The indirect expenses of jihad

Ernst & Young and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) have issued a report on emerging trends in the financing of terrorism.  The central argument of the study is that piracy, smuggling, and counterfeiting have been growth sectors for funding terror, and that India and the world need to establish more mechanisms to combat these methods.

The full report is available here, and a news article about it is here (h/t El Grillo).

There is a lot of value to the report, but one component that readers should take special note of is Ernst & Young’s distinction between the direct expenses for terrorism on things like bombs, materials, and attack plans versus indirect expenses for the bigger picture infrastructure of terrorism:  recruitment, gathering intelligence, and public relations.  This chart comes from their report:

This is the distinction that Money Jihad has tried to make over the last several months about the Tsarnaev brothers and the Boston marathon bombing.  (See here and here.)  The attack wasn’t just about the costs of the explosives purchased by Tamerlan, or even his travel expense s to Russia, although that certainly still needs to be explained more thoroughly.

The larger question is the indirect expenses that were made toward jihad in the North Caucasus long before the Tsarnaevs hatched their plot.  These were expenditures made over several decades by the Saudis and Western-based Islamic front charities in spreading Salafism through the Caucasus.  It took millions of dollars to create and support radical new mosques, fake “relief” programs, to pay and provision Chechen militants and their leaders, to buy loyalties and pay-off ambivalent politicians, and to create a mushroom patch of jihadist websites in the mother tongue of the Tsarnaev family.

It doesn’t do much good for the federal government and banks to scrutinize and report on every single financial transaction that we undertake if, at the same time, we ignore the millions of petrodollars and zakat donations that go toward paying the indirect expenses of terrorism and inculcating the next generation of jihadists.

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North Caucasus jihadists’ money traces back to Saudi Arabia and Osama bin Laden

The seed money of major North Caucasus or Chechen terrorist groups such as the Caucasus Emirate, the Islamic International Peacekeeping Brigade (IIPB), the Special Purpose Islamic Regiment (SPIR) and the Riyadus-Salikhin Reconnaissance and Sabotage Battalion of Chechen Martyrs (RSRSBCM) can all be traced back to Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.

Although we don’t yet know to which groups the two Russian-born brothers of Chechen descent who were identified as suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings may belong, it’s important to take a look back at the origins of the money behind the North Caucasus jihadist network overall.

Islamic International Peacekeeping Brigade

The Council on Foreign Relations says that, “According to the U.S. State Department, the Islamic International Peacekeeping Brigade is the primary channel for Islamic funding of the Chechen guerillas, in part through links to al-Qaeda-related financiers on the Arabian Peninsula.”

The Middle East Forum has more on IIPB:

In October 1999, emissaries of [IIPB founder Shamil Basayev] and [mujahideen leader] Ibn al-Khattab traveled to Kandahar where bin Laden agreed to provide fighters, equipment, and money to conduct terrorism and aid the fight against Russia. Later that year, bin Laden reportedly sent substantial sums of money to Basayev, Ibn al-Khattab, and Chechen commander Arbi Barayev to train gunmen, recruit mercenaries, and buy ammunition.

The United Nations says that, “With Al‑Qaida’s financial support, Al-Khattab also mobilized fighters from Ingushetia, Ossetia, Georgia and Azerbaijan to fight in Chechnya and Dagestan.”

History Commons offers further details similarities between Ibn Khattab and Osama Bin Laden, and the U.S. and U.K.-based imams who have funded Chechen rebels:

They share fundraising and recruiting networks. For example, a Florida cell of radical Sunnis that is monitored by the FBI starting in 1993 is involved with both organizations (see (October 1993-November 2001). Radical London imam Abu Qatada raises money for jihad in Chechnya (see 1995-February 2001 and February 2001) and is a key figure in al-Qaeda-related terrorism who is in communication with al-Qaeda logistics manager Abu Zubaida. [BBC, 3/23/2004; Nasiri, 2006, pp. 273] The Finsbury Park mosque of fellow London imam Abu Hamza al-Masri is used as a conduit for funds for both jihad in Chechnya and bin Laden’s Darunta camp in Afghanistan (see March 1999 and March 2000-February 2001)…

Khattab repaid Bin Laden in kind:  “In October 2001, Khattab sent additional fighters to Afghanistan and promised to pay the volunteers’ families a substantial monthly stipend or a large lump-sum payment in the event of their death.”

Special Purpose Islamic Regiment

In a 2003 study, the CDI found that, “Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network provided much ideological and financial support to the SPIR after the mid-1990’s.

Zakat funded Russian bombings

In a good, tough opinion piece in the Christian Science Monitor, Dr. Ariel Cohen of the Heritage Foundation explains how Russian policy toward Islamic terror needs to change.  He also states that Northern Caucus jihad is funded by mosques from Dubai and Dearborn.

Jerusalem, Israel – Monday’s subway suicide bombings, which left 39 people dead and wounded 70 more in Moscow, was allegedly carried out by the Black Widows, a cell of female suicide bombers from the North Caucasus, has deep historic and religious roots. This is the time for the Russian government to review the failing counterinsurgency policies, rooting out corruption and inefficiency and countering the growth of radical Islam.

Russia occupied the Northern Caucasus in the 18th century, sparking a gazawat – a “holy war” or jihad – in Dagestan and Chechnya that continued until the 1860s. The Chechens rebelled again in the 1920s and ’30s, only to be crushed by the Soviets.

Stalin loaded the Chechens and the Ingush in cattle cars and shipped them to Siberia in 1944. Hundreds of thousands perished. After they returned from the exile in 1956, things were relatively calm until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The Chechens declared independence. The Russians, fearing disintegration of their Federation, attacked in 1994. But the Chechen insurgency – known for its hostage-taking tactics – ultimately defeated the Russian Army, which withdrew in 1996.

By 1999 the original, secular Chechen leadership had been replaced by jihadist thugs supported by Al Qaeda. The Taliban was the only foreign power to recognize independent “Ichkeriya.” Slave markets and weapons bazaars flourished. Arab emissaries financed, trained, and equipped the Chechen mujahedeen. Reports of kidnappings and decapitations became common news headlines.

When the Chechens invaded neighboring Dagestan, Vladimir Putin, then the newly appointed prime minister, retaliated with overwhelming force. The bloody counterinsurgency lasted until 2005, led by Islamists Shamil Basaev and an Al Qaeda-affiliated Jordanian known as Khattab. Mr. Basaev proclaimed his goal was to create a North Caucasus emirate from the Black Sea to the Caspian that would become part of the global caliphate. Had he succeeded, the newly created emirate would have disrupted the flow of oil from the Caspian to Western markets and become a chronic threat to Russia and Europe.

Basaev and Khattab were eventually killed by the Russian Federal Security Service (the successor to the Soviet-era KGB). The mujahedeen assassinated the pro-Moscow strongman Hajj Ahmad Kadyrov, who had switched sides, abandoning the rebel cause. Mr. Kadyrov’s son Ramzan took over, ruling with an iron hand. His political enemies – guerrillas and human rights activists alike – “disappear.” His walled compound, which I visited in 2008, boasts a petting zoo with lions and tigers, a mosque, and a conference hall.

Kadyrov killed many terrorists in the past three years. Only about 500 rebels are thought to remain in their mountain lairs. However, hundreds more are spread throughout the region’s towns in underground cells, and there are support networks throughout Russia’s largest cities, based in the North Caucasus diaspora.

Ethnic Russian Orthodox people are converting to Salafi Islam and becoming leaders in the terrorist movement. Sayyid Buriatsky, instigator of the November 2009 train attack that killed 27 and alleged spiritual guide of the Black Widows suicide bomber organization, was one such convert. In addition to the most recent atrocity, the Black Widows are reportedly responsible for 600 of the 900 deaths from terror attacks perpetrated in Russia since 2000.

“Jihad” in the North Caucasus is one of the favorite causes for zakat (alms) in mosques from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, to Dearborn, Mich. Islamist leader Doku Umarov has managed to reactivate the violent Riad us-Salihin (Garden of the Pious), of which the Black Widows are in a suicide vanguard. Mr. Umarov has threatened not only to create a North Caucasus emirate, but also to detach large swaths of southern Russia, from Astrakhan to Rostov.