Lashkar-e-Taiba’s upper income recruits

Far from being impoverished orphans, the young men recruited by Pakistani terrorist organization Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) tend to be among “the best and brightest” of Pakistani society, according to a study released last month by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point based on biographies of 917 LeT members.

The findings severely undercut British Prime Minister David Cameroon’s position that Western development aid to Pakistan improves education and reduces poverty which in turn prevents extremism.

The foreign aid is not preventing terrorist recruitment, some of the aid is stolen by Pakistani elites, and some of the aid is given to terrorist groups through Pakistan’s ISI spy service.  There is no longer any justifiable reason to continue transferring taxpayer money from the West to Pakistan.

From ProPublica:

Terror Group Recruits From Pakistan’s ‘Best and Brightest’

by Sebastian Rotella
ProPublica, April 4, 2013

Imagine a terrorist group that recruits tens of thousands of young men from the same neighborhoods and social networks as the Pakistani military. A group whose well-educated recruits defy the idea that poverty and ignorance breed extremism. A group whose fighters include relatives of a politician, a senior Army officer and a director of Pakistan’s Atomic Energy Commission.

That is the disconcerting reality of Lashkar-e-Taiba, one of the world’s most dangerous militant organizations, according to a study released today by the Combating Terrorism Center at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, N.Y. The report helps explain why Pakistan has resisted international pressure to crack down on Lashkar after it killed 166 people in Mumbai — six U.S. citizens included — and came close to sparking conflict between nuclear-armed Pakistan and India.

The findings, which draw on 917 biographies of Lashkar fighters killed in combat, illuminate “Lashkar’s integration into Pakistani society, how embedded they are,” said co-author Don Rassler, the director of a research program at the center that studies primary source materials. “They have become an institution.”

The three-day slaughter in 2008 drew global attention because it targeted Westerners as well as Indians and implicated Pakistan’s spy agency. The Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) continues to protect the masterminds, according to Western and Indian counterterror officials. U.S. prosecutors indicted an ISI major in the deaths of the Americans: He allegedly provided funds, training and direction and served as the handler of David Coleman Headley, an U.S. reconnaissance operative now serving 35 years in a federal prison.

The 56-page West Point report is titled “The Fighters of Lashkar-e-Taiba: Recruitment, Training, Deployment and Death.” Though it refrains from policy suggestions, there are implications for U.S. counterterror strategy. Lashkar’s popularity and clout defy conventional approaches to fighting extremism, said co-author Christine Fair, a Pakistan expert at Georgetown University.

“When you have an organization that enjoys such a degree of open support, there are no options for U.S. policy other than counterintelligence, law enforcement and counter-terrorism targeting,” Fair said in an interview.

Lashkar was founded in 1989 by Hafiz Saeed, its spiritual chief today, and other ideologues. The ISI deployed Lashkar as a proxy force against India, especially in the disputed Kashmir region. Although banned by Pakistan in 2002, the group still functions unmolested, the ISI provides funds, military training and arms, and ISI officers serve as handlers for Lashkar chiefs, according to Western and Indian investigations. The U.S. officially declared Laskhar a terror group in 2001.

The West Point researchers said they used “massive amounts of material that the group produces about itself” to analyze the trajectories of Lashkar fighters who were killed between 1989 and 2008. The researchers translated from Urdu the 917 biographies that appeared in four extremist publications, including one written by mothers of fallen militants.

Recruits often become holy warriors with the help of their families, which admire Lashkar’s military exploits in India and Afghanistan and its nationalism and social service activities at home, the study says. Unlike other terrorist groups, Lashkar does not attack the Pakistani state.

The group’s vast training camps have churned out fighters at an alarming rate. The study gives an estimate of between 100,000 and 300,000 total trainees. By comparison, a U.S. counterterror official told ProPublica he has seen figures as high as 200,000, though he put the number in the tens of thousands.

Most recruits examined in the study joined at about age 17 and died at about 21, generally in India or Afghanistan. Their backgrounds contradict “a lingering belief in the policy community that Islamist terrorists are the product of low or no education or are produced in Pakistan’s madrassas,” the report says.

In fact, the fighters had higher levels of secular education compared to the generally low average for Pakistani men, the report says. Relatively few studied at religious schools known as madrasas. They joined Lashkar — which spews anti-Western, anti-Semitic and anti-Indian rhetoric — because they wanted more meaningful lives, admired its anticorruption image and felt an obligation to help fellow Muslims, the study says.

“These are some of Pakistan’s best and brightest and they are not being used in the labor market, they are being deployed in the militant market,” Fair said. “It’s a myth that poverty and madrasas create terrorism, and that we can buy our way out of it with U.S. aid.”

Lashkar’s publications downplay its longtime links to the security forces, the authors said. But connections emerge nonetheless. Lashkar recruits aggressively in the districts of the Punjab region that produce the bulk of Pakistan’s officer corps — “a dynamic that raises a number of questions about potentially overlapping social networks between the army and (Lashkar),” the report says.

“It looks like based on what we have as if there’s a considerable degree of overlap,” Fair said. “The military and Lashkar are competing for guys with the same skill set.”

At least 18 fallen fighters had immediate family members who served in Pakistan’s armed forces. Although most recruits were working or lower middle-class, some “had connections to elite Pakistani institutions and Pakistani religious leaders and politicians.” The study cites Abdul Qasim Muhammad Asghar, son of the president of the Pakistan Muslim Leagueʹs labor wing in Islamabad and Rawalpindi…

Islamic Relief accepted £60K from Al Qaeda front

Financial statements show that Islamic Relief Worldwide has received over £62,000 (nearly 100,000 U.S. dollars) from the Al Qaeda-linked, Yemen-based Charitable Society for Social Welfare (CSSW) over the past 10 years.

CSSW donated funds to Islamic Relief in 2003, 2004, 2007, and 2008, mostly for “Palestinian relief” activities.  The 2004 funds transfer was recently discovered by Stand for Peace (with a h/t to Money Jihad reader and IMED research fellow Jacob Campbell for alerting us).  A review of Islamic Relief’s annual statements by Money Jihad revealed the subsequent donations:

CSSW donations to Islamic Relief

Year	Amount given	Project
2008	£13,060	Gaza Strip Emergency
2007	£9,999	Lebanon Water and Sanitation Programme
2004	£11,265	Palestine Relief
2003	£28,100	Palestine Relief and Emergency Projects
Total	£62,424

The CSSW came under FBI surveillance in 1999.  In 2004, CSSW’s Brooklyn branch chief Numan Maflahi was convicted for obstructing the FBI investigation into the charity’s fundraising.  In 2008, the Washington Post revisited the matter, writing that “federal prosecutors in [the Maflahi] New York terrorism-financing case described the charity [CSSW] as ‘a front organization’ that was ‘used to support al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden’.”

In 2010, IntelWire revealed that the U.S. Department of Labor awarded a $3.5 million grant for a partnership that included CSSW.

CSSW has previously denied terrorist connections by claiming mistaken identity, despite evidence to the contrary from the Maflahi prosecutors and IntelWire.

Islamic Relief itself has previously been under fire for receiving $50,000 from a Bin Laden front in 1999, for financing Hamas in 2005-06, for cooperating with pro-Hamas Union of Good charities on an ongoing basis, and for its leadership being dominated by Muslim Brotherhood officials.

Drugs, Al Qaeda, FARC, and arming the rebels

Mounting evidence suggests that weapons given to Libyan militants in the rebellion against Qaddafi were subsequently leveraged to purchase cocaine from FARC for follow-on distribution to the same European countries that helped arm the rebels in the first place.  No lessons will be learned from this fiasco, as it’s full steam ahead with the same players arming Syrian rebels.

From the Mirror (h/t Aisha):

Al Qaeda’s £168million cocaine smugglers: terror group flooding Britain with drugs

28 Apr 2013

Profits are being used to fund terror plots in the UK and western Europe

Al Qaeda has teamed up with other terror groups to smuggle cocaine to Britain, the Sunday People has ­discovered. One plot involved a staggering four tons of the illegal drug with a street value of £168million.

Al Qaeda, led by 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden until his death in May 2011, is using profits to fund terror plots in the UK and western Europe.

And they have paid for the cocaine with weapons looted in Libya during the mayhem following the death of Colonel Gaddafi in 2011.

Spooks from MI6 and the UK’s criminal intelligence agency SOCA have joined forces to investigate al Qaeda’s links to drug cartels and terrorist groups in Africa and South America.

Two Colombians – one a member of left-wing terror movement FARC – were arrested after a probe by the US Drugs Enforcement Agency.

It is understood the South American group, now a major ­cocaine cartel, sold a large quantity of the drug to bin Laden’s North African branch, al Qaeda of the Islamic Maghreb.

They paid using cash and also weapons looted in Libya.

The drug was shipped to North Africa and moved across the Mediterranean into southern France where it is believed to have been distributed to other European ­countries, including the UK. A second operation carried out by secret intelligence groups led to the arrest of the former head of the navy in West Africa’s Guinea-Bissau, now classed as a “narco-state” because of its reliance on the cocaine trade.Admiral Jose Americo Bubo Na Tchuto and six others have now been flown to New York and charged with drugs trafficking. Four also face terrorism charges.

They were caught in a sting ­operation in which they believed they were talking to members of FARC. They agreed to supply ground-to-air missiles and a quantity of AK-47 assault rifles and grenade launchers in exchange for four tons of cocaine with a street value of £168 million.

Al Qaeda of the Islamic Maghreb has long been involved with cocaine traffickers, receiving large payments to ensure drug runners could safely cross the Algerian Sahara with multi-million-pound consignments.

But spies say this is the first time evidence has emerged suggesting the organisation are themselves trafficking cocaine into Europe.

A highly placed crime ­intelligence source in London said: “It is a very worrying development and both MI6 and SOCA will be working ­together to find out as much as they can.

“When there is an overlap between straightforward crime and security matters, the two agencies work together. There will be a lot of interaction with security forces from several countries.

“France will be particularly involved given the Algerian connection and the fact that France seems to be the main entry point for the al Qaeda shipments. There will also be strong American interest”…

Muslim Aid trustee charged with war crimes

Islamic charity leader indicted for killing 18 intellectuals

Money Jihad has been contacted by Muslim Aid on a couple occasions in the past (see here and here) to insist upon the innocence of their philanthropic endeavors and to disclaim their organization’s membership in the pro-Hamas network of charitable fronts known as the Union of Good.  Will Muslim Aid also claim to be unaware that at least one of their trustees is a war criminal?

From BBC (h/t to Jurist with a special nod to Mahadib who told Money Jihad that Mueen-Uddin could be indicted) on May 2:

UK community leader Mueen-Uddin indicted in Bangladesh

A British community leader has been indicted in Bangladesh for his alleged role in the killing of 18 people during the 1971 liberation war from Pakistan.

Chowdhury Mueen-Uddin strongly denies any role in the murder of 18 intellectuals in December of that year.

He is alleged to have been a member of the Al-Badr group, which identified and killed pro-independence activists.

He is accused with another alleged Al-Badr member, Ashrafuzzaman Khan, a United States citizen.

His lawyers have rejected all the allegations against him. They say that none of the accusations have ever been formally put to him and there has been no attempt to question him.

“The statements made by members of the government of Bangladesh are grossly defamatory to my client, wholly untrue and are refuted in their entirety,” his lawyer Toby Cadman told the BBC.

Mr Cadman’s website carries a detailed rebuttal of all the allegations against Mr Mueen-Uddin.

Holding dual British and Bangladesh citizenship, Mr Mueen-Uddin is a trustee of the UK charity Muslim Aid and played a prominent role in setting up the Muslim Council of Britain.

His website says that he is also the director of Muslim Spiritual Care Provision in the UK’s National Health Service.

State prosecutor Syed Haider Ali told the AFP news agency that he “has been indicted for crimes against humanity and genocide”. He said that Mr Mueen-Uddin fled Bangladesh soon after the end of the war.

Mr Khan, now believed to be living in the US, faces the same charges.

An arrest warrant was issued by the International Crimes Tribunal in Dhaka on Thursday for both men, who are accused of “directly taking part” in the killing of the 18 intellectuals between 10 December 10 and 15 December 1971.

Charges were initially put before the tribunal last month – on Thursday it accepted them and ordered their arrests.

Nobody knows exactly how many people were killed in the 1971 war. Bangladesh says up to three million people died, mostly in massacres by the Pakistan army and their local Islamist allies, the Razakar and Al-Badr forces…

UN, U.K. unfreeze Al Qaeda financier’s assets

In addition to removing Abdelghani Mzoudi from its Al Qaeda blacklist, the UN has lifted sanctions against Mamoun Darkazanli, a longtime terrorist bankroller and logistical manager.  The UK’s treasury department has followed suit.

Mr. Watchlist provides some of the technical details surrounding the removal here.

But who is Darkazanli, and why is this de-listing a problem?  For that, let’s turn back the dial to this 2010 article from The Telegraph via Free Republic:

Germany’s Imam Mamoun Darkazanli: Al-Qaeda’s Alleged Financier and Logistician

The Telegraph | 8/27/2010 | Derek Henry Flood

Posted on Saturday, August 28, 2010 3:52:03 AM by bruinbirdman

Police in Hamburg shut down the notorious al-Quds mosque, renamed the Taiba mosque in 2008, led by German-Syrian national and voluntary imam Mamoun Darkazanli. Darkazanli (a.k.a. Abu Ilyas al-Suri) has been a suspected al-Qaeda operative, primarily as a financier and logistician, in the European Union for close to two decades. Long active in al-Qaeda circles, Darkazanli first surfaced on the radar of Western intelligence agencies when he purportedly helped procure a cargo ship named “Jennifer” for Osama bin Laden as early as 1993 (Hamburger Abendblatt, October 16, 2004). Germany’s Bundeskriminalamt (BKA- Federal Criminal Police Office) admitted that it had been tracking Darkazanli since 1996 when it first suspected his al-Qaeda linkages (Der Spiegel, October 29, 2001).

Mamoun Darkazanli

Darkazanli was born on August 4, 1958 in Syria and is a dual German-Syrian national according to a Red notice issued by Interpol. [1] His birth city is unclear. German media report him as being born in Damascus while the U.S. Department of the Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control cites his birthplace as the northern city of Aleppo. He is generally believed to be or have been a member of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood (SMB), but that aspect of his life, like so many others, is also not clearly defined. Throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Brotherhood organized itself in vehement opposition to the Alawite regime of the late Ba’athist strongman Hafez al-Assad. The common narrative of Darkazanli’s life path paints a picture of a Muslim Brotherhood member on the run from Ba’athist repression following an assassination attempt on President al-Assad on June 25, 1980. A major crackdown on Syria’s Islamists ensued and Mamoun Darkazanli fled to Europe. Conflicting with this well-worn narrative are two media reports. In an interview with a pan-Arab daily shortly after 9/11, his sister, Samiyah, told a reporter that although Darkazanli was a devout Muslim, he was never a member of the SMB and that he never returned to Damascus after leaving for the West because of his record as a known Syrian military draft dodger and his fear of retribution should he return to the country (Al-Hayat, October 4, 2001). The second citation contradicting his alleged involvement in the SMB stems from an interview in the Spanish daily El Mundo with the SMB’s exiled London-based leader, Ali Sadreddine Bayanouni, who outright denied Darkazanli has ever held membership in his movement.

Darkazanli and Said Bahaji

Darkazanli’s mosque operated on the Steindamm in Hamburg’s workaday Sankt Georg (Saint George) neighborhood alongside sex shops and liquor stores and near the city’s central railway terminal on the second floor of building 103. The mosque and Darkazanli provided support to the Hamburg al-Qaeda cell led by Mohammed Atta and had sustained Hamburg’s radicalizing Islamists until its closure in the early hours of Monday, August 9 (Der Spiegel, August 9).

Mamoun Darkazanli notoriously appeared in a wedding video filmed inside the al-Quds mosque for Said Bahaji, a key member of the Hamburg cell still at large. In October of 1999 Darkazanli and Bahaji celebrated his marriage to an 18-year old German woman of Turkish origin named Nese Kul alongside hijackers Marwan al-Shehi of the UAE and Lebanon’s Ziad Jarrah as well as 9/11 facilitator Ramzi bin al-Shibh of Yemen (Hannoversche Allgemeine, August 9). Bahaji, born to a Moroccan father and German mother in Lower Saxony, lived less than two kilometers from the core of the Hamburg cell in the borough of Harburg on the southern shore of the Elbe River. A reportedly close associate of Mamoun Darkazanli, Bahaji is currently believed to be along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border after his passport was recovered last year by Pakistani troops from the wreckage of a mud brick compound in the village of Sherawangi following a Pakistani army assault on a Taliban-held area in South Waziristan (Dawn, October 30, 2009; Die Welt, October 31, 2009).

Darkazanli, a 52 year-old resident of the Hamburg’s Uhlenhorst district, has yet to be convicted of any offense in the EU and described his links with hijackers Atta and al-Shehi as “coincidences” (Sueddeutsche Zeitung, January 9). He is listed in the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1267 as of 2007 as either residing or having his business registered at Uhlenhorster Weg 34, just two kilometers north of the al-Quds mosque. Resolution 1267 was adopted in the fall of 1999 by the Security Council to sanction designated members and supporters of al-Qaeda and the Taliban with the UN’s dismay at the then unyielding civil war in northern Afghanistan.

On July 15, Darkazanli’s company, Darkazanli Export-Import Sonderposten, initially designated as an al-Qaeda entity on October 6, 2001, was delisted as such an entity by the Security Council, though he still appears on the consolidated sanctions list as an individual affiliated with al-Qaeda. [2] The UN does not provide a specific explanation as to why Darkazanli’s company was taken off the sanctions list. It may no longer be an active business thereby becoming irrelevant to the list after a recent review.

Kingdom of Spain v. Darkazanli

Darkazanli was wanted by the famed Spanish anti-terror judge Baltasar Garzón and spent time in German custody in 2004-2005 but was never extradited to Madrid.

Revisiting Ghaith Pharaon’s ties to Bin Laden

A French parliamentary report released shortly after 9/11 revealed that Ghaith Pharoan and other Saudi elites were “directly linked to [Osama] Bin Laden through banks, holding companies, foundations and charities…”

This is the same Ghaith Pharoan who was involved with the $1.7 billion savings and loan scandals of Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) and CenTrust in the 1980s.  Although not officially charged with financing terrorism, Pharoan remains under U.S. indictment for “having been a front man in B.C.C.I.’s secret and unlawful acquisitions of American banks, including the National Bank of Georgia and the Independence Bank of Encino, Calif.”

Like many prominent Saudis, Pharoan peddled influence in the U.S. prior to his indictment without regard to political party, allegedly forming relationships with Henry Kissinger, members of the Carter administration including Bert Lance, and George W. Bush before he became involved in politics—a sign of the great lengths to which the Saudis have gone to curry favor with American officials.

The Guardian examined the French report (h/t History Commons) in this difficult-to-Google article below.  Thanks to Rushette for suggesting more coverage related to this subject.

City ‘haven’ for terrorist money laundering

Report says Bin Laden has extensive interests in UK

Osama bin Laden’s extensive financial interests in Britain are outlined today in a French parliamentary report that says the City is a money laundering haven for billions of pounds of tainted and terrorist money.

Up to 40 companies, banks and individuals based in Britain can legitimately be suspected of maintaining direct or indirect relations with the terrorist, according to a 70-page annexe, The Economic Environment of Osama bin Laden, attached to the French report. Compiled by an independent team of financial experts whose identity the French parliamentarians have undertaken not to reveal, the annexe reveals that the structure of Bin Laden’s financial network bears a striking similarity to that used by the collapsed BCCI bank for its fraudulent operations in the 1980s.

“This document clearly shows the great permeability of the British banking and financial system and the fragility of the controls operated at its points of entry,” write the authors of the French report, a copy of which has been obtained by the Guardian.

The annexe establishes numerous links between Bin Laden with international arms and oil dealers and even members of the Saudi elite.

It also pinpoints the relationship and its subsquent breakdown between Osama bin Laden and his family’s holding company, Saudi BinLadin Group, and its multiple subsidiaries, investments and offshoots in Europe.

Many of the individuals concerned, several with British connections, were also involved in various senior roles with BCCI, the report says. Hundreds of banks and companies are mentioned, from Sudan, Geneva and London to Oxford, the Bahamas and Riyadh.

The names of half a dozen former BCCI clients and officials, including Ghaith Pharaon, wanted by the US authorities for fraud, and Khalid bin Mahfouz, a Saudi banker who was closely involved with the bank before it was closed down by the Bank of England in 1991, recur throughout the annexe and are directly linked to Bin Laden through banks, holding companies, foundations and charities, at least one of which, the International Development Foundation, has its headquarters in London.

“The convergence of financial and terrorist interests, apparent particularly in Great Britain and in Sudan, does not appear to have been an obstacle with regard to the objectives pursued [by Bin Laden],” the annexe concludes. “The conjunction of a terrorist network attached to a vast financing structure is the dominant trait of operations conducted by bin Laden”…

Money trail news: recommended reading

• Of course, old chap, Bank Saderat has financed Iran’s nuclear program. But that doesn’t give you the right to impose economic sanctions, says an EU court… more>>
• The web, smartcards, and cell phones were sold as glittering innovations that would empower the world’s poor. Now Bangladesh is desperately wading through massive rivers of fast-moving data in time to catch the next terrorist transaction… more>>
• Nine men have been convicted of fundraising for the jihadist Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. An overdue update to this story from Paris… more>>
• Iranian state-run newspaper claims it has proof that Saudi Arabia is funding Al Qaeda fighters of Syria’s al-Nusra Front.  Even a broken clock is right twice a day… more>>
• A Muslim Brotherhood group is helping coordinate events in Tunisia thanks to some money from an unexpected source.  The British taxpayer… more>>

U.K. snores as Islamic charity funds terrorism

Interpal, a British-Muslim group with documented ties to Hamas, continues to operate with impunity in London.  The valuable Gatestone Institute has published a well-researched piece by Samuel Westrop (@samwestrop for Twitter users) compiling Interpal’s history of misdeeds.

Here are a few of the salient points from the Westrop’s article that should interest Money Jihad readers:

• Jamal Mohammad Tawil, a senior Hamas operative, signed for a $34K donation from Interpal in 2001.
• A 2002 Israeli investigation revealed that Interpal partnered with a Hamas affiliate.
• The U.S., Australia, and Canada have designated Interpal as a terrorist entity.
• The NEFA Foundation reported that Interpal is a member of the Union of Good, an internationally recognized network of charities that fund Hamas.
• A 2006 investigation by the BBC showed that Hamas-affiliated charities were receiving Interpal donations.
• Interpal claimed to sever ties from the Union of Good in 2009 after a review by the U.K. Charity Commission, but subsequent interviews, meetings, and statements (including anti-Semitic, pro-sharia, pro-caliphate, pro-Anwar al-Awlaki comments), and convoys to Gaza indicate that Interpal leadership remains deeply integrated with UoG.

The Gatestone article is entitled “Supporting our Own Demise:  Part 1,” which you can read in full at http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3514/terror-finance.  Looking forward to Part 2…

Previous Money Jihad coverage of Interpal can be found here, with a look back at the U.K. Charity Commission here.

Sharia money trail: British website pushes halal

Industry rag does sharia’s bidding

Meat trade news service calls for harsher halal slaughter methods

Elements of the British meat industry appear to have gotten in bed with sharia zealots.  Why?  They see a lucrative business opportunity to sell “true” halal meat to British Muslims and export halal meat to the growing market of the Islamic world.

Meat Trade News Daily, a website created by English slaughter-men, has run a series of broadsides against Masood Khawaja, president of the Halal Food Authority (HFA), for being too lax in enforcing draconian strictures of sharia law in livestock slaughter.

Meat Trade News Daily has published at least one letter from Abdul Raja, a pro-sharia instigator who has previously organized failed boycotts against halal meat that he deemed to be insufficiently halal, addressed to Khawaja.  A very similar writing style and perspective suggest that Mr. Raja is behind additional write-ups against Khawaja and the HFA, including a recent screed that suggested Khawaja should pay more attention to “the ‘Elders’ of the faith” and less attention to “the white community.”

The crux of the controversy is that Khawaja has said that machine slaughter can be permitted under Islamic law, while sharia fanatics like Raja insist on mass throat-slittings by hand and animal bleed-outs.

In addition to publishing seemingly off-topic news promoting the spread of Islamic micro-finance, Meat Trade News Daily posted an article this fall about the attack on the American mission in Benghazi that killed four with the scurrilous headline:  “USA – The CIA too busy torturing prisoners to help.”

Do the English businessmen behind Meat Trade News Daily (who ironically describe themselves as supporters of British pork industry), truly believe this garbage, or is Abdul Raja a convenient operative on their payroll to help them sell their particular brand of sharia slaughtered meat?

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. 

Halal abbatoir gets £366K from taxpayers

A sharia-compliant slaughterhouse has been granted over one-third of a million pounds by the U.K. Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) to make Islamic burgers and hotdogs.

A more recent case in Australia of government-funded halal food production no longer seems so unusual.

But these cases should cause alarm for several reasons.  1)  Why are secular governments funding businesses that propagate Islamic (dietary) law?  2)  Such grants contradict the governments’ stated opposition to animal cruelty at non-stun abbatoirs.  3)  If there is such a high demand for halal food, and it’s such a growth industry, then we does it require a public subsidy to remain profitable?  4)  Have these halal butchers been properly vetted and will their books be audited to confirm how they’ll have spent the public funds that they’ve received?

From Eastern Daily Press earlier this fall:

Defra grants £366,000 to Halal food park in Banham

By Adam Gretton Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Up to 60 new jobs could be created in Banham after the government awarded more than £350,000 to a European Halal Food Park.

Officials at Defra defended the grant of £366,000, which is aimed to promote growth in rural areas.

The money comes from the Rural Development Programme for England (RDPE) and will be used to buy equipment to make burgers and sausages in the park’s meat processing facility.

A spokesman for the government department said the cash would not be spent at Simply Halal’s abattoir site in Banham, which slaughters animals according to Islamic law.

A Defra spokesman said: “We awarded business development funding to this company to improve its processes for making burgers and sausages, which would create 60 much-needed jobs in a very rural area as well as supporting Norfolk livestock farmers.”

“We would prefer to see all animals stunned before slaughter but respect the rights of the Jewish and Muslim communities to eat meat prepared in accordance with their religious beliefs.”

Defra has awarded the grant on the basis that the funding will not to be used in any part of the abattoir operation and that the company will create 60 new full-time jobs over the next three years.

The money will also be match funded by the company and the investment will support local farmers in an area where there are not many meat processing facilities, the spokesman added.

The funding was part of a £2m series of projects supporting four other meat processors developed by the East of England Development Agency before responsibility for RDPE funding transferred to Defra.

The European Halal Food Park at Moor Farm, in The Moor, Banham, near Attleborough, was approved two years ago to cater for the growing demand for Halal beef and sheep meat in the UK

The company’s website says that it “boasts the only dedicated 100pc non-stun abattoir for beef and lamb in the UK” with the Halal Burger Company opening in July and the Halal Sausage Company and the Halal Pet Food Company opening last month…