Moroccans nabbed in Spanish raid on ISIS funding

Large amounts of cash and “telecommunications data?”  Meaning phone numbers of ISIS operatives and financial intermediaries?  The cash suggests smuggling, but we don’t have enough details yet.  Something tells me this isn’t the older brother’s first run-in with the authorities.

From Deutsche Welle on July 27 (h/t El Grillo):

Spain arrests Moroccan brothers suspected of financing ‘Islamic State’

Spanish police on Wednesday arrested two Moroccan brothers, aged 33 and 22, in the northeastern city of Girona for helping finance the “Islamic State” (“IS”) militant group’s operations in Syria and Iraq, Spain’s interior ministry said in a statement.

Police discovered a large amount of cash and telecommunications data at the brothers’ home. The information is expected to assist authorities in exposing the militant group’s presence in Europe, police said.

“Investigators found that the two suspects, along with their brother who died in Syria, managed to send funds to financial administrators of the ‘Islamic State’ using false identities attributed to the terrorist organization’s managers,” the Interior Ministry said.

“These suspected identities form part of the ‘Islamic State’s’ economic recruitment center at the international level, as evidenced by international contacts identified in the investigation,” the ministry added…

U.S. sanctions Al Qaeda officials sheltered by Iran

The U.S. has levied sanctions against three Al Qaeda leaders residing in Iran.  The sanctions mean that you can’t give money or business with these guys.  They’ll be on sanctions list databases and financial institutions will be checking transactions against those databases to help enforce the sanctions.  Wouldn’t it be nice if Iran helped us enforce these sanctions, since we freed up billions of dollars for Iran in the nuclear deal?

From The Long War Journal:

Treasury designates 3 senior al Qaeda members in Iran

By Thomas Joscelyn | July 20, 2016 | tjoscelyn@gmail.com | @thomasjoscelyn

The Treasury Department announced today that three senior al Qaeda members have been added to the US government’s list of designated terrorists. All three of them are “located in Iran.”

The newly-designated al Qaeda operatives are: Faisal Jassim Mohammed Al Amri Al Khalidi, Yisra Muhammad Ibrahim Bayumi, and Abu Bakr Muhammad Muhammad Ghumayn.

The Iranian government has maintained a relationship with al Qaeda since the early 1990s. Although the two sides are sometimes at odds, including inside Syria, Treasury’s announcement indicates that some of al Qaeda’s most important commanders are able to evade the American drone campaign by sheltering inside Iran.

Read about each of the three men on The Long War Journal here.