Money jihad news: recommended reading

• Al Qaeda and kidnapping kingpin Mokhtar Belmokhtar part ways.  Like most divorces, it’s about money… more>>

• Ever noticed while doing Internet searches that several dubious entities yield page after page of strictly positive search results, with no negative coverage?  This isn’t just misleading—it’s a threat to the banking system… more>>

• Nidal Hasan has been paid $278,000 of your tax dollars since he killed 13 soldiers… more>>

• Don’t want to help fuel the conflict in Syria? Then don’t buy Roman and Byzantine artifacts stolen from Syrian cemeteries and churches… more>>

 

Kidnapped for ransom: ex-hostages describe melted plastic, electrocution sessions

Freed captive:  “Death would have been a relief”

Grisly report from Sinai mortician:  corpses from Bedouin kidnappers always show signs of torture to get their families to pay ransoms

Thousands of dollars are demanded for each Eritrean kidnapped as they attempt to cross borders in search of a better life.  When the tribes, terrorists, and criminal syndicates that abduct them don’t get the money they demand, they begin torturing their victims.  In some cases, they do this even while the victim’s families are forced to listen on the telephone.

Please listen to just five minutes from this BBC radio report (sound begins after a few seconds):

The human tragedy is the most shocking element of this story, but keep in mind the equally dangerous result of how kidnappers use ransom money to help buy weapons and perpetrate further acts of violence or terrorism.

The BBC’s Mike Thomson has since followed up with this additional report worth listening to.

Money jihad news: recommended reading

• Cyber attacks are often treated as technology news. But now it’s more about bucks than bits… more>>

• So generous of Venezuela to have given a diplomatic passport Hezbollah agent Ghazi Nasr al Din . How many more operatives like him are immune from baggage searches at customs?  More>>

• You’re a kidnapped Filipino, and your government won’t pay for your ransom. Why your government is right… more>>

• The Palestinian Authority denies paying salaries to terrorists in Israeli prisons.  I beg to disagree, says prisoner’s wife… more>>

• Are the FARC and Al Qaeda partnering in a cocaine-for-cash and weapons trade? And you thought cash-for-clunkers was bad… more>>

AP deems terrorist ransom demands “pragmatic”

In reference to the Algerian hostage standoff that left 37 captives dead, the Associated Press has painted an almost sympathetic portrait of Mokhtar Belmokhtar, the lead abductor.

Starting off with a headline claiming that Belmokhtar preferred making money to killing hostages, the AP further asserts that Belmokhtar was “known as the more pragmatic and less brutal of the commanders of an increasingly successful offshoot of al-Qaeda,” that “those who have dealt directly with him say his cell has never executed a captive,” and that Belmokhtar denounced actions that “caused many civilian casualties.”

Any exceptions to this history of Belmokhtar’s alleged benevolence, intimates the AP, may have involved friendly fire by security forces attempting to rescue hostages.  The AP inserts this whiff of suspicion about the rescuers twice in the article saying, “It’s unclear if the two died from friendly fire,” and later on, “It’s unclear how many were killed by friendly fire.”  Just once, couldn’t the AP have written, “It’s unclear how many were killed by Belmokhtar’s men”?

The AP does not even seem to consider that Belmokhtar may use the money from ransoms to purchase more arms, recruit and train more terrorist operatives, and carry out more abductions and terrorist attacks that kill people.  The AP appears to cast Belmokhtar’s motives as primarily financial without identifying his religious and ideological motivations.  Why didn’t Belmokhtar pursue a career as a businessman, or even as a crime boss, rather than as a terrorist, if his motives were mostly financial?

The one saving grace in this well-researched but sadly biased article comes in the dead last paragraph—the least important paragraph for journalists:

“Before he led this operation in Algeria, that was the sentiment I had, that Belmokhtar was less brutal,” [hostage negotiator Moustapha Chaffi] said by telephone on Friday. “Now I find myself thinking that they are all terrorists. That they all take hostages. That they are all fanatics. So to draw a difference between them is really, really relative. There’s in fact no difference anymore.”

That insight should have been the lead paragraph.

New front in economic warfare: business data held for ransom

The cyber-attacks originate “overseas,” often from Russia, but can Iranian-backed hackers or groups like “Izz ad-Din al-Qassam” be far behind?  Surely they can get a mullah to declare fatwa saying that holding data for ransom is permissible under Islamic law, yes?  As long as the purpose is to destroy the “infidel” Western financial system, and especially if the ransom money is used to advance jihad.  From CNN Money:

The article accompanying this video in December also said that “Security firm McAfee on Thursday released a report warning that a massive cyberattack on 30 U.S. banks has been planned, with the goal of stealing millions of dollars from consumers’ bank accounts.”

Piracy still a viable business model

It is remarkable that “In the past six months, there has been no successful hijacking of a merchant vessel off Somalia.”  This is thanks largely to more armed guards on merchant vessels and the presence of NATO forces.

Yet, warns the NATO commander, “the business model is still intact” for Somali pirates, who have soaked corporations, insurance companies, and their governments of hundreds of millions of dollars.  The opportunity here is to build on recent successes and bring the Somali pirates to their knees once and for all.  It’s not the time for the NATO fleet to sail home yet.

From Reuters:

World must not let up pressure on Somali pirates – NATO

By Adrian Croft

BRUSSELS | Mon Dec 17, 2012

(Reuters) – Pirate attacks off the coast of Somalia have dropped sharply this year but piracy remains a viable “business model” and could bounce back if international naval forces in the region are cut back, the outgoing commander of the NATO mission said on Monday.

Hijackings of ships in a vast area of the Indian Ocean off Somalia have dropped to seven in the first 11 months of this year compared to 24 in the whole of 2011, although Dutch Commodore Ben Bekkering said 136 hostages were still being held.

In the past six months, there has been no successful hijacking of a merchant vessel off Somalia, said Bekkering, who has handed over command of NATO’s Ocean Shield anti-piracy force to Italian Rear-Admiral Antonio Natale.

Pirates operating from the Somali coast have raked in hundreds of millions of dollars in ransoms from hijacking ships, leading NATO, the European Union and other nations to dispatch warships to patrol the area.

Merchant ships responded with tighter security measures, including greater use of private armed security guards.

Bekkering attributed the decline in piracy to the naval patrols, the heightened security on the merchant ships, putting suspected pirates on trial outside Somalia and the Somali authorities’ counter-piracy campaigns.

Some pirates had abandoned their camps, seeing them as too risky, and taken refuge in villages, he said.

But the gains in fighting piracy were reversible if the world’s navies eased up on their efforts, he said.

“I am convinced, if navy ships would disappear, the piracy model would still be intact,” he told a news conference.

“Yes, they don’t deploy that much to sea but the leadership of the piracy is still there and if they hold their breath for a little while and nations (take) their navy ships back, I am pretty sure that the business model is still intact.”

HOSTAGES

The financial crisis has led many Western countries to slash their defence budgets, but Bekkering said he saw no sign NATO nations’ commitment to the anti-piracy operation was waning.

In March, the alliance extended its counter-piracy mission until the end of 2014.

Bekkering said about 16 to 18 ships from all international forces were on patrol in the Indian Ocean at any one time and this was the “bare minimum” needed to patrol such a vast area.

Pirates are still holding five ships with 136 hostages of various nationalities…

African refugees kidnapped to fund militants

Sudanese and Eritrean refugees are being abducted by Bedouin gangsters for exorbitant ransoms.  Human rights activists refer to the ongoing terror campaign as “the world’s forgotten hostage crisis.”  Surely, the Muslim Brotherhood government of Egypt will do something to put a stop to this racket within their own borders, right?  Don’t hold your breath.

The Atlantic (h/t @ChallaHuAkbar) has the latest this overlooked crime spree:

CAIRO — Memories of torture still haunt 17 year-old Ksamet five weeks after she was released from a small, underground room where Bedouins held her captive for two months in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. She was repeatedly raped, beaten, and burned as family and friends abroad raised money for her $25,000 ransom. “They tortured us almost every day,” Ksamet, from Eritrea, said through an interpreter. “And every week, if we didn’t pay, they’d torture us even more.”

The young woman is one of hundreds of Africans who have been held against their will in the lawless region that borders Israel, often severely abused and largely ignored by the international community. Bedouin are holding over 1,000 people, and Egyptian police are detaining 500 more, according to Meron Estefanos, a Sweden-based Eritrean activist and radio presenter who has spoken to hundreds of Eritreans held hostage in the Sinai.

The steady flow of people north through the Sinai has taken place since 2006 and initially consisted mainly of Sudanese migrants paying to be smuggled to economic opportunities in Israel. In 2008, many Eritreans seeking asylum in Israel started to come, too. The vast majority were trying to escape poverty and conscription under an oppressive dictatorship where indefinite national service is mandatory for most — frequently into their 40s and 50s. Legally leaving the country is nearly impossible…

While many Eritreans taken hostage in the Sinai had paid smugglers to take them to Israel, more and more of those held hostage over the past three years never even had a desire to go there. Many have been kidnapped in or around refugee camps in Sudan and Ethiopia or on Sudan’s borders — or sold by rogue smugglers or corrupt Sudanese border guards — and brought to Sinai where Bedouin extort them for cash. “I had no intention of going to Israel,” said Ksamet, who left behind two sick parents after the military drafted her. “I wanted to go to Khartoum.”

Instead, her and her fiancé, who was also fleeing military service, made it just across the border to Kassala, a city in eastern Sudan only a dozen miles from Eritrea. But after four days there, her smugglers — whom she had paid about $3,300 — sold her to members of the Rashaida tribe of Eritrea and Sudan, notorious for trafficking people and weapons up the Red Sea coast. Ksamet’s fiancé ran free before they could get ahold of him. “I still don’t know where he is,” she said.

Hostages report being subjected to electrocution, burned with molten plastic, beaten with chains and rods, hung by their hair, and threatened with organ harvesting, among other torture methods, according to refugee-aid groups and activists. Sexual abuse ranges from rape and the burning of genitalia to sodomy with heated objects — even to children.

Eritrean villages sometimes sell off homes, livestock, and jewelry to free relatives from the kidnappers; ransoms can reach $50,000. The Bedouin put their captives on the phone with family in the diaspora, beating them so their relatives hear them scream as they plead for help.

The Bedouin hold them for months on average, and many people do not survive. Dumped corpses litter the desert, with 4,000 dead over past five years, according to a September report Estefanos co-authored through Tilburg University, in the Netherlands, and Europe External Policy Advisors, a research center in Brussels. “The treatment has gotten to a level where they would rather die than live,” said an employee at a refugee-aid organization in Cairo.

Those raising money often pool funds to free women and children first. Ksamet was one of three women in a group of 14 that also included children. “I was the only woman left” after the other two paid their ransom, Ksamet said. “So they prioritized me.” Often even when the ransom is met, activists say, the Bedouin merely collect the money and sell their human haul on to the next group of kidnappers, ensuring more rounds of beatings and begging…

What the article doesn’t detail, like many other news reports on the subject, is what exactly the Bedouin do with the money they receive.  But according to a Guardian article earlier this year, the beneficiaries of the human trafficking and weapons trafficking program are “Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip.”  A separate AP report suggested that Sinai militants may use the money for cross-border attacks against Israel.

Banks should think twice before paying ransoms

If somebody is kidnapped by Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines or by Al Qaeda in North Africa, and somebody pays the ransom, do you think that the money is used by the terrorists just to cover the costs of the abduction?

Or do you think that the ransom money will be used by jihadists to buy more arms and to carry out more terrorist operations?

The latter is accurate.  What’s perplexing is that paying ransoms that enrich terrorists hasn’t received much attention until now.  Better late than never, one supposes.

Everybody should be wary of paying ransoms, but banks have a particular cause for concern.  A warning from Thomson Reuters late last month:

Kidnap for ransom a terror finance threat that could legally ensnare banks, sources say

Banks involved in payments to al-Qaeda affiliated kidnappers could face civil, or even criminal, penalties, experts said after the U.S. Treasury Department’s top terror finance official recently called such kidnappings for ransom a top terrorism-financing threat.

During the past eight years, terrorist organizations around the world have collected roughly $120 million in ransom payments, Treasury Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence David Cohen said during a speech delivered to Chatham House, a London think tank, earlier this month.

Cohen said that while al-Qaeda has experienced a decrease in funding, its affiliates in the Sahel region of North Africa and Yemen “are doing better financially, in large part by raising enormous sums of money through kidnapping for ransom.”

He added that two other terrorist groups — Tehrik-e Taliban in Pakistan and Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines – have also generated millions of dollars through kidnapping in recent years.

“[The al-Qaeda affiliates] have turned this age-old tactic into a successful money-generating scheme, turning kidnapping for ransom into our most significant terrorist financing threat today. The numbers speak for themselves,” Cohen said.

Although Cohen mentioned in passing the piracy off the coast of Somalia, he did not mention that some of the ransom money paid to the pirates has reportedly ended up in the hands of al-Qaeda-linked Islamist group al Shabaab.

Dennis Lormel, who previously headed the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Terrorist Financing Operations Section and now runs an anti-money laundering consultancy, said that while drug trafficking and wealthy donors probably contribute the most to terrorist coffers, “kidnapping has certainly increased quite a bit in the last few years.”

Possible criminal charges

Lormel said that in the wake of the USA PATRIOT Act, which requires financial institutions to do more to combat terrorist financing, banks should at least consider possible legal risks when transferring funds to kidnapping hot spots for customers or turning over bulk cash lots without getting valid business explanations for the transactions.

“If you’re facilitating the payment of money to terrorists then you could be criminally culpable. U.S. authorities have to decide who they want to go after, but banks could be culpable,” he said.

Seven ways to stop funding terror

Money Jihad has previously proposed methods to limit zakat and hawala—two major mechanisms for funding terror.  Here’s a more comprehensive set of our recommendations that would reduce terrorist financing overall:

1. Drill, baby, drill.  The U.S. should expand offshore oil drilling, open federal lands for drilling, ease its permitting process for new refineries, encourage hydraulic fracturing methods that tap previously inaccessible energy sources underground, and approve the Keystone XL pipeline.  Increasing domestic U.S. and Western Hemisphere energy production will reduce reliance on Persian Gulf oil supplies and thereby minimize the profits reaped by hostile, foreign regimes that sponsor terror.
2. Eliminate foreign aid to Pakistan.  Pakistan uses its ISI spy service to fund the Taliban, the Haqqani network, and Lashkar-e-Taiba.  Continuing to waste money on Pakistan is not only wasteful when we can least afford it, but it is suicidal.
3. Study the true enemy and threat.  Among the most important concepts for the Western public to understand are:
   • The Koran calls upon Muslims to strive with their lives and wealth for the cause of jihad (Chapter 9, Verse 41).
   • Zakat, one of the five pillars of Islam, shall be allocated to several categories in accordance with the Koran 9:60, one of which is for those waging jihad for Allah.
   • Islam imposes the jizya tax on “infidels” living in Muslims territory (Koran 9:29), even today.
   • Islam calls for taxes on Muslims apart from zakat such as khums and ushr which finance terrorist organizations throughout the Islamic world.
   • Sharia finance is a destructive, opaque financial system that has kept Islamic economies in tatters for centuries.
   • Sharia banks and halal businesses are involved in financing terrorism.
   • Radical Muslims believe, as Anwar al-Awlaki instructed them, that there is a basis in Islamic law for stealing (through robbery, welfare fraud, tax cheating, etc.), especially if the theft takes place to finance jihad.

   If we fail to acknowledge Islam as the animating force behind terror finance, we’ll get confused and aim at the wrong targets.  For example, we’ve spent billions of dollars complying with extensive bureaucratic requirements such as currency reports that have yielded minimal results.

4. Launch a new offensive against Muslim American charities and entities that fund terrorism.  Pick a few of the highest profile ones and make an example of them by prosecuting their leaders and dressing them in orange jumpsuits.  Prosecute Islamic Relief USA under the laws against providing material support for terrorism.  Prosecute the Council on American-Islamic Relations under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.  Strip the halal food certifier IFANCA and the mosque deed financier North American Islamic Trust of their tax-exempt status.

Tribal chiefs reject al-Shabaab’s tax bill

In late June, government forces captured several strongholds that al-Shabaab used to collect revenues from the public.  While al-Shabaab a terrorist organization with one of the biggest budgets in the world, it has a high burn rate.  It uses its money to feed, clothe, and arm its fighters, and to administer its perpetual war against the population and the government.  Without the revenue bases and facing continued military opposition, al-Shabaab has issued a plea for funds from the same tribes they have oppressed.  From Sabahi on June 26:

Al-Shabaab leader appeals for donations as security forces push forward

Following the capture of a number of key town and port cities by Somali and allied forces in recent weeks, the al-Shabaab movement is beginning to show significant financial strain.

In an audio message posted in an Islamist chat room on Saturday (June 23rd), Sheikh Yusuf Isse “Kaba-kutukade” — the al-Shabaab leader for Lower Shabelle — called on Somali businessmen, expatriates and supporters in exile to make donations to the organisation so it can defend itself and protect the dwindling areas under its control.

“I urge you to respond to this movement with goodness and virtue, and give your money and sacrifice yourselves in the name of the true path of jihad,” he said in his message.

Fadumo Mohamed Sheikh Nur of the Somali Ministry of Defence said al-Shabaab is showing severe signs of financial strain and has regressed in its fighting tactics as a result of internal conflicts within the group.

“Al-Shabaab announced it was under the strain of a severe financial crisis and may not be able to continue fighting [...] because their ammunition has run out and because of the low morale among senior Somali and foreign leaders, some of whom are detained at the central prison while others surrendered to the government forces over the past four months,” she told Sabahi.

She added that Somali troops are expanding the scope of their fighting in an attempt to crush terrorist groups in the central and southern parts of the country before the transitional government’s mandate expires on August 20th.

Political analyst Amran Jama Aadan said al-Shabaab is becoming unable to defend its strongholds because of the lack of equipment, training and money. As a result, the organisation has resorted to hit and run attacks and guerrilla warfare on military convoys.

Fortunately, the tribal elders aren’t interested in helping al-Shabaab make up for its revenue gap.  More recently on July 3:

Somali tribes reject al-Shabaab call for financing its war efforts

Somali tribal leaders and officials have condemned al-Shabaab’s recent calls for tribes to join the group’s war efforts and fund its terrorist activities.

“Somali tribes have suffered from al-Shabaab’s cruel and criminal activities and now all tribes have become well aware that al-Shabaab is their enemy and the enemy of peace, progress and prosperity,” said Mohamed Hassan Haad, leader of the Hawiye tribe, one of the largest and most widespread tribes in the central areas.

“The tribes have also realised that al-Shabaab has been a plague on the people of Somalia, which is why Somali tribes cannot be accomplices with this group or respond to periodic calls from its leaders,” he said.

Spain gives €8-9 million for jihad

The author cited in this article makes the identical statement that Money Jihad has been making for a couple years about ransom payments from European governments serving to finance terrorists.  From the figures provided, Spain tops the list at having given eight to nine million Euros to the jihadists (see here for a $5 million ransom the Spaniards paid to Al Qaeda in 2010).

But the analyst left out France, which paid an all-time record ransom of $15 to $20 million to the Taliban according to published reports last year.

Keep in mind that ransoms are justified by Islamic law, but violate international secular law.  By agreeing to pay the jihadi kidnappers, we are putting their law above our own.

From ANSAMed, h/t The Religion of Peace:

Terrorism: Ransom money finance AQIM

Analyst, Western states paid millions of Euros

(ANSAmed) – TUNIS, 26 APRIL – Several Western countries are to blame if Al Qaida in Islamic Maghreb not only extended its activities all over the Sahel, but also cast its sinister shadow on several other countries in Western Africa; indeed, Western countries decided to pay the ransom for their fellow countrymen and women who had been either directly kidnapped by Al Qaida or given to the Jihadist group by other groups. This is what Serge Daniel maintains in the book he wrote on this characteristic of Al Qaida in Islamic Maghreb, whose title is “AQIM, the kidnapping industry”, a sort of Bible for those who try to clear out the mystery surrounding this blood-thirsty and very determined group and its activities of.

In an interview on the site Maliweb, Serge Daniel talked about some elements which, in his own opinion, are objective and cannot be questioned. Western countries are ready to pay several millions of dollars or Euros for the release of their fellow countrymen and women whose kidnapping is managed by AQIM. The analyst provides a long and detailed list of paid ransoms, there are also some “voids” which may raise suspicions. According to Daniel, in recent years money from Spain (between EUR 8 and 9 mln), Canada (“some millions”), Austria (between EUR 2.5 and 3.5 mln), Germany (five millions) has flowed in AQIM’s cash. Italy is included in the list too: according to the expert, Italy paid EUR 3 mln for the release of its hostages. Switzerland’s position is quite peculiar: although it was the only country which did not provide exact figures, Daniel labels Switzerland as “very generous with kidnappers”.

A huge amount of money has circulated for all these years, although individual States have officially denied allegations and suspicions of having paid the ransom, they have actually created a way to negotiate with dangerous individuals, departing from the international principle which says “do not negotiate with terrorists”. But what has Al Qaida in Maghreb done and continues to do with the money? It funds its complex organisation structure, it buys weapons and equips the men it chooses to populate its ranks. We are talking about actual hiring, because it is hard to think that all militiamen are driven by a religious motivation; it is far more likely that they are “mainly and simply” attracted by money. Daniel does not write about this in his book, he just mentions an episode: among Jihadists entering Timbuktu there were some young men from his own Mali city who had moved to Libya to work. It was just found out that the money they used to send home were directly taken form the cash of one of Al Qaida’s Katibats (brigades) in Maghreb.(ANSAmed).