Frigate interdicts 6 tons of terror-linked hashish

Canadian navy busts narco-mariners in the Arabian Sea

The drugs probably originated from Afghanistan with the Taliban or the Haqqani network involved in the supply chain, including a 10 pe.  The commanding officer of the warship Toronto noted that “Every dollar we deny these terrorist organizations works toward making our world a safer place.”

From the National Post on June 6:

Canadian warship HMCS Toronto seizes six tonnes of hashish in counter-terror operation

The Royal Canadian Navy ship HMCS Toronto seized six tonnes of hashish in its largest narcotics bust to date since beginning counter-terror operations in the Arabian Sea, the Department of National Defence says.

The Toronto‘s crew made the discovery during an inspection of a ship on May 30th and DND says the hashish was recovered and destroyed without incident.

DND did not provide specific details on the raid but provided photos showing armed sailors in bullet-proof vests and helmets on board the small vessel.

It was the largest hashish seizure in the history of the 29-nation member Combined Maritime Forces, coming not long after a massive heroin bust by the same ship.

To date, Toronto has seized more than 7.3 tonnes of narcotics since March, representing hundreds of millions of dollars in street value, DND says.

“I am extremely proud of the high level of proficiency and tenacity that my crew has shown on this deployment. The outstanding work of all onboard has contributed to these record narcotics seizures,” said Commander Jeff Hamilton, Commanding Officer of HMCS Toronto…

The Globe & Mail notes that “The six tonnes of cannabis resin are the largest hashish seizure in the history of the combined maritime forces.”

Terrorists still making money without Iran

Despite the loss of Iranian sponsorship, “Hamas does not suffer a serious financial difficulty,” according to the Gulf News.  Political analyst Hani Habib is quoted as saying “Hamas can handle the financial difficulties and compensate for the Iranian financial aid with a strict tax system, the tunnel trade, and financial aid from some Arab states.”

Such aid includes funds raised in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the U.A.E., the Sudan, and Islamic charities operating in the West (see here, here, here and here) transmitting donations through third party or shell charities in Gaza.  In terms of annual revenues, Hamas is one of the five wealthiest terrorist organizations worldwide.

Hamas ‘surviving’ without Iranian aid

Islamist group’s departure from the ‘Axis of Resistence’ did not hasten reconciliation with Fatah

By Nasouh Nazzal Correspondent
June 4, 2013

Ramallah: Healing the internal Palestinian rift seems to be unachievable despite the impact of the serious reduction in Iranian financial aid to Hamas and the departure of the Islamist group’s headquarters out of Syria.

The latest issue of contention between Hamas and Fatah is Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s move to appoint a new prime minister to fill the vacuum left with the resignation of caretaker premier Salam Fayyad.

Hamas rulers in Gaza pay the salaries of 50,000 workers and troops, which presents a financial hardship for the Islamist group similar to that faced by the Ramallah-based Palestinian National Authority.

“Hamas can handle the financial difficulties and compensate for the Iranian financial aid with a strict tax system, the tunnel trade, and financial aid from some Arab states,” said Hani Habib, a Gaza-based commentator and political analyst in an interview with Gulf News.

Western financial aid for the PNA is not unlike Iranian financial aid to Hamas, and is often connected to the political agendas of the donors, he said.

Iran had dramatically reduced its financial aid to Hamas after the Islamist group refused to support the Syrian regime led by Bashar Al Assad. “This Iranian attitude had basically disclosed that the Axis of Resistance connects the financial aid to loyalty,” said Habib, referring to the term used to refer to Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas and the Syrian regime’s enmity to Israel.

Palestinian observers had expected that an end of Iranian financial aid to Hamas would facilitate a healing of the internal rift between the two rivals, Fatah and Hamas.

“This is an illusion as Hamas does not suffer a serious financial difficulty,” said Habib.

“It has become clear that Palestinian internal reconciliation is not connected with the Iranian financial aid to Hamas.”

The Islamist group of Hamas is no longer confronting with the Israeli occupation forces in the field, a stance which resulted in deterioration in the support of the Muslim world, according to Dr Ebrahim Ebrashi, who heads the Political Science Department at Al Azhar University in Gaza and is the former Palestinian Culture Minister.

“Hamas has become an authority and government which held a truce with Israel,” he said.

Ebrashi believes that Palestinian internal reconciliation is a bigger issue than Fatah and Hamas.

“Reconciliation has to do with geography which is totally and solely controlled by Israel,” he told Gulf News. “Palestinians should not dream of forming a national unity government this August.”

Hamas has moved from the arena of resistance to the arena of politics and that shift in Hamas strategy includes losses that Hamas must bear.

“It is true that Hamas has lost the Iranian, Syrian and Hezbollah support, but Hamas’ leadership in Gaza and abroad believe that they can make it up,” he said…

Terrorists shaped by Wahhabi petrodollars

The Woolrich butcher, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, and the 9/11 hijackers were all products of a system of Wahhabi inculcation funded by Saudi Arabia over the last several decades.  This is the analysis of Jonathan Manthorpe writing for the Vancouver Sun—a judgment that is increasingly impossible to dispute.

Thanks to Gisele, David, Sal, and El Grillo for sending this in:

Jonathan Manthorpe: Saudi Arabia funding fuels jihadist terror

Big chunks of the country’s huge oil earnings have been spent on spreading a violent and intolerant variety of Islam

By Jonathan Manthorpe, Vancouver Sun columnist May 28, 2013

The ultimate responsibility for recent atrocities like the Boston Marathon bombing and the butchering last week of an off-duty British soldier is very clear.

It belongs to Saudi Arabia.

Over more than two decades, Saudi Arabia has lavished around $100 billion or more on the worldwide promotion of the violent, intolerant and crudely puritanical Wahhabist sect of Islam that the ruling royal family espouses.

The links of the Boston bombers and the London butchers to organizations following the Saudi royal family’s religious line are clear.

One of the two London butchers, Nigerian-born Michael Adebolajo, was radicalized by the cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri, who headed the outlawed terrorist group Al-Muhajiroun.

The group follows Wahhabist teachings and advocates unifying all Muslims, forcibly if necessary, under a single fundamentalist theocratic government.

Similarly, the Boston bombers, Tamerlan and Dzokhar Tsarnaev, hailed from Russia’s southern predominantly Muslim province of Chechnya. Starting in the late 1980s, Saudi Arabia began dispatching Wahhabist clerics and radical preachers to Chechnya.

The spread of Wahhabism sparked not only a separatist war against the Russians, but also a good deal of violence among Muslims.

Wahhabism is now institutionalized in Chechnya and is particularly attractive to young men.

There are similar strands leading back to Wahhabist indoctrination in the histories of very many of the known Muslim terrorists of the last 20 years.

The founder of the sect, Muhammad ibn abd al-Wahhab, was an eighteenth century Muslim zealot allied to the Al-Saud clan who promoted an extreme version of Salafism.

Salaf is the Arab word meaning pious ancestor and refers to those who attempt to emulate the pure Islamic life of the Prophet Muhammad and his generation of followers.

But Wahhab and his modern disciples take this notion to extremes. The list of people whom Wahhabists should consider their enemies includes not only Christians, Jews, Hindus and atheists, but also Shiite, Sufi and Sunni Muslims.

And yet no western politicians seem prepared to accept the obvious.

The chances of disaffected young men being drawn into the evil web of Wahhabist murderous extremism would be significantly decreased if the Saudi funding was blocked.

The Saudis began exporting Wahhabism in the early 1970s when the country’s oil wealth began growing at an ever-increasing rate.

The amount the Saudi royal family, both by government donations and the generosity of individual princes, now lavishes on Wahhabist schools, colleges, mosques, Islamic centres and the missionary work of fundamentalist imams around the world is extraordinary.

In 2003, a United States Senate committee on terrorism heard testimony that in the previous 20 years Saudi Arabia had spent $87 billion on promoting Wahhabism worldwide.

This included financing 210 Islamic centres, 1,500 mosques, 202 colleges and 2,000 madrassas (religious schools).

Various estimates put the amount the Saudi government spends on these missionary institutions as up to $3 billion a year.

This money smothers the voices of moderate Muslims and the poison flows into every Muslim community worldwide.

Key figures in the September 2001 attacks on the United States were radicalized at mosques in Germany.

Britain is now reckoned by some to be the worst breeding ground anywhere for violent Muslim fundamentalists

Indian newspapers recently reported Saudi Arabia has a massive $35 billion program to build mosques and religious schools across South Asia, where there are major Muslim communities in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and the divided territory of Jammu and Kashmir…

There is more—read the rest here.

While most readers will agree with Manthorpe’s statement that “Wahhabist murderous extremism would be significantly decreased if the Saudi funding was blocked,” they may be wondering how to accomplish a block.

Consider that the Indonesian and Philippine branches of the Saudi-based International Islamic Relief Organization were once designated by the U.S. as terrorist entities, but the parent organization itself has never been sanctioned.  The Muslim World League and the World Assembly of Muslim Youth have never been named either, although their role in financing and fanning the flames of global jihad are clear to anybody paying attention.

At a minimum, these organizations, which are quasi-governmental foundations with direct backing of the Saudi government, should be designated in the same fashion that other Islamist charities and banks have been sanctioned by the U.S. elsewhere.

Lebanese businesses in Europe fund Hezbollah

Hezbollah’s financial activities in South America and West Africa are well known, but their European enterprises should also be scrutinized.

Lebanese businessmen, front groups, and khums donors who aid Hezbollah are seldom investigated because the EU does not consider Hezbollah to be a terrorist organization.

Fortunately, Tablet Magazine is looking into issue, and offered this informative article on June 4.  An excerpt follows:

…What Europe should really be worried about is the group’s European business empire and its ramifications for the continent.

Lebanese Shiite communities in Europe provide good recruiting pools for the Party of God and often donate money to Hezbollah-sponsored charities that raise funds for social causes in Lebanon. Businessmen affiliated with Hezbollah also set up façade companies in countries with lax legislation and weak and corrupt governments and then transfer their funds to respectable European accounts. The latter are more important to the Lebanese group. Technically abiding by the European laws and keeping a low profile, they make most of the money the group needs to finance not only its military program but also the schools, hospitals, and community activities meant to secure the group’s popular base inside Lebanon.

According to Lebanese University professor Hares Suleiman, Hezbollah started building its business empire in 2001-2002, following the example of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, which had set up networks of companies in the Gulf. “Hezbollah started contacting businessmen and building partnerships, increasing its capital and investing in hotels, the car trade, clothes manufacturing, and wholesale,” he said. “At the same time, Hezbollah members and supporters—who were not businessmen to start with—opened new businesses, investments, and institutions in Lebanon and abroad, in places such as Africa and the Gulf. After the 2006 July War, the phenomenon increased,” he pointed out.

The change was obvious in South Lebanon, where castle-like villas sprang up out of nowhere after the July 2006 war. Most locals would give you the official line of the party they support: They built their villas to show how fast the Lebanese resistance could regenerate after the war with Israel. In the town of Kherbet Selem, where Hezbollah controls the local council, the mayor’s relatives built an actual castle with the Brazilian flag on top—a clue to the source of the money, in Hezbollah’s burgeoning South American business empire—and Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah’s pictures lining the walls.

Most of the money channeled toward South Lebanon’s villages comes from Latin America and West Africa, where most of Hezbollah’s businesses are located. But informed sources say that even some of that money makes stops in Europe-based accounts belonging to financiers and is then laundered through European-based sister companies so it doesn’t attract too much attention.

Lebanese Shiite communities of Hezbollah supporters in Europe also raise funds for the Party of God through donations made to charities. Germany has a large community of Hezbollah supporters that has grown considerably during the past decade. German media reported in 2007 that 900 Hezbollah activists were in the country and that they regularly meet in 30 cultural community centers and mosques. These activists financially supported Hezbollah in Lebanon through fundraising organizations, such as the “Orphans Project Lebanon Association.” Funds donated to that association were then transferred to Hezbollah’s Al Shahid Association, which supports the families of the Party of God’s military personnel who are killed in action.

Sweden also hosts a strong community of Hezbollah supporters, which it allows to operate freely in the country. Several rallies organized by the party’s supporters had quite a considerable turnout in the country’s main cities and were supported by Sweden’s left-wing opposition parties. In the last year two Lebanese-Swedish men were arrested in separate instances for trying to plan attacks on Israelis in Bangkok and Cyprus. Hezbollah has also done public fundraising in other EU countries such as Denmark.

But the European authorities and law-enforcement agencies often do not look into Hezbollah’s fundraising activities, or into businesses that might have links to Hezbollah, because they are not seen as a threat to public security in Europe—no matter how clear the links are to organizations that sponsor violence elsewhere…

$2m payroll convoy ambushed by Al Qaeda

Combine the 20^th century payroll robbery of Sacco and Vanzetti with 21^st century jihad, and you’ll get the idea of what Al Qaeda is trying to “accomplish” in Yemen today:

Al-Qaeda turns to highway robbery

Yemen Post Staff • May 1, 2013

Local officials in al-Baydha province, south-east of the capital, Sana’a, confirmed this Wednesday morning that armed men suspected to have links with al-Qaeda had attacked a car convoy which was containing $2 million worth in salaries.

The convoy which was heavily guarded by soldiers was ambushed on Tuesday as it was making its delivery to a local post office. Two soldiers were killed in the shoot out alongside two post office workers who tried to intervene.

“Three al-Qaeda operatives killed two soldiers and two post office workers. The terrorists aimed to still government funds,” said a local official to the press.

However, due to the fast response of the military and the security serviced the terror militants were unable to flee with the money, only barely escaping themselves. They all are believed to have fled back to the mountains.

Police officers have already been dispatched to track them down and arrange for their arrest.

“The perpetrators were not able to complete their operation … and fled to the White Mountains, the police is now tracking them down.”

Similar attempted heists have somewhat of a recurrence in Yemen southern provinces as al-Qaeda operatives are turning to highway robbery to finance their operations, while disrupting civilian life.

Despite the mobilization in the region of the armed forces al-Qaeda militants remain elusive, having reverted to guerrilla tactics to destabilize the state and spread insecurity in Yemen most vulnerable and restive areas.

Bookies and athletes named in terrorism-linked gambling ring

Cricket bowler and defendant S. Sreesanth

In what is being called a “sensational twist,” three cricket players including former Rajasthan Royal bowler Shanthakumaran Sreesanth have been charged in a match fixing conspiracy reporting to Dawood Ibrahim, the international terror financier and mastermind of the 1993 Mumbai bombings that killed hundreds of civilians.  The direct ties between the athletes and Dawood were previously unknown.

Rediff News notes that, Dawood was “No. 3 on the Forbes’ World’s Top 10 most dreaded criminals list of 2011.”  Seventeen other cricketers have been arrested, although their ties Dawood are less clear at this point.  Sreesanth and his conspirators will be prosecuted under India’s laws against organized crime.

IPL spot-fixing: Dawood, Chhota Shakeel are suspects, say sources

CNN-IBN | Updated Jun 04

New Delhi: Sources in the Delhi Police on Tuesday said that underworld don Dawood Ibrahim and his close aide Chhota Shakeel are suspects in the IPL spot-fixing case.

In a sensational twist to the scandal, Delhi Police said that Sreesanth and two players were acting at the “command” of the underworld don and his aide, among India’s most wanted, as it invoked the stringent MCOCA against 23 accused in the case.

Police claimed it has “concrete” evidence like intercepted telephonic conversations to link Sreesanth and some others with D-company.

Under MCOCA, the accused face a maximum sentence of life imprisonment along with fine of Rs five lakh. Police’s disclosure came in a court which extended till June 18 the judicial custody of Sreesanth and 22 others against whom Maharasthra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) was invoked. A total of 26 people have been arrested by Delhi Police since May 16 in the case.

“Since the accused persons were acting on command of people based abroad like Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar and Chhota Shakeel who have a continuous past record of organised crimes, provisions of MCOCA have been invoked against the accused,” police told Additional Sessions Judge Sanjiv Jain.

The court, in its order, referred to the approval granted by Joint Commissioner of Police Special Cell for invoking section 3 and 4 of MCOCA and also a report citing reasons for the same.

“It has been stated that the approval for invoking MCOCA has been accorded by Joint CP (Special Cell) on the premise that the arrested persons/accused through extensive use of electronic and via media were in communication with each other and with their other associates, who are still absconding, including those associates who are based abroad.

“The illegal organised betting syndicate in India is being controlled by persons based abroad”…

Al-Shabaab becomes sugar daddy

Terrorist organization financed by sugar exports

Somalis off-loading sugar sacks

The UN reported in 2011 that at least $15 million of al-Shabaab’s annual revenues come from the charcoal and sugar trade.  The UN also found that networks of Somali businessmen operating in Dubai have been able to manage the trade cycle between sugar and charcoal for the benefit of al-Shabaab.  As many as 10,000 bags of sugar are being smuggled from Somalia into Kenya each day.

The sugar trade has become even more important to al-Shabaab after losing control last year of the port in Kismayo and the lucrative harbor taxes it imposed there.  From Sabahi (hat tip to @watcherone):

Sugar imports from Somalia fund al-Shabaab, Kenyan officials say

By Bosire Boniface in Garissa

April 24, 2013

Al-Shabaab operatives posing as traders are doing business with Kenyan merchants as a way to fund the militant group’s terrorist activities, according to Garissa County Commissioner Mohammed Maalim.

“The trade proceeds, especially from the sugar imports, are going to the coffers of the militant group,” Maalim said April 15th during a town hall meeting with local merchants at the Garissa Guest House. “The militants are relying on the trade to sponsor their violence.”

The import of Somalia-produced sugar is worth an estimated 100 billion shillings ($1.2 billion) annually, according to Garissa County Development Officer Kenneth Rutere, but much of it is not declared to Kenyan customs officials, making it the country’s largest illicit market.

According to the Kenya Sugar Board, the industry regulator, Kenyans consume 800,000 tons of sugar annually, but domestically produce only 500,000 tons.

To meet demand, more than 50,000 bags are imported daily into the north-eastern region from Somalia, some of which is smuggled in illegally, Rutere told Sabahi.

Weapons smuggled in sugar sacks

Maalim said government investigations revealed that al-Shabaab ventured into the sugar trade after it lost control of Kismayo in September, thereby losing its steady stream of revenue raised through taxing goods at the port.

Investigations also revealed that weapons are being smuggled into Kenya in the sugar sacks, he said.

“Some of you are being used [unknowingly] to bring these explosives and guns that are fostering terror in Garissa town,” Maalim told local merchants, adding that the Kenyan government is monitoring the activities of some traders due to suspected links to al-Shabaab.

Some local merchants are unaware that they are dealing with al-Shabaab militants in the sugar trade, Maalim said, while others willingly trade with them. He urged business owners to be conscious of the country’s security while making purchases.

“Kenya has its own sugar-producing companies in the western region. The traders should place their orders from our local companies for the products until we stabilise our security,” he told Sabahi…

Ali Mohammed Hassan, a 45-year-old trader in Garissa who imports sugar and other foodstuffs, said he had no reason to suspect his business associates of illegal activity in Somalia, and the revelation that the traders could be funding al-Shabaab activities came as a shock.

“With the revelations, I will be careful because I want to transact clean business devoid of shedding anyone’s blood or taking lives,” he said.

Swiss Nazi funded Palestinian terror

The documentary “Terror’s Advocate” about French lawyer Jacques Verges spends a few minutes examining the role of Francois Genoud, an unreformed Nazi from Switzerland, in sponsoring Palestinian terrorism and the legal defense funds of prominent Islamic terrorists from the 1950s to the 1970s:

Wikipedia, which calls Genoud “a noted Swiss financier and a principal benefactor of the Nazi diaspora,” also compiles additional details on Genoud’s support for “Arab liberation” (internal citations omitted):

Genoud became a passionate supporter of Arab liberation causes, funding many nationalist and left-wing organisations.

Algerian Liberation Front

While in Egypt in the 1950s, through contacts in Gamal Abdel Nasser’s government, he was introduced to the leaders of the Algerian Liberation Front, which he would eventually finance by 1954 after originally supplying weapons.  In 1958 he founded the Arab Commercial Bank, which would be active in lending to Arab nationalist groups and as the chief repository for the Algerian National Liberation Front.

Palestine

In the 1960s Genoud began supplying arms for Palestinian causes. The Lausanne-based New European Order organisation, met in Barcelona in April 1969 where Palestinian groups received financial support and Genoud placed them in contact with former Nazis who would assist their military training, including pledged support designated for the Palestinian Liberation Organisation. He was a close associate of Dr. George Habash and Jacques Verges, and in September 1969 he contributed finances for the legal expenses of three Palestinians from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine following their attack on an El Al flight in Zurich, where he personally sat at their defense table.

Genoud died in 1996.

Hamas defines ‘Jihad with Money’

And it’s exactly what we’ve always told you…

From IDF Blog on May 23 (h/t Justice4Israel):

Last week, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ military wing, published an article on their website entitled ‘Jihad with Money’ (link in Arabic).

The term ‘Jihad with Money’ has two different meanings, the article’s author suggests.

“The general meaning [of the term] is to give money to charitable causes for the pleasure of God Almighty: to help the poor and needy, construct hospitals, mosques, schools, colleges and universities, [to assist] orphans and students, and help the unemployed.”

That sounds like a respectable concept – until you read on for the ‘special’ meaning.

“The special meaning: to make money for combat, such as the purchase of weapons, gear and clothing, and to develop the means to build factories for weapons and to support the families of the Mujahideen [terror fighters] and their families.”

For Hamas, charity and Jihad are one and the same. Hamas built their power base and gained the support of ordinary Gazans thanks to their extensive charity network. They also collect money around the world, ostensibly for the benefit of the Gazan people. But much of that money never gets to the people for whom Hamas claims it is intended.

Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades’ website calls on its readers to give ‘zakat’, or charity, generously, and suggests that the Hamas government spends that money on a wide range of charity projects, in addition to its military activities. By associating its military activities with its charity work, Hamas attempts to justify its spending. But do not be fooled: Hamas’ priority number one is terror – and helping ordinary Gazans in need comes a distant second…

Qatar: State Sponsor of Terrorism

We’ve known about Qatar’s funding of Al Qaeda-linked Syrian rebels from the outset of the uprising against Bashar al-Assad.  The piece below from the Oriental Review puts Qatar’s role in even starker terms, pointing to a history of clandestine financing of militants by Qatar since at least the 1990s.

Like Saudi Arabia, Qatar is a state sponsor of terrorism all but in name, and should be legally designated as such.  Keep in mind that Qatar isn’t just funding the rebels in Syria that the U.S. supports, but that Doha is also supporting the jihadists in Mali who are fighting America’s longtime ally, France.

Qatar Is Funding International Terrorism

Thu, May 23, 2013

By Alexander ORLOV (Russia)

A recent statement by Syria’s Information Minister that Qatar is violating all of the UN Security Council’s resolutions on fighting terrorism is being silenced in the West. The United States and its allies are keeping silent because Doha is providing funding to carry out their plans. Nor is there any word about an Arab role in settling the Syrian crisis, because it would be unrealistic for those who are arming one side in the conflict and sending terrorists into Syria to have a hand in resolving it. And for good reason, if we recall the recent major terrorist attack in Boston in which there is clear evidence of Saudi brainwashing with Wahhabi ideas. That is especially true if we look back in history a little ways — to when leading members of Qatar’s ruling Al Thani family were concealing Saudi terrorists who helped with preparations for the November 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States that killed thousands of civilians.

And if we go back a few years further, we find that Qatar was on the US list of state sponsors of terrorism. It was only taken off the list because it offered to host a US naval base — the largest one in the region — which was used as a command post during the 2003 operation by forces of the United States and its allies to occupy Iraq. Huge amounts of money from natural gas sales enabled the Qataris get the “leader” of the global antiterrorist coalition to turn a blind eye on all of Doha’s transgressions in the sacred cause of assisting the “brothers” in sharing the Salafi faith everywhere — from Africa to Kashmir. If we can trust documents on the WikiLeaks site, in 2008 the former US ambassador to Doha, Joseph LeBaron, cabled the State Department that Qatar was still financing international terrorism. Leaks of his cables published by the Qatari newspaper Peninsula in 2010 generated an exchange of remarks between LeBaron and its chief editor. But the US ambassador left, and Washington simply hushed the matter up.

In the 1990s, Doha was among the most active “financiers” behind the separatist rebellion in Chechnya. It sent money to local militants and trained Arab terrorists who participated in attacks on the Russian Army in the North Caucasus. When the rebellion was put down and peace began returning to Chechnya and the Arab “mujahedin” were almost completely destroyed, Qatar’s Emir provided a refuge for Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, “president” of the self-proclaimed Republic of Ichkeria and his many supporters, providing them with benefits and even government jobs.

Although Qatar has formally cut all government-level level financial ties with terrorist and Islamist groups at the state level, another mechanism for doing that has been put in motion — the so-called Islamic charities of Jamiat Qatar al-Khair, Sheikh Eid al-Khairiah, RAF, and the Qatari Red Crescent Society, which is also involved in allegedly charitable “international activities.” All are controlled by the Emir’s family or prominent representatives of it, as well as by the Ministry of Endowments and Islamic Affairs. And then there are their non-public activities. Money is seemingly collected by private individuals. Displays with signs indicating where donations are going can be seen in many of Doha’s large shopping malls: starving children in Somalia, aid for disaster victims in the poor Muslim countries of Asia and Africa, etc. The geographic scope is broad — stretching from the Western Sahara to the Philippines. As a rule, however, radical Islamist groups are always active in the countries concerned. And it is never possible to tell how much of the donations made to these funds by private individuals come out of the country’s natural gas revenues.

Officially, members of the Al Thani clan and the Emir himself cannot contribute. They take money from the state treasury — as much as they need, considering that Qatar is an absolute monarchy in which the activities of the Emir are not subject to audit. And from there, the funds can be transferred to bank accounts in other countries, especially countries where learning the names of the account owners is difficult. Until recently, active use was made of Swiss banks and offshore financial institutions. It is easy to move funds out of them to specific “aid” recipients in, let us say, Istanbul, and after they are turned into cash they can be delivered by special courier to their final recipient. That could be a Wahhabi extremist groups in Dagestan or elsewhere in the North Caucasus; Jabhat al-Nusra terrorist cells fighting Syria’s legitimate government; or sleeper cells of extremists in France, the United States and other countries.

Sometimes, the money is simply handed over directly — for example, to Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal when he visits Doha, where he is received as a head of state. Palestinian sources say that the Emir personally gives him cash that then makes its way to its intended recipients through Arab countries neighboring on the Gaza Strip. Then homemade rockets that kill innocent civilians are sent flying towards Israel. However, it is obvious that large amounts of money go for other purposes, including undermining the Palestinian National Authority and for the personal “needs” of Hamas leaders.

The Qataris make no bones about the fact that since the Arab Revolutions began they have been directly funding militants and weapons for those fighting the ruling regimes in Arab countries. They did it in Libya, and they are doing it now in Syria. And after the recent Arab League summit in Doha, where Qatar’s political weight overcame even Egypt and Algeria to push through a decision allowing weapons to be delivered to Syrian opposition fighters, Doha no longer needs to hide its activities along those lines. But if we apply the international legal norms to Qatar’s activities, we find that they actually meet the legal definition of sponsoring international terrorism as spelled out in several UN Security Council resolutions and other international community documents.

Doha’s provision of money and weapons to terrorist groups like Jabhat al-Nusra qualifies as financing international terrorism…

Hizbul’s role in counterfeiting confirmed

Once a relatively poor terrorist organization that relied on a monthly grant of $5,000 from Pakistan’s ISI spy service, the Kashmir-based terrorist organization Hizbul Mujahideen has moved on to three more lucrative methods of financing itself:  1) receiving zakat donations transmitted through hawala from charitable fronts sponsored by Pakistan, 2) engaging in the profitable animal skin trade, and 3) flooding India with counterfeit money, devaluing the rupee, and enriching themselves in the process.

From India Today on May 24 (h/t El Grillo):

Hizbul Mujahideen circulating fake currency in India, reveals NIA investigation

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has established a clear link between Pakistan and Jammu and Kashmir-based terror outfits pooling their resources to circulate fake Indian currency and using it to fund jihadi activities in India.

In a case related to smuggling of counterfeit currency, the NIA’s probe has revealed the role of Hizbul Mujahideen, which operates from J&K, in circulating fake currency.

Completing the investigation in the case registered in 2011, the NIA filed a final supplementary chargesheet in a Jammu court last month. The document exposes Hizbul hand in using fake currency to finance its terror activities.

The chargesheet states that “Fake Indian currency is being used being used by terrorist organisations to damage the economy of India and finance terrorist activities of their cadre operating in India”.

While the chargesheet stops short of naming Pakistan, sources said the trail of counterfeit currency from the neighbour country in West Bengal and then in India has been well-established.

“Through the Bangladesh border, it (fake Indian currency) was being pumped into India from West Bengal. It was being funnelled via Delhi to terror groups like Hizbul Mujahideen,” an officer from NIA said.

Sources said selling of fake currency in return for genuine currency gives huge returns, which can be used by terror organisations…