Term of the week: Tajheez al-Ghazi

There are some quotations about halfway down the right-hand margin of this webpage including a statement attributed to Muhammad that “The warrior gets his reward, and the one who equips him gets his own reward and that of the warrior” (Sunan Abu Dawud, Book 14 No. 2520) and a sales pitch from Osama Bin Laden who told Muslim businessmen, “Your duty is to support the Mujahideen with money and men… The Zakat of one affluent Muslim merchant is enough to finance all the Jihadi front against our enemies.”

These are central concepts behind the money jihad, or al jihad bi-al-mal (see here and here). Those who wage jihad with their life or their money are to be considered of greater worth than Muslims who “sit at home” according to classic Islamic texts.

Another element of this principle is the concept of tajheez al-ghazi. Tajheez means “preparation” and al-ghazi means “warrior.” Those who cannot personally join the fight are asked to prepare (ie to fund, arm, gird, or fit) the warrior for battle.

Edwina Thompson and Aimen Dean learned more about this concept during extensive field work and interviews with 65 current or former jihadist operatives, and published it (along with co-author Tom Keatinge) in the July/August 2013 edition of Perspectives on Terrorism journal. This is a must-read:

…There are many examples from the Qur’an which illustrate the importance of giving generously to the cause of jihad and the war effort. Islam recognised from the beginning that wars, whether defensive or offensive, cost money. Therefore Islam devised a mechanism by which people would voluntarily contribute, and contribute generously, to the war effort while considering such contributions as charity. As history shows, early Muslims took this message to heart. Contributions to the Jihad took many forms: some provided arms and shields, others food and livestock, or horses and camels. The most common method of contribution is ‘Tajheez al-Ghazi’ – simply defined as fitting or arming a soldier, which allows for those who cannot, or will not, join the jihad physically for whatever reason, to achieve the honour and heavenly reward of waging jihad by proxy. The Prophet Muhammad encouraged this type of sponsorship: ‘Whoever arms a Ghazi then he would be considered a Ghazi, and whoever looked after the family of an absent Ghazi, he will too be considered a Ghazi’ (Bukhari, 2630). More popular than shields, armour, and horses is now money, which is paid to individuals aspiring to make their way to jihad theatres of conflict.

Jihad volunteers are the life and blood of such theatres in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, North Africa and Syria today. Therefore, without Tajheez being readily available for potential Jihadists the ability of groups such as al-Qaeda and the Taliban to sustain their level of activity in these theatres would be severely limited. From primary research that covers the period from 1991 to mid-2012, it emerged the Tajheez cost per jihadist was between US $3,000 and $4,000 in Bosnia (due to the number of countries that the volunteer needed to pass en route and the need to cover the cost of his AK-47), and US $2,000 to reach Afghanistan and have enough money to cover basic needs. In the case of the roughly 100 foreign jihadists who made it to Chechnya, the cost of Tajheez skyrocketed to more than US $15,000 per person due to the difficulty of entering Chechnya.

As jihad theatres emerge around the globe and attract public and media attention, local individuals, clerics and small fundraising cells organically emerge to organise and collect funding for Tajheez. Again, primary research conducted by one of the authors indicates that four out of ten Jihadists received their Tajheez from money raised or contributed by women. The funds are collected in cash, handled by individual and small cells, with almost no banking transactions occurring or with funds moving through officially registered charitable channels. Some contributors use their own credit cards to purchase tickets for traveling jihadists. Tajheez relies on hundreds of outlets, whether they are clerics or coordinators, dispersed over dozens of countries and with no organisational links between them or to a central authority, making it impossible to track them all. What unites them is a common cause…

Anybody who is serious about understanding the motives behind those who donate money to jihadist causes or the methods behind terrorist fundraising must grasp this concept.

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…

Jihadists pass zakat through Nigerian banks and charities for Boko Haram

The Nigerian newspaper Punch reports that financial regulators say Islamic charities are being used to fund Boko Haram.

Terrorist sympathizers are also structuring their bank transactions—a classic money laundering technique—in small enough increments to avoid triggering the filing of suspicious transaction reports by the banks they use.

This is the classic money jihad.  Fundamentalist Muslim leaders are obtaining zakat donations from extremist parishioners who believe, as the Koran and Hadith instruct them, that they should wage jihad with their lives and their wealth, and that the mujahideen are an eligible category of zakat recipients.

Read it all:

NFIU probes banks, charities over Boko Haram funds

March 23, 2013

Anti-terrorism experts in the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit have placed some banks and charities in the country under watch for allegedly aiding the transfer of funds by Boko Haram.

This is just as there are indications that the extremist group has been involved in recruiting suicide bombers from refugee camps run by the Polisario Front in Algeria.

NFIU sources told Saturday PUNCH that sympathisers of the group had been exploiting monetary practices embedded in Islamic culture, such as Zakat, donation to charities and alms-giving to channel funds to it.

It was learnt that the ease with which terror sponsors had been moving money for terror operations through the banks had also made the job more difficult.

“Being persuasive preachers, the terror commanders often persuade some Muslim Ummah to give Zakat to their jihadist cause. This brings in a lot of money used in terror operations. Security agencies are finding difficult to track this because it leaves no paper trail or bank details,” a source stated.

Saturday PUNCH also learnt that some financial institutions were also being unwittingly used to transfer funds meant for terrorist activities by sponsors and sympathisers of these groups, who move such money in bits to avoid detection.

These banks are said to have ignored the provisions of the law to help customers to transfer money in and out of the country without filing the compulsory suspicious transaction reports where necessary.

Under the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act, 2011, the Terrorism (Prevention) Act, 2011, Central Bank of Nigeria Anti-Money Laundering/ Combating the Financing of Terrorism Regulation, 2009 (as amended) and other AML/CFT Guidelines, banks and other financial institutions must render suspicious transaction reports to the NFIU, properly identify persons conducting transactions and maintain a paper trail by keeping appropriate records of their financial transactions.

The records will enable law enforcement and regulatory agencies to pursue investigations of criminal, tax and regulatory violations and provide useful evidence in prosecuting money laundering and other financial crimes. The legal provisions were designed to help identify the source, volume and movement of currency and other monetary instruments transported or transmitted into or out of Nigeria, or deposited in financial institutions in the country.

The laws impose criminal liability on a person or financial institution that knowingly assists in the laundering of money or fails to report suspicious transactions conducted through it.

Saturday PUNCH learnt that many financial institutions had neglected to file reports of suspicious transactions with the NFIU, in order not to lose the accounts of high profile clients who move huge funds.

Some of these funds are believed to be proceeds of crime or money laundering, one of the sources said.

“Sometimes, the banks assist their clients to transfer huge amounts in small lodgements to avoid filing a suspicious transaction report as mandated by law; we know all these tricks and we are working to deal with them,” the security official said.

Findings indicated that the terror cells also rely on foreign donations from jihadist organisations in Iran, Lebanon, Libya, Yemen and Saudi Arabia camouflaging as charity groups.

NFIU had also expressed concern over the reluctance of banks to file STR, noting that the insurance industry was more compliant with regard to money laundering and financing of terrorism…

Audio: the first rich Arab patron of jihad

Abu Bakr sponsored the military campaigns in the early days of conquest by Muhammad.  Khadija gave Muhammad enough money to help him attract followers, but it was the even wealthier Abu Bakr who helped buy the weapons and horses of Islam’s holy war against unbelievers.

A new recording from the British Islamic studios of Al Baseera highlight’s Muhammad’s praise for Abu Bakr’s role in funding the “deen” (or “dīn,” which can be translated from Arabic to English as “religion”).

It’s just 80 seconds long—take a listen:

Abu Bakr famously contributed all of his money to fund the Battle of Tabuk, an opening salvo in the Byzantine-Arab wars.  The implicit theme of messages like this is for rich Muslims to follow suit and fund jihad today.

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. 

Money jihad renewed against 5 banks

Cyber-terrorists will attack major U.S. financial institutions according to a group called “Izz ad-Din al-Qassam.”  This would be the second major attempt at a jihadist cyber strike against American banks this year.  Rumor has it that these attacks are sponsored by Iran, and this story from Fox Business News points to a possible Hamas connection.

Hat tip to Brian @MrHappy4870 for tweeting this out.  Keep in mind as you read it that Islamists detest conventional banking because it allows for interest which Islam prohibits, because they believe the international banking system is “controlled” by Jews, and because bank transactions are denominated in “infidel” paper currencies that aren’t backed by the gold dinar and silver dirham from the days of Muhammad.  Therefore, Islamists regard bank robbery and crimes against Western financial institutions as permissible under Islamic law.

Cyber Terrorists Threaten Fresh Attacks Against U.S. Banks

Developing: A group claiming to be aligned with Islamic terrorism that launched a massive attack against U.S. bank websites in the fall has threatened another round, set to start this week.

The Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters posted on a popular message board late Monday, saying it will target the websites of J.P. Morgan Chase (JPM), Bank of America (BAC), U.S. Bancorp (USB), PNC Financial Services (PNC) and SunTrust Banks (STI).

A Bank of America spokesperson told FOX Business the bank is “aware of the reports of possible cyberattacks and [is] monitoring [its] systems, which are fully operational.” Some users reported the second-largest U.S. bank by assets’ website was intermittently inaccessible Tuesday.

PNC said in a Facebook post that it is “aware that some U.S. banks may be the target of a potential cyber attack.” The company said that it was not experiencing any issues, but warned clients that “this potential threat could result in high volume of electronic traffic that may make it difficult for our customers to log onto online banking.”

Spokespeople from J.P. Morgan and SunTrust declined to comment on the matter. U.S. Bancorp did not respond to requests for comment.

“In new phase, the wideness and the number of attacks will increase explicitly; and offenders and subsequently their governmental supporters will not be able to imagine and forecast the widespread and greatness of these attacks,” the posting from al-Qassam said.

The move comes as reprisal for an anti-Muslim video called ‘The Innocence of Muslims’ that was posted on Google’s (GOOG) YouTube in September. It sparked many protests across the Middle East and North Africa that have broadly cooled down in recent months.

In September and October, al-Qassam launched widespread denial-of-service attacks against a slew of banks, including the ones listed this week. DDoS attacks function by slamming Web servers will a flood of requests, with the goal of rendering them completely inaccessible or slowing access down to a crawl. Security experts and the banks said at the time customer data were not at risk. The specific methodology al-Qassam plans on using this time around remains unclear.

In the last round of attacks, security experts told FOX Business the perpetrators created a so-called “botnet” of compromised Web servers that it used to carry out the attack. The Web servers, the experts said, provided more horsepower than the personal computers because of their higher-level access to Internet infrastructure and less limiting bandwidth restrictions.

The individuals behind al-Qassam have yet to be unmasked. However, the name is a reference to the armed wing of Hamas.

Iran attempts cyber strike at U.S. financial firm

Last year, Ayatollah Khamenei and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad promised that the new Iranian year would be “A Year of Economic Jihad.”  Now we have a better understanding of what they meant.

The Washington Free Beacon (h/t Rantburg) is reporting that Iran launched a failed cyber attack against a major U.S. financial institution:

The Iranian government recently conducted a major cyber attack on a major U.S. financial institution that a military intelligence report said is a sign Tehran is waging covert war against the West.

The cyber attack was not successful but was one of several Iranian-backed electronic strikes detected in recent months that highlights the growing threat from Tehran, a major backer of international terrorism, according to a recent report by the Joint Staff intelligence directorate, known as J-2.

“Iran’s cyber aggression should be viewed as a component, alongside efforts like support for terrorism, to the larger covert war Tehran is waging against the west,” the report, dated Sept. 14, concluded.

Iran’s hostile posture against the United States is well known. However, the Joint Staff J-2’s hawkish assessment of the Iranian threat contrasts sharply with the more conciliatory policies of the Obama administration, a defense official familiar with the report said. For Pentagon’s J-2 to acknowledge in the internal report that a covert war is underway was unusual, the official added.

Since 2009, the administration has avoided supporting the Iranian opposition groups that took to the streets to opposed rigged elections. The administration also opposes a near-term Israeli military strike on Tehran’s nuclear facilities favoring instead the use of economic sanctions, which critics say have not slowed Iran’s drive to develop a nuclear weapons capability.

The International Atomic Energy Agency reported earlier this month that Iran is building up stockpiles of enriched uranium and continues to stonewall the U.N. nuclear watchdog on its nuclear arms-related work.

No other details were available on the previously undisclosed attempted Iranian financial cyber attack…

Also recall that author Kevin Freeman has said that leading up to the 2008 financial collapse, the NASDAQ was hacked, that Lehman Brothers was a financial target of terrorists, that German intelligence has reported financial terrorism activities since then, and that damaging the credit of Western nations was an objective of Osama Bin Laden shortly before his death.

Seven ways to stop funding terror

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

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

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

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

Zawahiri emphasizes Bin Laden’s money jihad

Ayman al-Zawahiri, the current leader of Al Qaeda, has released a video playing up the “generous” side of Osama bin Laden.  Zawahiri claims that Bin Laden “spent all his money for jihad.”

Zawahiri uses this Bin Laden fairy tale in order to convince Islamist businessmen to ante up the same way Osama supposedly did.  What’s really happening is that Zawahiri is running into the same cash flow problems as his predecessor.

When he first took command of Al Qaeda, Zawahiri didn’t say much about money.  Now it’s one of his favorite themes.  Accumulating money is one of Zawahiri’s most important means of staying relevant.  In his last few messages, Zawahiri has encouraged Muslims to give their money to support the jihadists involved with Islamist uprisings of the Arab Spring.

In this latest message, Zawahiri claims that Bin Laden used his personal wealth to fund the 9/11 terror attacks—a claim discredited by the 9/11 Commission which found that Al Qaeda was funded “almost entirely” by zakat and sadaqa (donations beyond the 2½ zakat rate).  From the 9/11 Commission Report:

Bin Ladin did not fund al Qaeda through a personal fortune and a network of businesses in Sudan.  Instead, al Qaeda relied primarily on a fund-raising network developed over time.  The CIA now estimates that it cost al Qaeda about $30 million per year to sustain its activities before 9/11 and that this money was raised almost entirely through donations.

Audio: Jihad is the most profitable trade

A sermon delivered at Preston Mosque in suburban Melbourne, Australia, during Friday prayers on Apr. 27 instructed worshippers that waging jihad with your life and wealth is the most profitable form of trade.  Take a listen to this one-minute introduction given by “Brother Baha”—presumably the Preston Masjid’s executive committee member Baha Yehia:

The sermon was originally written in Arabic by Sheikh Mohamad Abou Eid, the mosque’s imam, and Brother Baha presented an English translation to the congregation.

The central message was that you should “sell” or give your life and wealth fighting for Islam, and your payment in return from Allah is paradise.  This “trade with Allah” is the best trade—-better than selling vegetables or other mundane commodities—and it is the type of trade that will spare you from hellfire.

The sermon (of which 10 minutes of audio is available here) included the story of a boy in the early days of Islam who supposedly shot three arrows at opposing “Roman” forces before himself being “martyred.”  Brother Baha told his listeners that both the boy and his mother (who applauded her son’s martyrdom) had both engaged in the best kind of trade with Allah.

The sermon represents mainstream thought and tradition in Islamic law which offers great rewards for jihadists and those who fund them, such as Koran 8:60 and 9:41.

Preston Masjid is an important mosque led for 30 years by Sheik Fehmi Naji El-Imam, the current “Mufti of Australia.”  The Preston Muslim community was also responsible for getting the Darebin council to hire a Muslim missionary with taxpayer dollars.

AQIM urges Algerians to wage money jihad

In the jihadists’ latest salvo in the Arab Spring, al-Andalus Media, the public relations wing of Al Qaeda in North Africa (AQIM), has released a video message by Sheikh Abu Abdul Ilah Ahmed urging Algerians to rise up, fund, and fight against their government.

Unlike its Arab Spring neighbors, the Algerian government has managed to stave off the pressure to surrender to the Islamists.  AQIM hopes to reverse the government’s fortunes, and the Jan. 12 al-Andalus message called for “giving aid until we are ruled by the Sharia” in Algeria.

The video was geared to appeal to fervent, young Muslim men of Algeria, saying “O’ lions of the capital, Blida, Chlef, Médéa, Boumerdès, and Bouïra, this is your day go out to give support to your religion.”

The AQIM message reminded its audience of Koran 9:41, a favorite verse cited by jihadists when soliciting funds, which reads, “Go forth, light-armed and heavy-armed, and strive with your wealth and your lives in the way of Allah!”

The video shows once again how inseparable Islamic law is from contemporary terrorist financing.