Thanks to all the tipsters who sent in these items:
» Kenyan police have identified two youth outreach coordinators in Mombasa who incite violence during sermons at mosques and offer who small signing bonuses for new al-Shabaab recruits. (Hat tip to El Grillo)
» Also in Mombasa, Kenyan authorities are are investigating local businessmen for their role in trafficking weapons and recruiting fighters for al-Shabaab. The businessmen have used up to 20 domestic and international banks to for their activities. Officials are also monitoring Riyadh mosque in Nairobi, and Masjid Mujahideen (formerly known as Sakina mosque) and Masjid Shuhadaa (f.k.a. Masjid Musa) in Mombasa for their promotion of jihad in Somalia.
» Meanwhile in downtown Nairobi, a dozen shops are financing al-Shabaab and radical madrasas as well. The shops are still in business. Nobody in Kenya appears to have been arrested yet despite the fact that authorities have tipped them off.
» An Ethiopian member of parliament has pointed to a different culprit in fattening al-Shabaab’s portfolio–Egypt. Egypt is spending money on weapons, indoctrination, and training for al-Shabaab according to the MP who says, “American taxpayers should demand answers from the Obama administration on why billions of their money is going to a country that funds terrorism in East Africa.” Indeed.
» Barclays attempted to stop doing business with Dahabshiil over the Somali wire service’s lax money laundering and terror finance controls last year, but a court injunction forced their relationship to continue temporarily (despite reports that Dahabshiil pays $1 million to al-Shabaab annually). Now Barclays and Dahabshiil have struck an agreement which will keep them in business together until Dahabshiil finds another bank to transfer its funds. (H/t Mean Kitteh)
» Foreign aid to Somalia has not been accurately accounted for, and has either been stolen or used or to fund militias, according to an investigative report. The UAE sent $48 million in 2013 off-the-books, Qatar sent $25 million of which only $5 million was properly accounted for, and Iran sent $20 million in cash that was never deposited through official channels. The report revealed that “The diversion of public funds in Somalia is made easier by the fact that most Arab donors prefer to give their aid in cash.” (H/t SomaliSijui)
Egypt may purchase $2 billion in weapons from Russia—a deal which could be underwritten by Saudi Arabia. Cairo has its eyes set in particular on a batch of MiG-29 interceptor jets.
What are the motives of the players?
The Egyptian military gains a new source of arms and aid after losing some U.S. support in the wake of Muhammad Morsi’s fall from power.
Russia gains financially through the sale and politically by further reestablishing its influence in the Middle East.
Saudi Arabia gets another way of expressing its dissatisfaction with U.S. policy on Syria and Iran.
From the business pages of United Press International:
Egypt said to edge closer to Russian arms package
Nov. 26, 2013
CAIRO, Nov. 26 (UPI) — Speculation persists regarding an emerging Egyptian-Russian military accord that may include the sale by Moscow of a package of weapons systems worth at least $2 billion.
It would likely hinge on Saudi Arabia, a supporter of Egypt’s military-backed regime, underwriting a deal that would be a major boost for Russian efforts to regain influence in a changing Middle East as U.S. power in the region is eroding.
The Saudis, the United Arab Emirates and its partners in the Gulf Cooperation Council have pledged $12 billion to Cairo and have delivered about $7 billion.
There are reports Riyadh has agreed to pay for the Russian arms. But the switch from U.S. weapons — supplied to Egypt since 1979 — back to Russia, the primary supplier to throughout the 1970s will entail a significant expenditure that could signal a possible shift in Arab military procurement policies…
Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim says that Egypt has detained over 50 members of the Muslim Brotherhood including the brother of Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. The detainees killed over 100 people in the last few months and their group is funding terrorists abroad, the minister said.
Part of the money that the Muslim Brotherhood collects is stolen or extorted from Coptic Christians after their loved ones have been kidnapped for exorbitant ransoms by the Brotherhood (see here and here).
The Muslim Brotherhood and its leaders claim to be non-violent, but they frequently turn around and fund violent, militant Sunni terrorist organizations. Actions speak louder than words.
By Agence France Presse via News 24:
Muslim Brotherhood ‘financing terror’
2013-11-24
Cairo – Egypt’s interior minister on Saturday announced the arrest of dozens of “extremists” and accused the Muslim Brotherhood of deposed president Mohamed Morsi of financing radical Islamists linked to al-Qaeda.
Mohamed Ibrahim told reporters security forces had arrested more than 50 members of “extremist groups” with ties to the network founded by Osama bin Laden and now led by his Egyptian successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri.
The minister said the suspects were connected with attacks on police and soldiers that have multiplied and killed more than 100 people since the army deposed Morsi on 3 July.
The Brotherhood “supports and massively finances from abroad numerous radical terrorists in several groups” that have since the summer “launched a series of terrorist acts seeking to sow terror”, Ibrahim said.
He said some of those held had been pardoned of offences during Morsi’s year-long rule, and that others were linked to jihadist groups Ansar Beit al-Maqdis in the Sinai and the Libya-based Ansar al-Sharia.
Ibrahim said that among them was Mohammed al-Zawahiri, brother of the al-Qaeda chief, who was detained in August after being freed in the 2011 revolt that ousted Hosni Mubarak.
Ibrahim said some of the arrests came after a failed attempt on his own life on September 5 when a suicide bomber attacked his convoy in Cairo.
He said others were detained after an 19 August attack killed 25 police in the Sinai – the deadliest in years in the arid desert peninsula.
Muslim Brotherhood gangsters have demanded from 3,000 to 15,000 USD apiece from 80 Coptic Christian households in Malawi, Egypt, according to a recent broadcast on CTV. The report doesn’t specify how the Muslim Brotherhood is using the money it has collected, but typically such funds are used to pay Muslim Brotherhood operatives and to buy weapons.
Raymond Ibrahim has the details on the Brotherhood’s latest enterprise:
The Kidnapping and Plundering of Christian Copts
By Raymond Ibrahim on November 2, 2013
The kidnapping and plundering of Egypt’s Christian Copts continues unabated.
As recently revealed on CTV, in a village called Maghlaga, in the district of Malawi—where Muslim Brotherhood supporters earlier ransacked and plundered a museum housing Egyptian antiquities—a Muslim gang leader known as “Saddam” has been going to every one of the approximately 80 Coptic households in the village demanding jizya/extortion money from them.
One inhabitant of the village confirmed that Muslim Brotherhood members are behind Saddam, specifically informing him how much money each household can be squeezed of, so that most households are paying anywhere from 20,000-100,000 Egyptian pounds (from 3-15 thousand U.S. dollars).
Yasser, the village resident reporting, said that Saddam told the Copts that “Everyone is going to pay and whoever doesn’t pay we’ll take his son, his wife—we’ll violate the people to the utmost extreme.”
During the live news show it was further revealed that in the region of Shubrat al-Khaima, another young Coptic child was kidnapped, with demands that his parents pay 250,000 EP (nearly 40,000 USD). After the father complied and met them alone with the money in a secret place, the kidnappers took the money, beat the father severely, and still kept his child.
Such hate for Egypt’s Christians is hardly unprecedented. Earlier another Muslim man kidnapped a 6-year-old Christian boy and, after the family paid the ransom, still killed the child and threw his body in his sewer.
See prior Money Jihad coverage of how the Muslim Brotherhood finances itself through the traditional Islamic jizya tax here, here, and here.
Copying the tactics of jihadists in Pakistan, the Philippines, and the Sahel, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood has increasingly turned towards kidnap-for-ransom schemes as a fundraising method. As the Brotherhood will also tell you, the imposition of ransoms is justified by Islamic law. The revenues also help them buy arms or fund terrorists in the Sinai.
One difference, however, in the Egyptian case is that the captors seem to have an inflated sense of how much money the Coptic minority can pay to redeem their loved ones. Many of the ransom demands are simply too high, resulting in no profit for the abductors and the death of the captive.
From the Middle East Forum:
Egypt: Christians Killed for Ransom
by Raymond Ibrahim
September 2, 2013Not only are the churches, monasteries, and institutions of Egypt’s Christians under attack by the Muslim Brotherhood and its supporters—nearly 100 now have been torched, destroyed, ransacked, etc.—but Christians themselves are under attack all throughout Egypt, with practically zero coverage in Western media.
Days ago, for example, Copts held a funeral for Wahid Jacob, a young Christian deacon who used to serve in St. John the Baptist Church, part of the Qusiya diocese in Asyut, Egypt. He was kidnapped on August 21 by “unknown persons” who demanded an exorbitant ransom from his impoverished family—1,200,000 Egyptian pounds (equivalent to $171,000 USD). Because his family could not raise the sum, he was executed—his body dumped in a field where it was later found. The priest who conducted his funeral service said that the youth’s body bore signs of severe torture.
In fact, kidnapping young Christians and holding them for ransom has become increasingly common in Egypt. Last April, 10-year-old Sameh George, another deacon, or altar boy, at St. Abdul Masih (“Servant of Christ”) Church in Minya, Egypt, was also abducted by “unknown persons” while on his way to church to participate in Holy Pascha prayers leading up to Orthodox Easter. His parents said that it was his custom to go to church and worship in the evening, but when he failed to return, and they began to panic, they received an anonymous phone call from the kidnappers, informing them that they had the Christian child in their possession, and would execute him unless they received 250,000 Egyptian pounds in ransom money.
If those in Egypt being kidnapped and sometimes killed for ransom money are not all deacons, they are almost always church-attending Christians. Last April, for example, another Coptic Christian boy, 12-year-old Abanoub Ashraf, was also kidnapped right in front of his church, St. Paul Church in Shubra al-Khayma district. His abductors, four men, put a knife to his throat, dragged him to their car, opened fire on the church, and then sped away. Later they called the boy’s family demanding a large amount of money to ransom child’s life.
The hate for these Christians—who are seen as no better than dogs—is such that sometimes after being paid their ransom, the Muslim abductors still slaughter them anyway. This was the fate of 6-year-old Cyril Joseph, who was kidnapped last May. In the words of the Arabic report, the boy’s “family is in tatters after paying 30,000 pounds to the abductor, who still killed the innocent child and threw his body into the toilet of his home, where the body, swollen and moldy, was exhumed”…
And what do they do with the proceeds? Buy weapons to wage further assaults against non-Muslims, the military, and moderate Muslims. Excerpts from a recent article in The Times of London follow:
Additionally, Raymond Ibrahim reports:
And just yesterday, two Coptic Christians in Sahel Selim in Assuit Province were killed for refusing to pay 10,000 Egyptian pounds in jizya to a “Muslim gang.” CBN has video:
First, let’s put in perspective exactly how much $250 million is. It’s a lot. Especially for jihadist groups, most of which—even the world’s biggest ones—barely take in that much money in a year.
The possibility that the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood could have diverted that much money to Islamic terrorists in the Sinai suggests that groups like relatively low-profile groups al-Gama’a al-Islamiya and the Salah al-Dine Brigades could potentially carry out attacks equal to or great than operations by the Taliban, al-Shabaab, or Al Qaeda, while still having money left over in the bank.
From Elder of Ziyon (hat tip to Genug):
Report: Muslim Brotherhood gave $250M to Sinai jihadists to attack police and army
Al Monitor translates an interview in Iraqi newspaper Azzaman with Hussein Abdel Rahman, spokesman of the Brothers Without Violence group, a Muslim Brotherhood offshoot that adheres to the same principles as the MB but eschews violence.
At the very end of the interview Rahman – who apparently knows quite a bit about what is going on in the Ikhwan – reveals a bombshell:
Azzaman: Amid persisting violence in the Sinai against the army and the police, some people are accusing Muslim Brotherhood leaders, mainly Mohamed Beltagy and Ezzat, of being involved in those incidents. Are these claims valid?
Abdel Rahman: The international organization of the Muslim Brotherhood earmarked a sum of $250 million to fund some jihadist movements in the Sinai, like al-Gama’a al-Islamiya and the Salah al-Dine Brigades, and supply them with arms sometimes to conduct acts of violence against the army and the police. Unfortunately, some are accusing Muslim Brotherhood youth of committing these acts, but it is not true. They are innocent of such acts that are caused by some leaders who have adopted the approach of Sayyid Qutb, such as Essam al-Aryan, Safwat Hegazi and Tarek al-Zomor. As for Badie, he did not manage any recent acts; Ezzat is actually the current mastermind of the Muslim Brotherhood.
While he denies direct involvement of the MB with the jihadist attacks in the Sinai, he admits freely that the jihadists are funded by the MB.
In this light, the Egyptian arrests of the Brotherhood leaders seems much more grounded in reality and less in harassment, as it sometimes appears. The implication is also that if the MB has given $250M to the Sinai jihadists, then certainly they must have bankrolled their fellow Hamas movement – and the idea that Hamas was involved in the Sinai attacks in some form becomes far more plausible as well.
(h/t Max S)
Whether through Sudanese ports, Libyan overland routes, the Rafah border crossing, or smuggling tunnels, Iran has been reasserting its role as the leading regional state sponsor of terror against Israel by funneling arms to Gaza.
Were reports of imminent financial collapse of Iran premature? If Iran can fund weapons shipments to Gaza to the degree alleged by Israeli officials in this report, it would seem so.
Money Jihad 
Egypt: Muslim Brotherhood growing poppies and cannabis in Sinai to fund their resurgence
May 14, 2014Islamic terrorists argue that profiting from drugs is acceptable if done with the intent to damage infidels and apostates. We’ve seen Hezbollah, the Taliban, al-Shabaab, and Boko Haram embrace this approach, and now we learn that Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood is doing it too. The Brotherhood is hopeful that they can use the illicit trade to finance the reestablishment of sharia law and their control over Egypt.
From Raymond Ibrahim (h/t to 1389blog.com):
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