Cash for Karzai in suitcases, backpacks, and grocery bags

Good old Uncle Moneybags is back, but this time his sacks are filled with American money for distribution to cronies and warlords.  From the Wall Street Journal yesterday:

Karzai Confirms Accepting CIA Cash Monthly for 10 Years

By JUHANA ROSSI in Helsinki and YAROSLAV TROFIMOV in Kabul

Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Monday acknowledged that his office has been receiving money from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency over the past 10 years, dismissing the monthly cash payments as a “small amount.”

Mr. Karzai addressed the issue after the New York Times reported on Sunday that the CIA has made tens of millions of dollars in secret payments, often cash packed in shopping bags, as it sought to maintain influence over Afghanistan’s mercurial leader.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai, here in Brussels last week, Monday confirmed that his government has been receiving CIA money for a decade, but dismissed it as a ‘small amount.’

“Yes, the office of the national security has been receiving support from the United States for the past 10 years,” Mr. Karzai told reporters at a news briefing in Helsinki, Finland, responding to a question about whether he has received CIA cash. “Monthly. Not a big amount. A small amount which has been used for various purposes.”

The CIA declined to comment on the matter.

Mr. Karzai, who is touring Northern Europe, made the remarks following his meeting with Finnish President Sauli Niinisto.

The U.S. isn’t the only country to supply the Afghan presidential palace with secret money. In 2010, Mr. Karzai acknowledged receiving bags full of euros from the government of Iran.

Afghan officials have said that these secret funds have been used by the president to reward supporters and buy loyalty from tribal leaders…

Time to take a second look at the proposal to cease foreign aid in Afghanistan?  Or is that still considered “a bit dramatic“?

By the way, if a U.S. company did what a federal agency has done by transferring money to Karzai, that company would be prosecuted under the anti-bribery provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

Money Jihad has previously covered the money that Hamid Karzai received from Iran here.

Peace in our time… if the price is right

The Taliban is willing to accept truce with the government of Afghanistan contingent on the replacement of U.S. military presence with U.S. “economic assistance,” according to a report published this month describing interviews of Taliban leaders conducted by the Royal United Services Institute.

Can you imagine the pain that the 9/11 victims’ families would endure if their tax dollars were spent on foreign aid to a Karzai-Taliban coalition government?  It is outrageous that our government would even consider negotiations under terms floated in the RUSI interviews.

England to Taliban: Let’s just kiss and say good-bye

The U.K. will pay a bribe to the Taliban to allow a safe exit of British troops from Afghanistan according to a report from the Pakistan Observer.

No source is named in the article, but there is a precedent for such an arrangement:  Afghan officials claimed in 2009 that Italy struck a deal with the Taliban to refrain from attacking Italian forces in Afghanistan.

In the uproar over the Italian scandal, it was reported that this behavior was fairly common among NATO forces:  “One Western military source told of payments made by Canadian soldiers stationed in the violent southern province of Kandahar, while another officer spoke of similar practices by the German army in northern Kunduz…  ‘I think more than 50 percent of NATO forces deployed in rural Afghanistan have such deals or at least have struck such deals’ to ensure peace,” a senior Afghan official said.

There has also been a steady stream of news and reports of foreign aid misappropriation and development aid subcontracting scandals that have helped line the pockets of the Taliban.

We don’t want to believe this Observer story, but it’s tough not to wonder…

UK-Taliban deal Britain to pay security money to Afghan Taliban for safe exit

Saturday, August 18, 2012 – Islamabad—A deal has been struck between Britain and Afghan Taliban under which London will pay security money to Afghan Taliban, area war lords, local elders and even Afghan officials for safe withdrawal of their men and heavy equipment in 2013 and early 2014.

The reports emanating from Kabul suggest the agreement was reached in mid July this year to speedy withdrawal of heavy military hardware in fourteen month period. The recent visits of British Defence Secretary Philip Hammond and other senior officials to Kabul can be seen in this context as UK wants quick withdrawal of their troops. The French Forces are also expected to complete their withdrawal process earlier than expected.

The reports further said other NATO forces are also expected to make similar arrangements with Afghan Taliban and other stakeholders to avoid loss of life and sophisticated technology, if they are attacked by Taliban on withdrawing convoys.

The deal facilitated by Afghan elders included provision of funds by the British to develop Taliban controlled areas.

Reports also said British troops in Helmund province have already started collecting data about their war machines, ammunition and men to make a safe exit.

The British are weighing their options to use Pakistani or Central Asian routes to withdraw their heavy equipment. It was also decided to airlift the most sophisticated weapons back to London for fear of loss or turning into hands of Taliban or other groups.

Several NATO countries are considering handing over their heavy equipment including tanks and armoured carriers and not the advanced equipment to newly set up Afghan army.

Washington is in contact with Taliban to determine their role in future created in Kabul after departure of US-led NATO forces in 2014.

No dollar amounts have ever been reported in the Italian case, or this new allegation involving the British.  But keep in mind as a baseline that ransoms have reportedly been paid by European governments to terrorist organizations in the $5 million to $10 million range per hostage.  How much more would the Taliban expect to guarantee safe passage out of their territory for all British troops?  Fifty million?  A hundred million?

Terror conspirator rewarded bomber’s widow

Taimour Abdulwahab blew himself up in Stockholm, Sweden, in 2010, injuring two people in the attack.  His widow who lives in Great Britain moved in with a friend shortly after the attack.  While there, she was wired £1,000 by Nasserdine Menni, who had conspired with Abdulwahab to carry out the Stockholm strike.

Her defense?  “It is a cultural thing that when someone passes away, you ask the family if they need anything.”

“Passes away”?  Yeah, like Muhammad Atta and Osama Bin Laden “passed away,” right?

From the Daily Record last month:

Stockholm terror trial: Bomber’s wife had money wired to her, court in Glasgow hears

THE wife of a man who blew himself up in a busy Stockholm street had money wired to her by an accused conspirator to further her husband’s terrorist aims, a court has heard.

Taimour Abdulwahab died in the explosion on December 11 2010 in the Bryggargatan area of the Swedish capital.

Nasserdine Menni, whose age is unknown, is on trial at the High Court in Glasgow charged with conspiring with Abdulwahab and others to further terrorist aims, which included the use of explosive devices in the commission of an act of terrorism directed against members of the Swedish public, with intent to murder them.

Abdulwahab’s wife, Mona Thwany, 29, gave evidence at the trial today and said that in the weeks following her husband’s death, she left the family home in Luton, Bedfordshire, with her three children after it was searched by police.

She stayed with a friend, Hemel Tellis, a 29-year-old science teacher also from Luton, for about two weeks before looking for a new place, Mrs Thwany told the court.

During that time, Menni, who Mrs Thwany said she only knew as Azzedin, sent £1,000 to her through Mrs Tellis’ bank account, she said.

Mrs Thwany told the court she did not know Menni personally but that she had seen him around and had probably heard her husband mention him.

She said: “It is a cultural thing that when someone passes away, you ask the family if they need anything.”

The court heard that Abdulwahab’s parents and sister lived in Sweden.

Mrs Thwany also told the jury that her son had changed his name from Osama but would not say what he had changed it to.

At one point during her evidence, trial Judge Lord Matthews gave Mrs Thwany a warning after she refused to answer certain questions.

As she took to the stand, she told the Advocate Depute Andrew Miller: “I am here for one reason and one reason only, and that is to assist with the case concerning Mr Menni.

“As you know, previously I have had contact with the police, so I am respectfully asking you to ask questions which are relevant to this case please. I wouldn’t want to incriminate myself.”

Lord Matthews said: “It will be for me to judge what questions are and are not relevant, so you just answer them.”

Later in the proceedings, Mrs Thwany refused to say her email address out loud over fears for her privacy, but the judge told her: “Whether you like to or not, you will just have to give us it.”

She eventually wrote the email address down and it was handed around the jury.

Menni is also charged with transferring money to or for the use of Abdulwahab, in the knowledge it would be used for the purposes of terrorism…

Oh, and “Cultural”?  No, it is religious.  It is common for terrorist groups such as Hamas to pay money to the families of suicide bombers.  This case illustrates how it is done privately by individual Islamists as well.  The common root is Islam, not “culture.”

Exposing the overpaid, incestuous sharia boards

An important article comes our way from the Spears Wealth Management Survey.  A few stunning quotations:

• “The most in-demand shariah scholars are paid $2,000 a day”
• “Some scholars charge around $1,000-$1,500 per hour of consultation — in addition to an annual bonus of between $10,000 and $20,000 per board seat”
• “Remuneration for a fixed shariah board membership can exceed $200,000 a year plus fees”
• “The top twenty shariah scholars in the world hold between fourteen and 85 board memberships each”
• ‘The top ten scholars in the world make up 40 per cent of all board memberships”
• The top five scholars “make up around 25 per cent of the entire boards across the globe”
• “The top two scholars share 51 per cent of their board memberships”

Read it all.  As Shariah Finance Watch has pointed out for a long time, the sharia advisers are paid quite the pretty penny.  But this piece really puts that in black and white, and points many of the broader flaws of governance in the sharia finance industry.

One cannot read this and still believe mainstream media assertions that sharia finance is somehow more ethical and less risky than conventional finance.  Without even getting into the moral problems of anti-Semitism and jihadist sympathies of the sharia scholars, this sector—from a purely financial standpoint—is hopelessly marred by corruption, shakedowns, conflicts of interest, nepotism, and lack of oversight.  Investors must take note.

I believe this article by Sophie McBain was first published around Apr. 26:

Islamic Finance’s ‘Scholar Problem’: Why Are Shariah Scholars Paid So Much?

Dollars for Scholars

IT MAY BE an unusual career move, but becoming a shariah scholar for an Islamic bank is nice work if you can get it. A quick poll of bankers, lawyers and academics working in Islamic finance revealed unanimous agreement that shariah scholars — who approve every new Islamic banking transaction to certify its compliance to Islamic shariah law — are paid ‘a lot’, but few volunteered figures. Welcome to the opaque world of Islamic finance, and the fledgling industry’s ‘scholar problem’.

Among those who did give figures on shariah scholar salaries, there was considerable variation. Professor Rodney Wilson, a member of the Durham Centre for Islamic Economics and Finance, says that the most in-demand shariah scholars are paid $2,000 a day. Reuters has quoted an unnamed banker as saying that some scholars charge around $1,000-$1,500 per hour of consultation — in addition to an annual bonus of between $10,000 and $20,000 per board seat.

Dr Murat Ünal, CEO of Funds@Work, an investment consultancy and Islamic finance specialist, says that remuneration for a fixed shariah board membership can exceed $200,000 a year plus fees, while advising on a large transaction such as a sukuk (Islamic bond) can generate commission running into millions of dollars. If this still doesn’t sound generous enough, consider that Funds@Work’s pioneering research into shariah scholars and their networks has found that the top twenty shariah scholars in the world hold between fourteen and 85 board memberships each.

There’s a reason for the inconsistency of these accounts: shariah scholar payments don’t have to be made public. And while conventional bankers have found themselves the target of a forceful backlash against bonuses, the quieter but equally insistent voices calling for limits to the influence and payment of shariah scholars struggle to find a platform.

The concerns of those campaigning for changes to the current shariah scholar system are critical to a fast-growing industry, which has the potential to bring millions of Muslims into banking for the first time and which offers a thoughtful critique of mainstream finance. The Islamic finance industry is predicted by Deutsche Bank almost to double to $1.8 trillion by 2016, but its economic potential may never be fulfilled because of its serious governance problems, with power concentrated in a small, ageing and reticent elite.

Tora Bora officials pay the Taliban

But first, some semi-related analysis…  Organizations like Al Qaeda can operate on a shoestring budget because they don’t have a ground force militia.  They have individual operatives in Asia and Africa sleeper cells in the West.  Many of their members, especially in the U.S. and Europe, are able to fund their own daily lives, pay their own rent, buy their groceries, etc.  Their operatives aren’t living hand-to-mouth with a band of fellow wasteland jihadists.

Groups like the Taliban and al-Shabaab, on the other hand, have paramilitary forces with a very physical presence in their communities.  They keep young men on the payroll who need to be fed, transported, clothed, and armed by the organization itself.  That is partly why the Taliban and al-Shabaab have even larger budgets than terrorist groups that have international reach.

The physical presence of the Taliban also gives them a distinct fundraising advantage.  They can intimidate the local population and shake them down for money.  They can even get money from local leaders who are theoretically on the same side as the Afghan central government and ISAF.

We overlooked this great article from Afghanistan Today (h/t @douglaswissing) last fall.  It describes how Afghan law enforcement, local politicians, and even members of the national parliament pay zakat as protection money to the Taliban.  The U.S. and UN have flawed contracting procedures that help fund the Taliban, but this article is a must-read for understanding how our ally is keeping the Taliban’s ground game alive too:

Currencies of protection

In eastern areas of high insurgent activity and low levels of conflict, there are growing signs of secretive payment systems for keeping state officials and security forces safe from attack. 

by Abdul Rahim Mohmand , Jalalabad , 28.9.2011

For some Afghan government officials in the eastern Nangarhar and Kunar provinces, paying off the Taliban on a regular basis with money or weapons and ammunition is the most reliable way of staying alive.

“We pay so they don’t kill us, that’s how we save ourselves. And the Taliban are happy with the sum and leave us alone.”

“My older brother works as a senior law-enforcement official in Jalalabad, and I pay local Taliban every month on his behalf from 100,000 to 200,000 afghanis (2,000 to 4,000 US dollars),” said Abdul R, whose full name and his brother’s post are withheld for security reasons.

“We pay so they don’t kill us, that’s how we save ourselves. And the Taliban are happy with the sum and leave us alone,” he added.

Libya spends $1.4b on Islamist rebels & waste

Remember the $135 million in U.S. financial aid promised to Libyan rebels and their newly forming Islamist government?  Or perhaps you’ll remember the €70 million ($90 million USD) from the European Commission humanitarian aid department (ECHO), €20 million from Sweden, over $15 million from the U.K. in aircraft and ships, and other EU member aid for a sum of $195 million in total European aid to Libya?  Well, you can kiss it all good-bye.  It has vanished.

The Libyan National Transitional Council, which has received and doled out much of the international aid to the Islamist rebels who fought Qaddafi, has bled over a billion dollars in recent months.  The NTC has squandered so much money that it will suspend its welfare for Muslim militiamen.  Corruption in the third world is one thing, but handing out over a billion dollars—much of it in foreign aid from developed countries dealing with their own debt crises—to heavily armed Islamic fighters is an insane abomination.

From RT on Apr. 14:

Libya freezes rewards for ex-rebels over mass fraud

Libya’s National Transitional Council has suspended a multi-million-dollar payout program to former anti-Gaddafi rebels after admitting it was steeped in fraud. Officials cited duplicate payouts, and claims from impostors and even the dead.

­Since last year’s overthrow of longtime leader Muammar Gaddafi, the National Transition Council, Libya’s temporary replacement government, has promised to reward ordinary citizens who joined the rebellion.

The program began three months ago, with former rebels being given a one-time payment of up to $3,200 – a sizable sum for Libya. NTC has already paid out $1.4 billion.

Now, the handouts have stopped.

“Millions of dinars allocated to revolutionaries were lost in illegitimate payments to non-beneficiaries,” announced NTC spokesman Mohammed Harizi.

Paying people money based on nothing but unverifiable information that they fought in the civil war always appeared an idea ripe for abuse. Since the war was fought largely by ragtag groups of militiamen, many units did not even write down the names of those who joined them, much less outline their exact role in the conflict.

The NTC delegated the job of making reward lists to the tribal councils who recruited the militias in the first place.

Whether through lack of information or integrity, the lists have been a disaster. The NTC claims that some legitimate claimants were not selected, other names were listed more than once, and some names belong to people who hadn’t shot a bullet in the conflict.

“The corruption is too much,” said Harizi. “Some of the people on the lists aren’t even alive.”

This follows the fiasco of a similar program that provided treatment abroad for the war wounded. Instead of those who suffered real injuries, many entirely healthy Libyans with good connections to the tribal leaders who decided the lists got sponsored trips abroad. The program has also now been curtailed.

Following the announcement, some former rebel fighters who missed out on their payouts staged a protest outside the NTC headquarters in Tripoli, reportedly shooting at the building.

The NTC has promised to restructure the reward program in the coming months, but it is unclear how they will obtain more reliable information for future lists.

How Afghan contracts line Taliban pockets

In its August report, the U.S. Commission on Wartime Contracting provided nuts & bolts descriptions of how American taxpayer dollars have ended up in Taliban hands.

One piece of visual evidence from the report shows how the Taliban shakes down Afghan subcontractors working on U.S. reconstruction contracts.  This letter is from the “Islamic Imarat of Afghanistan” (Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan), which is how the Taliban refer to themselves.

The Commission elaborates on how the subcontracting problem takes place (internal citations omitted):

In Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. funds have been diverted to insurgents and warlords as a cost of doing business in the country. In Afghanistan, insurgents, warlords, or other groups control or contest parts of the country. They threaten to destroy projects and harm personnel. The Commission finds it particularly alarming that Afghan subcontractors on U.S.-funded convoys, road construction, and development projects pay insurgent groups for protection.

While there is no official estimate of the amount of U.S. funds diverted to insurgents, it certainly comes to a significant percentage of a project’s cost. The largest source of funding for the insurgency is commonly recognized to be money from the drug trade. During a March 2011 trip to Afghanistan, experts told the Commission that extortion of funds from U.S. construction projects and transportation contracts is the insurgent’s second-largest funding source.

Afghan contractors hired under the Host Nation Trucking program have turned to Afghan private security contractors. These Afghan subcontractors in turn pay off the insurgents or warlords who control the roads their convoys must use.

Almost 6,000 Afghan truck movements a month are funded under the program. Diversion on this scale did not occur in Iraq, where the U.S. military provided most of the escorts for similar convoys. Many contracts other than transportation provide opportunities for diversion:

• Afghan subcontractors on a USAID community development program in Kunar Province were paying up to 20 percent of their total subcontract value to insurgents for “protection.” The USAID IG estimated that over $5 million of program funding was at risk of falling into insurgents’ hands.
• A congressional staff report cited Afghan Taliban demands for pay-offs from businesses and households for electricity generated by USAID-funded projects. This occurs in Taliban-controlled areas like Helmand Province.

Because they directly strengthen the insurgency, diverted funds pose far more danger than other kinds of waste and have a disproportionately adverse impact on the U.S. effort.

H/t JihadWatch.

St. Andrews reconsiders £100,000 Syrian gift

One facet of the money jihad is for Middle Eastern countries to use their wealth to buy influence and steer education and discourse at Western universities to a pro-Arab or pro-Islamic point of view.  Saudi Arabia is the master of this.  It turns out that Syria also does this.  It gave prestigious St. Andrews £100,000 toward a Syrian studies center.  Now, under the harsh glare of public scrutiny, Prince William’s alma mater is having second thoughts.  From the Guardian (h/t EoZ) on Apr. 27:

A prestigious British university is to review the work of one of its academic research centres because its funding was arranged by the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad, the Guardian can reveal.

The University of St Andrews, where Prince William and Kate Middleton studied, has received more than £100,000 in funding for its centre for Syrian studies with the assistance of Syria‘s ambassador to the UK, Sami Khiyami.

Following questions from the Guardian about its relations with figures associated with the regime – and “in view of significant international concerns about recent events in Syria” – a spokesman for St Andrews said the university would be reviewing the centre’s work “to ensure its high academic standards are maintained”.

The university’s association with the Assad regime has come under scrutiny in the wake of the violent crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in Syria which is estimated to have claimed 450 lives so far…

Black coats, little hats, and moneybags

Hamid Karzai and Uncle Moneybags

First we found out that Iran is funding the Taliban to kill NATO troops.  Now we find that Iran is also filling stuffing sacks of full of euros for Hamid Karzai.  That’s called hedging your bets.  From Dawn on Oct. 25 (hat tip to Rantburg):

Karzai admits receiving ‘bags of money’ from Iran

KABUL: Afghan president Hamid Karzai admitted Monday that his chief of staff had received “bags of money” from Iran but insisted the payment was transparent and a form of aid from a friendly country.

Cash payments “are done by various friendly countries to help the presidential office and to help the expenses…” said Karzai at a press conference in Kabul.

The New York Times reported Saturday that Karzai’s chief of staff, Umar Daudzai, has been receiving regular cash payments from Iran, which is trying to expand its influence in the presidential palace in Kabul.

“The government of Iran has been assisting us with five or six or seven hundred thousand euros once or twice every year, that is an official aid,” said Karzai.

“He (Daudzai) is receiving the money on my instructions,” he added.

The newspaper, citing unnamed Afghan officials said the payments total millions of dollars and go into a secret fund that Daudzai and Karzai have used to pay Afghan lawmakers, tribal elders and even Taliban commanders to secure their loyalty.

“It’s basically a presidential slush fund,” one Western official is quoted by the paper as saying. “Daudzai’s mission is to advance Iranian interests.” – AFP

Do as feds say, not as feds do: Contractor slammed for bribing Taliban

The Obama administration has long supported a well-funded Taliban “reintegration” program.  Although the government of Afghanistan has delayed the implementation of the program, the U.S. has dedicated $100 million for the effort to bribe “non-ideological” Taliban away from the jihadist cause.

It’s okay when Pres. Obama, Sec. Clinton, Gen. Petraeus, and Amb. Holbrooke support it, but when an American contractor inadvertently does a similar thing, it’s time for an investigation and mass firings.  From Foreign Policy’s “Turtle Bay” on Sept. 30:

U.S. tax money goes to Taliban

A prominent U.S. contractor in Afghanistan may have inadvertently funneled millions of dollars in U.S. taxpayer dollars to Taliban insurgents in the form of bribes and protection money, according to a review by the inspector general of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

The suspected payments were allegedly made by Afghan subcontractors of Development Alternatives, Inc. (DAI), a company based in Bethesda, Maryland that carries out USAID reconstruction projects in some of Afghanistan’s most remote and risky war zones. Afghan representatives of the company in Jalalabad are also under investigation for charging kickbacks to Afghan companies in exchange for USAID contracts, according to the report.

A spokesman for the company said that it has fired 17 Afghan employees who operated at or near the company’s Jalalabad office, and restored greater international auditing and oversight over the operations.

“We’re doing outstanding, mission-critical development work right at the tip of the spear, and we’re proud of it,” said DAI President and CEO James Boomgard. “And DAI is leading the way in addressing those problems. Without giving up on our commitment to support U.S. Government efforts even in the most unstable regions of Afghanistan, we have, when necessary, closed down projects entirely, stopped working in problem areas, fired employees — and done so in a very public, very accountable way, not through the back door — and continually tightened monitoring and accounting procedures.”

The review began with an examination of the costs of a British security company, Edinburgh International, on three USAID projects operated by Development Alternatives. The report found “no indication that Edinburgh International had misused funds to pay the Taliban or others in exchange for protection,” noting that it had “employed a strong system of controls over cash transactions.”

However, U.S. and DAI officials “expressed concerns that insurgents may have extorted protection payments” amounting to as much $5.2 million in 2009 from Afghan representatives carrying out projects in remote areas under the USAID-funded Local Governance and Community Development program…

Read the rest here.