Terror budgets illustrated

The Taliban, Hezbollah, FARC, al-Shabaab, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and Hamas are the best funded terrorist groups worldwide.  Published estimates of their budgets vary by source.  The dots in the graph below reflect the highest and lowest estimates reflected in millions of U.S. dollars for each group:

This chart is an update to Money Jihad’s earlier post here.  The only significant change is the inclusion of Lashkar-e-Taiba, for which revenue estimates now range from $5 million to $100 million annually.  Al-Shabaab has faced revenue setbacks in the past year, but revised figures are not yet available.

The Taliban’s jihad tax

Traditional terror finance analysis has regarded “revolutionary taxation” imposed on businesses and capitalists as a tactic of urban guerrillas such as Basque separatists, and demands for protection payments are commonly associated with the mafia.

But another group is increasingly adopting these techniques in Karachi, Pakistan—the Taliban.

It’s not really new for the Taliban.  (They’ve been extorting money for businessmen and peasants alike for years as zakat for jihad.)  But collecting such money in Karachi represents increased power and autonomy of the Pakistani Taliban, and it’s a trend that must be monitored closely.

This story from the Global Post in February slipped by us somehow:

Pakistan’s ‘Terror Tax’

The Taliban is embracing mafia-style tactics in Pakistan’s wayward port city of Karachi.

KARACHI, Pakistan — In November, armed men from the Pakistani Taliban showed up in front of Ali Hussain’s factory, asking for money in exchange for protection.

But Hussain didn’t have the $100,000 these men wanted.

“Just tell them to go to another factory,” he said to his chief security guard, whom called him on his office phone, as he watched the scene unfold on a security monitor.

Two of them raised their AK-47s toward the tiny camera outside the gate. “You pay us, we protect you. You decide not to give us the money, we’ll kill your only son.”

It’s a scene playing out with ever-greater frequency in some parts of Karachi, Pakistan’s wayward northern port city, as the Taliban embraces mafia-style tactics to help line its pockets.

When four days later, more armed men showed up, Hussain had no other choice but to pay. Before he could hand over the check, he heard the sound of indiscriminate gunfire.

Hussain’s 33-year-old son, the factory’s production manager, was shot. A bullet pierced through his side, ripping apart his spleen and part of his pancreas.

In 2012 alone, police said at least 115 different establishments in Karachi have been victims of what locals now dub the “terror tax.” Many more such incidents may not have been reported to authorities. While other mafia groups are also guilty of such shakedowns in Karachi, the police said the Taliban is one of the worst offenders.

The Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehrik-i-Taliban, or TTP, is an umbrella group of Islamic militants originating from Pakistan’s northern tribal region. The Pakistani Taliban is not related to the Taliban in Afghanistan, which has a vastly different history and identity.

Just three years ago, it was the Awami National Party (ANP) — a left-wing, secular group affiliated with Pakistan’s large Pashtun population — that controlled the area of Karachi where Hussain’s factory operates. Though ANP-linked men frequently asked small business owners for “protection money,” many businesses were left alone because they already supported the party financially or politically.

These days the Taliban has mostly driven out the ANP. The party’s graffiti and flags, which once plastered neighborhoods here, are gone. Inside mosques, flyers now let worshippers know who is in charge. The flyers instruct businesses in need of protection that the Taliban is available and a satellite phone number is listed.

The Taliban has taken hold of parts of Karachi with disturbing ease, taking advantage of endemic poverty, a corrupt municipal government and a growing immigrant population. Some supporters of the Taliban said the group’s presence has rid the area of immoral activities like drugs and prostitution, making them more popular.

Security analysts worry that — with the Taliban’s growing presence in Karachi — Pakistan’s stores of nuclear weapons and other arms could fall into the wrong hands. Militants attacked a key Karachi naval base in August 2012 that some suspect houses part of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal.

Bashir Jan, an ANP official in Karachi, said when the Taliban first began operating in the area, the group had little choice but to withdraw.

“At first, we didn’t do anything,” he said. “But then, when our activists were found dead, we began listening.”

With free run of the streets, the Taliban is now cleaning up on its protection rackets.

Akram Mahmoud, a shop owner in northwestern Karachi, said he pays the Taliban about $30 every month. The sum is an entire year’s worth of tuition for his son, who is in elementary school.

Although many businesses report extortion to the Karachi police, rarely do they respond. One Karachi police officer, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said police are hesitant to even enter large parts of northern Karachi.

“If someone is stupid enough to report a crime, the Karachi police simply file a report. Too many security personnel have already died just for walking into these streets,” he said.

City officials and political activists say that to effectively fight the Taliban in Karachi, a strong police force is vital.

“Instead the police sit and cower inside their stations. We need a better solution, a better police force,” said an ANP official.

But police officers insist they are no match for the Taliban…

Read the rest of the article here.  Declaring martial law has been rumored as a possible solution to this problem.

Ex-banker: Taliban funded by sharia finance

Muhammad Aamir, a retired Pakistani banker, admits that, “It is true that Taliban militants receive financial support through the Islamic banking system, but there is no proof because these illegal transactions are never properly investigated,” according to an article from Central Asia Online last week.

Muhammad Junaid, a banker currently working in Peshawar, says he is familiar with three account holders who work closely with terrorists receive over $50K monthly from Islamic banks.

Some financial sector employees disagree, but the evidence that sharia banks finance jihad has grown to the point where it is impossible to ignore.  Thanks to meankitteh for sending in this article, which frankly understates the scope of the problem:

Islamic banking: A conduit for terror funding?

Opinions differ on whether the financial network is being misused to funnel support to militants, but the system does have loopholes that would allow for it.

By Ashfaq Yusufzai

2013-03-27

PESHAWAR – Some worry that the Islamic banking model is open to potential misuse by those involved in funding terrorist activities, but opinions differ on whether the financial network is directly involved in such schemes.

The dividing line for the opinions seems to come down to how one is involved in the business.

“It is true that Taliban militants receive financial support through the Islamic banking system, but there is no proof because these illegal transactions are never properly investigated,” Muhammad Aamir, a retired banker, told Central Asia Online.

But Adnan Rasool, an Islamabad-based Islamic banking specialist with a state-owned bank, said it is “totally wrong” to say that the system helps terrorism.

“In Pakistan the share of Islamic banking has risen to 10%, which shows the public confidence in the system,” Adnan said. “We have more than 1,000 dedicated Islamic banks as well as more than 700 Islamic banking counters operated in conventional banks.”

Allegations arose in early 2001 that the system aided terrorism, but authorities couldn’t prove any of them, Adnan said, adding that Islamic banking has come of age worldwide and in Pakistan, where it has financed huge projects that benefit the people.

Why Islamic banking is vulnerable to terrorist misuse

Islamic banking, which began in the early 1970s, is a financial system that involves making loans without charging interest, in accordance with Sharia law. It is worth about US $2 trillion (Rs. 197 trillion) worldwide and has posted an annual growth rate of 15%.

Terrorists have long relied on various channels to finance their activities and Islamic banking is one option that terror supporters have used in the past, Aamir said, describing an example of suspected terror funding.

A resident of Hangu District received “a hefty amount through Islamic banks from different sources in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and other Islamic countries” in 2001, he said. “He was a common man who disappeared after the 9/11 incidents in New York and Washington.”

Police briefly investigated the case, he said, but nothing came of it.

Another banker also has suspicions about the system.

Muhammad Junaid, an employee of a private bank in Peshawar, agreed with the notion that Islamic banking is key to financing terror bids in Pakistan and elsewhere but said these illegal acts aren’t easily traceable.

“For instance, I knew three account-holders in our bank who each received about Rs. 5m (US $50,829) every month from some Muslim countries,” said Junaid. “The men – pretending to be getting the money for construction of mosques and religious seminaries – seemed to be hand-in-glove with terrorists.”

That is indicative of something suspicious, he said, because “one cannot believe that simple people have such frequent financial transactions through banks. But … there are no complaints from any quarter.” But again, proof is scant and Adnan stands by his industry.

“Islam strictly forbids terrorism in all its form and therefore Islamic banking seeks to promote Islamic values,” he said. “We have an internal system in Islamic banking that prevents the illegal investments and transactions; therefore, it is impossible to send the money through this network to terrorists.”

Islamic banking system has loopholes

Islamic banking was designed to follow Islamic values, Junaid said. In accordance with Sharia law, it is expected to avoid interest-based transactions and unethical practices while it helps boost the economy.

However, loopholes make it difficult to identify illegal transactions in the system, he said.

Pakistan began implementing the system in 1978, economist Jalal Khan, at the Institute of Management Studies at the University of Peshawar, said. Early measures included doing away with interest from the operations of specialised financial institutions – including the House Building Finance Co. Ltd., Investment Corporation of Pakistan and National Investment Trust Ltd. in July 1979 – a practice that extended to commercial banks in the 1980s.

The premise of interest-free loans, even though it goes along with Islamic ideals, has not protected the system from suspicion of links to terror funding, Shah Jehan, a banker at a private financial institution, told Central Asia Online.

Hawala, an informal system that allows fund transfers without much regulatory control, also was allegedly linked to terror financing, he said.

“Despite a hue and cry by global leaders spearheading the war against jihadist groups, new legal modes of transactions [including wire transfers] that have now replaced the hawala system are part of the Islamic banking system and have been lifelines for terrorists,” Jehan said…

Hafiz Khan convicted for funding the Taliban

Two imams in the U.S. have been convicted of terrorist financing within the span of two weeks.  First there was Imam Mohamed Mohamed Mohamud in San Diego who conspired with fellow Somali immigrants in America to fund al-Shabaab in East Africa, and now Hafiz Khan, the Florida-based imam who transferred money to the Pakistani Taliban.

Given the extensive wiretap and documentary bank evidence against Imam Khan, the case never looked good for him.  When his defense attorneys blundered by putting Khan on the witness stand to deliver listless tirades and tortured explanations of why he said what he said, it looked even worse.

First his lawyers said that Khan was mentally incompetent, but the court didn’t buy that.  Then their story was that Khan provided charitable relief and made investments in a potato chip company in Pakistan.  Then the story changed again to Khan purporting that he had lied to the Taliban in his wiretapped conversations, and that he only offered them money to get more money in return.  The plan was supposedly to give the Taliban $50,000 now to get $1 million back from them later, which would represent an unbelievable 1,900% return on his “investment.”

Did it occur to Mr. Khan or his defense team that there is no legal distinction between giving money to a terrorist organization to wage jihad versus giving money to a terrorist organization as an investment?  In any case, the defense was not plausible, and Khan could not explain his taped statements wishing death upon U.S. troops.  Allowing him to testify in his own defense was a disaster.

Real people have been killed or injured and property has been destroyed in Pakistan because of the TTP, and the TTP was enriched because this man collected money fellow Islamists in Florida.  Khan, an old man, faces a maximum 60 year sentence.  He will surely die in prison.  At least he’ll have the opportunity to say good-bye to his family—an opportunity the TTP’s victims never had.

From the Miami Herald on Mar. 4:

Florida imam convicted in Pakistani Taliban case

By CURT ANDERSON

AP Legal Affairs Writer

MIAMI — An elderly Muslim cleric has been convicted by a Miami federal court jury of providing thousands of dollars in financial support to the Pakistani Taliban.

The 12-person jury returned its verdict Monday after the two-month trial of Hafiz Khan. The 77-year-old imam at a Miami mosque was found guilty of two conspiracy counts and two counts of providing material support to terrorists.

Each charge carries a potential 15-year prison sentence.

Prosecutors built their case largely around hundreds of FBI recordings of conversations in which Khan expressed support for Taliban attacks and discussed sending about $50,000 to Pakistan.

Khan testified the money was for family, charity and business reasons. Khan also said he lied to an FBI informant about Taliban support in hopes of obtaining $1 million from him.

Terror financing imam claims to be potato chip investor

We’ve heard many far-fetched defenses in terrorist financing cases—mostly false claims of charity for the poor—but this one takes the cake.  Or, more precisely, the potato chip.

How will South Florida imam Hafiz Khan’s defense lawyers explain Khan’s tape recorded statement that “Right now I have about 100,000 Pakistani rupees for the Taliban.  People have given me (money) in small amounts, I have given some from my side.”  Is “Taliban” the unfortunate name of the potato chip company, perhaps?

Witness testifies from Pakistan that Florida imam’s money was not for Taliban terrorists

MIAMI – Testifying via video from Pakistan, a man accused by the U.S. of conspiring with an elderly Miami-based Muslim cleric to funnel thousands of dollars to Taliban terrorists insisted Monday the money was for innocent purposes, including a potato chip factory run by the cleric’s son-in-law.

Ali Rehman was the first of as many as 11 witnesses expected to testify from an Islamabad hotel in defense of 77-year-old Hafiz Khan, who faces four terrorism support and conspiracy counts. Rehman is named in the same indictment and refused to come to the U.S. Other witnesses were unable to get U.S. visas in time.

Rehman said he handled three separate $10,000 transactions for Khan in 2008 and 2009. Most of the money, he testified, went to Anayat Ullah, who is married to Khan’s daughter Husna and started the potato chip business with his father-in-law as an investor. Rehman said he has known Ullah since they were children in Pakistan’s Swat Valley and wanted to do him a favor.

“That favor was that his father was sending him some money, and I used to deliver it to him or sent it to him,” said Rehman.

He spoke in Pashto that was translated into English for the 12-person jury watching him on flat-screen televisions.

Rehman kept a three-page ledger detailing most of the transactions, which jurors were shown. “I was just the middle man to give the money to him.”

Ullah also used his father’s money to buy a vehicle for the factory and to buy a house, Rehman said.

Rehman said he and Khan disagreed with the Taliban’s tactics of using violence and force to impose their version of Muslim law. Rehman said he was personally threatened by Taliban fighters who ordered him to remove products containing women’s pictures from a cosmetics store he owns.

“They came to my store one day and said, `You should remove these pictures.’ They also slapped me,” he said. “They said, `If you continue to sell this, it will not be good for you.’”

Rehman said he kept putting the Taliban off and eventually they stopped coming around.

Jurors were also played tape of an intercepted phone call between Rehman and Khan in which they are discussing financing of a road widening project. Khan suggested at one point that Rehman sell some trees he had cut down to help cover the cost…

A road widening project?  Wouldn’t that be the responsibility of government officials?  Sounds like code.

Taliban doles out Rs 150 million in funding

Freelance journalist Syed Shoaib Hasan reports that the Muraqaba shura, a council of regional Taliban and Al Qaeda faction leaders, routinely distributes millions of rupees to affiliated terrorist tribal organizations at two to six week intervals.  In an example from May of 2012, the shura disbursed 70 million to the Pakistani Taliban, Rs 50 million to another Taliban faction, between RS 30 and 40 to the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, and smaller amounts to Harkat ul-Mujahideen and Jaish Mohammad.

In his piece, Hasan also analyzes the history of financing militancy in Afghanistan and Pakistan since 9/11.  He argues that forcing front charities to register with the government actually worsened matters by giving terrorists the patina of legitimacy and access to the international financial system.

Complicating the fight against terrorist financing is the militants’ new tendency to steer donations to small trusts affiliated with mosques rather than madrassas, which is more difficult to track.  Hasan reveals that one in three mosques in Karachi admits to funding militants.

Hat tip to Sal and Colby Adams for sending this over via Twitter.  From Money Matters magazine:

The militant economy

The slush funds accumulated by the militants were fed into the global financial system and were fed into the global financial system and were used to buy legimate businesses involved in construction, shipping and transport. Revenues from these concerns are now fuelling the insurgency

By Syed Shoaib Hasan

On a bright May afternoon in 2012, five men with assault rifles strode into a two-storeyed building near the bazaar in Miramshah. All wore their hair long and oiled under their Chitrali hats but the rangy frame, the narrow, aquiline nose and deep-set eyes instantly betrayed Zulfiqar alias Hakimullah Mehsud, ameer of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. An hour later the coterie emerged, with a staggering Rs70 million in cash.

The money was Mehsud’s share from a fund administered by the Taliban’s Shura-e-Muraqibat (Council of Common Interest), ostensibly an oversight committee that handles matters related to various militant groups headquartered in the tribal areas. (While some western news agencies have described it as an Al Qaeda-formed and managed entity, the shura is clearly of Taliban origin and character.) But managing and distributing funds from the Afghan Taliban structure – ‘the emirate’, as it is referred to in militant circles – is one of its primary functions.

Disbursed at two- to six-week intervals, these funds comprise the largest chunk of revenues for all militant groups in the tribal region – barring the Arab Al Qaeda – and, for some, are the only source. That May, other than the TTP, the Taliban factions headed by Hafiz Gul Bahadur and Mullah Nazir got Rs50 million each while the former Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, now known as the Islamic Movement of Turkestan, got between Rs30 million and Rs40 million. Other recipients of these stipends from the emirate include the Taliban faction of Omar Khalid as well as splinter factions of the Harkatul Mujahideen and Jaish-e-Mohammad and the Takfeeri Group of the Lashkar-e-Taiba. (Some analysts believe that the TTP also funnels money from its share to the Punjabi Taliban.)

The money is to cover the operational costs of militancy. The bulk of it is, of course, spent on arms and ammo. The rest is distributed over transport costs; communications equipment (including satellite and cellular phones as well as walkie talkies) and – in an interesting sign of the times – media cells. (The Afghan Taliban themselves, for example, have a 100-plus dedicated media cell staff that operates a website available in five languages and manages high-tech studios with editing facilities.) Besides this, small amounts are also made available for the ‘shuhuda fund’, which enables payments between Rs5,000 to Rs10,000 for the families of the successful suicide bombers.

The 9/11 shift

The role of the emirate in funding is relatively new. Before 9/11, most militant groups operating in the Af-Pak region drew funds from two main sources: the Pakistani and Middle Eastern Islamic states and large and small private donors. From the times of the Afghan war till about the nineties, say militants, the size of this pie was around $6 billion. Historically, as much as two-thirds came from the states, with Saudi Arabia leading with contributions that went up to 50 percent of total funding. Close on the kingdom’s heels were Iraq and the Gulf Arab states.

Post 9/11, the situation changed. The US-led crackdown on militant groups began with the now-famous ‘follow the money’ directive and the US Patriot Act of 2001. As a result, funds from state sources all but dried up. As the world and Pakistan woke up to the abuse of hundi and hawala – the traditional trust-based system of money transfer in vogue for money transfer to militant organisations as well as conventional Islamic charities – private donations also disappeared.

Over the next 18 months, the flow of money to militant groups ebbed to an all-time low. The period coincided with the time militant operations were at decade-long nadir and many in Pakistan were quick to call it the ‘end of jihad’ in the region. That could well have happened – without funding, the militants could not have continued undermining the US-dubbed ‘War on Terror’. But a loophole emerged – inadvertently provided by the Pakistani authorities themselves, as they looked to close down all non-formal avenues for money transfer.

A better mousetrap

In their bid to screen all ‘suspicious’ transactions, the authorities hit many Islamic charities and some individuals suspected of transferring funds for militant operations. While a few were involved – the Al Akhtar Trust, for example – most were simply what they said they were: welfare organizations and people working primarily among the urban and rural poor. Accordingly, after a thorough examination of their sources of funding, these groups and individuals were allowed to continue their activities.

However, in order to distinguish them from the militant groups, the charities were required to register themselves and maintain bank accounts for financial transactions. This ensured that only those who had valid ID cards issued by the then newly instituted National Database Authority (Nadra) could open bank accounts. Further, the move also ensured that even where occasional hawala transactions were used, the monies did eventually cross banking lanes and were thus documented. The final salvo was the provision of a list of proscribed organizations – the Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, Tehreek-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Muhammadi and Tehreek-e-Jafria Pakistan, among others – to the State Bank of Pakistan, which was to make sure their accounts were frozen.

At the time, this may have seemed a leak-proof system, especially to western observers. But in a corrupt third world bureaucracy, there were more holes in this ‘fool-proof’ mechanism than Swiss cheese.

Step up and identify yourself

For starters, the basis of the system – the newly introduced CNIC – could easily be subverted.

Pakistani money funds terrorist bonuses

Improvised explosive attacks on U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan earn the jihadists between $100 to $1,000 apiece, money which originates from Pakistan’s ISI service and other sources, according to a recent Time magazine report entitled “Afghanistan’s IED Complex: Inside the Taliban Bombmaking Industry.”  The whole article is here (h/t Sal Imburgia); a couple key excerpts follow:

“The enemy has ISI money, narcotics money, and other sources,” says Sediq Sediqqi, the spokesperson for the Afghan Ministry of Interior, referring to Pakistan’s intelligence service. “We need to be able to counter their investments”…

Locals in Panjwai claim the Taliban have also turned to subcontracting, so far a trademark of the coalition side of the war. The insurgents supply the explosives, they say, but unemployed youth plant them for cash. If they blow up an Afghan police vehicle, they get anything between 10,000 and 20,000 Pakistani rupees ($100-$200). If they blow up a coalition vehicle, the reward is as high as 100,000 Pakistani rupees. The claim is difficult to prove. But there does exist an internal Taliban bonus structure for operatives carrying out IEDs successfully. Mullah Kalam said he has gotten up to 20,000 PKR for blowing up U.S. vehicles, and 10,000 PKR for Afghan police vehicles. “We definitely have a bonus, a sweetener,” Kalam says.

The ability to pay extra to successful attackers is different from the method used by Al Qaeda in Iraq, which employed a flat wage structure according to a recent study (h/t Paul Gill). Incentive pay in Afghanistan suggests that the Taliban either has extra funds to provide bonuses, or that they want to reward the most ardent fighters and are prepared to expend their money accordingly.  The comment by the Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman supports the former.

Funding of terrorist groups compared

In a paper describing misconceptions about terrorist financing, W. A. Tupman of the University of Exeter includes a helpful typology of a variety of terrorist groups and how they are generally funded.

Tupman says that Islamic terrorists are often funded by charities and individuals, which is true.  But naturally, this typology is very broad with overlap and exceptions that can’t be squeezed into a single chart.  For example, Money Jihad and other sources have pointed out that Iranian-backed terrorists obviously depend on state sponsorship.  South Asian and Indonesian jihadists have increasingly used bank robberies to finance their activities.  Islamic militants also use sharia bank donations to fund operations.

But the one critical adjustment that should be made to this table since Mr. Tupman originally developed it years ago is the addition of the “revolutionary tax” concept, which he associates primarily with urban guerrillas, as a key funding source of Islamic fundamentalists as well.

Islamic terrorist groups with actual mujahideen fighters on the ground (as opposed to sleeker Muhammad Atta-style sleeper cells), sustain themselves by taxing the populations under their control.  Consider the Taliban’s ushr tax on Afghan agricultural (not just poppy) harvests, and al-Shabaab’s 2½ percent zakat tax on the Somali charcoal trade.  These are major revenue sources upon which these wealthy jihadist groups rely for two reasons:  1) such fundraising methods are consistent with Islamic tax law and the practices of Muhammad or the historical Caliphate, and 2) taxation ensures a steady, local, and accessible revenue stream independent of donations from wealthy Gulf Arabs and independent from the international banking system.

This nuance is important to understand because different terror funding methods require different counter-terror responses.  Penetrating a sleeper cell structure of Al Qaeda or the Red Brigades is different from crippling a rebel movement.  Contemporary anti-money laundering regulations designed to detect specific illicit financial transfers may be helpful in limiting expatriate donations to nefarious causes, but such methods are nearly useless in fighting the imposition of zakat, ushr, and jizya on populations overseas.  That’s part of the reason that we’ve seen virtually zero Taliban assets frozen in the 11 years since the initial push of coalition forces into Afghanistan.

How can we bankrupt and defeat the financing methods of groups we fail to understand?

Florida imam raised $50K to fund Taliban

Izhar Khan (left) and Hafiz Khan (right)

Prosecutors have the bank records and wiretaps to prove it.  Recorded statements of imam Hafiz Khan, the leading figure in the conspiracy to finance the Pakistani Taliban (a.k.a. Tehrik-e-Taliban) include:

• Asking his son Izhar to pick up $300 from a donor that had been “approved for the mujahideen.”
• Describing his nephew in Pakistan as “a big agent of the Taliban.”
• Stating:  ”Right now I have about 100,000 Pakistani rupees for the Taliban.  People have given me (money) in small amounts, I have given some from my side.”
• After hearing that seven American soldiers were killed in Afghanistan, Hafiz Khan “declared his wish that God bring to death 50,000 more.”

No wonder why defense attorneys tried so hard to argue that Hafiz Khan is mentally incompetent.  They must have known that in addition to the bank records, the statements Khan has made are so damning that the jury will easily find him guilty on four counts of providing material support to terrorists.

Hafiz faces a maximum 60-year prison sentence for these activities.  Meanwhile, Amina Farah Ali, a Muslim woman in Minnesota who was convicted in 2011 for raising and transferring a comparatively lesser amount of $8,600 to terrorists overseas, faces up to 195 years in prison.  In the Ali case, separate transfers of money were treated as separate charges, whereas most of the transfers in this case have been lumped together.

The reason for combining the transfers together is unclear.  The prosecutors must feel that it is the best legal strategy, but Money Jihad counts seven separate transfers in the Khan indictment that could have been broken into separate counts that would have added 105 years to the possible prison sentence.

Hafiz Khan is charged under 18 USC 2339A and 2339B, which outlaw providing “material support” to terrorists.  Often described as a key provision of the Patriot Act, the material support prohibitions of sections 2339A and B actually originate from the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994.  The Patriot Act clarified the definition of “material support” and increased the penalties for violations.

How king of hawala funds Taliban’s terror

Haji Khairullah links heroin kingpins, jihadists, and hawala dealers in an “iron triangle” of terrorist financing according to U.S. and Afghan investigators quoted in a recent Reuters article.

Khairullah, who was blacklisted with sanctions from the U.S. Treasury Department last summer for his role in funding the Taliban, is the chief of a multi-million dollar hawala business spanning from Pakistan to Dubai.

Hawala is a traditional Muslim method of transferring cash that is difficult to detect or interdict, making it an ideal money service solution to Islamists.

The whole article is worth a read for the context it provides into the overlap between conventional business activities and terrorist financing in Afghanistan.  Here are just some of the most salient passages:

…The hunt for Khairullah’s presumed millions points to the sheer difficulty of choking Taliban funding channels.

Investigators who venture into the region’s forbidding ecosystem of illicit commerce find that lines between legitimate trade and criminality often blur, hand-written ledgers are barely decipherable, and deceptively nondescript offices move mountains of cash.

“Everything is done on a phone call and a handshake,” said one U.S. official. “The record system or the paper trail that allow you to connect the dots is not as clear as the Western system.”

In Kandahar’s seven-storey money market, where turbaned dealers haggle over bricks of well-worn notes, Khairullah’s colleagues leapt to the defense of a respected member of their age-old fraternity.

“When we went to his office, we only saw people changing money or drinking tea or eating sweets,” said Haji Qandi Agha, a regal-looking trader who is the market’s president. “There was no talk of the Taliban or heroin.”

Agha gestured to a man with a close-cropped beard and embroidered skull cap who had just approached his counter.

“For example, this man is sending money,” he said, after the customer produced a sheaf of grubby bills from his waistcoat. “What if the government or America captures him and says he’s Taliban? Is it my crime?”

The man, counting with deft thumbs, did not look up…

Current and former officials ascribe Khairullah’s wealth to… Afghanistan’s burgeoning heroin trade.

“He is one of the biggest fish in the region,” said General Khodaidad (who goes by one name), Afghanistan’s counter-narcotics minister from 2007 to 2010.

A source in Pakistan’s Anti-Narcotics Force also said Khairullah was suspected of involvement in trafficking. “He is rich and resourceful, therefore no one can touch him,” he said…

Investigators suspect Khairullah stands at the centre of an “iron triangle” locking hawala dealers, heroin kingpins and militants into an increasingly profitable symbiosis.

Taliban commanders would collect opium from poppy growers, then hand it over at his shops in farming communities in return for instant payments, a Western official said.

“He would take opium and give you cash,” he said.

Ten biggest terror finance news stories of 2012

1. Taliban funding remains intact despite international sanctions
   Reports in 2012 revealed that the Taliban’s funding remains intact, that none of the Taliban’s assets have been blocked by U.S. sanctions, that the Taliban retains its taxing authority over Afghans, and that the UN sanctions only 18 percent of the Taliban’s provincial shadow governors in Afghanistan.
2. Islamic charities remain top terror financiers
   It’s questionable to even call this “news,” but understanding the role of Muslim charities in funding jihad, of which we saw multiple examples throughout 2012, is the Rosetta stone to bankrupting terrorism.  Instances of Muslim charities behaving badly cropped up, and in some cases have worsened, in both in the Middle East and in the West this year.In the Islamic world, the Saudi charitable foundation IIRO, whose branches in Indonesia and the Philippines were previously blacklisted by the U.S. for funding terrorism, is opening seven new branch offices.  In Bangladesh, the chief of the terrorist organization Jamatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) revealed that Muslim Aid, WAMY, the Muslim World League, the Qatari Charitable Society, and the Revival of Islamic Heritage Society, are among the primary donors to his jihad.