devices, but probably many more, from the components.

The full DOJ press release is actually a pretty good read and is posted after the jump, but here is the critical sequence and key points, keeping in mind that U.S. law prohibits the export of American goods to Iran:

1. A Minnesota company makes radio frequency modules;
2. A Singapore group bought thousands of modules, lying to Minnesota company saying that the final destination for the devices would be Singapore;
3. Larijani instructed the Singapore group to ship the 6,000 modules to him by air;
4. From Iran, the modules arrived in Iraq;
5. At least 16 of the modules were recovered by U.S. forces being used for detonating systems in improvised explosive devices, the scourge of the Iraq war.

Financial jihadists sink to 1-3 record

Hezbollah, Hamas, and al Qaeda in Iraq are all facing a financial pinch.  (Desperate financial appeals are nothing new from Gaza.  Al Qaeda in Iraq has been broke since the U.S. surge.  But these are still nice stories to read…)

Hezbollah

In recent months, Hezbollah has become involved in disastrous investments, losing almost €1 billion ($1.4 billion). The Iranians, who are now feeling the brunt of the UN sanctions imposed as a result of their nuclear activities, have made it clear that they cannot provide Hezbollah with additional funding at this time. This is embarrassing for Hezbollah, whose image in Lebanon depends in large part on its generous social services. It is now falling behind in the rebuilding of homes it had promised to Hezbollah’s Shiite followers after the destructive 2006 bomb attacks… (Der Spiegel, Jul. 12, h/t EoZ)

Hamas

Hamas also seems to be facing a financial crisis and, like the Palestinian Authority, has not been able to pay full salaries to its civil servants in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas legislator Yahya Musa called on the Hamas government to “be frank with the people and tell them the truth about the financial situation.”

Musa expressed concern over the Hamas government’s failure to pay full salaries to its employees for the last few months.

“If there’s a financial crisis, then the government should say so,” Musa said. “And if there isn’t a crisis, the government should quickly pay full salaries to all its workers.”

Sources in the Gaza Strip said that because of the financial crisis, the Hamas government has in recent months paid only half salaries to its employees.

Ismail Mahfouz, a senior official with the Hamas-run Ministry of Finance, denied that his government was facing a financial crisis. He said that the delay in paying the salaries was due to lack of cash in the hands of the government.”  (Jerusalem Post, Jul. 26, h/t Israel Matzav)

Al Qaeda

Al-Qaida in Iraq  has made an online appeal for new fundraising ideas, saying it is in dire need of money to help thousands of widows and children of dead fighters.

Insurgents of the Islamic State of Iraq – an umbrella organisation for Sunni militants in the country – have funded their operations in the past by robbing jewellery stores, banks and offices where the government pays out monthly salaries. But the group has seen its main source of money – funding from abroad – dry up, leaving the group strapped for cash.  (Guardian, Jul. 26, h/t Rantburg)

But the jihadists still have one organization in an enviable financial position.  The Taliban are swimming in a sea of euros from their French benefactors, the U.N. is busy lifting sanctions on individual Taliban members, and the U.S. inadvertently let $600 million of a $2 billion contract slip into a mixture of criminal and Taliban hands.

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>>