Money and plots: suggested news reading

• German police raid a mosque before a terror cell could meet with arms dealers in Bremen… more>>

• Lajnat al Daawa al Islamiyya, a Kuwait-based charity designated by the U.S. and UN as a terrorist entity, was a donor to the Islamic Society of Boston mosque in Cambridge where the Tsarnaev brothers worshipped… more>>

• Two terrorist facilitators scam £150,000 from an elderly Englishman to fund jihad in Syria… more>>

• Authorities have frozen its bank account of CAGE, a Muslim-British advocacy group that defends terrorists, but CAGE is still fundraising… more>>

• A Yemeni bound for Qatar with £500,000 cash hidden in his luggage tells JFK airport authorities the money was for his “really big family”… more>>

De-funding jihad from England: suggested reading

Here’s a round-up of news stories that we didn’t have time to cover in the latter half of 2014 about British authorities’ efforts to crackdown on fundraising for jihadists overseas…

• The UK Charity Commission has frozen the bank account of Viva Palestina, an aid group that has delivered cash to Hamas (h/t El Grillo)… more>>

• Police are trying to trace the network that raised the €20,000 for Amal El-Wahabi to send to her husband to fight infidels and apostates in Syria… more>>

• British bureaucracy led to a two month delay in applying sanctions against Kuwaiti men who sent piles of money to the Islamic State (h/t BPA)… more>>

• The Charity Commission is investigating 86 groups for terrorist financing risks, with 37 of them active in Syria… more>>

Arab state cash: recommended news reading

• Samer Majzoub has served as Montreal’s middleman with the radical World Assembly of Muslim Youth and now Kuwait’s embassy to fund Islamic schools in Canada… more>>

• Who funds the ISIS crisis? A top German official says, “The keyword there is Qatar“… more>>

• The chorus grows:  “The U.S. needs to call a spade a spade and label Qatar as a State Sponsor of Terrorism“… (h/t Brian)… more>>

• What role does Venezuela play as a cash courier for “humanitarian relief” on behalf of terror sponsors? Answer>>

Money and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria

In 2007, the Islamic State of Iraq was seen as “the richest of the insurgency groups” in Iraq with $1 billion to 1.5 billion “collected in revenue by the group through foreign donations, enforced taxation and confiscation of the property and funds of Iraqis.” But the U.S. surge and ISI missteps significantly damaged the jihadist group’s ability to raise funds.

Seven years and three names later, ISIS amassed a $2 billion comeback and took control of large swathes of territory in northern Iraq including Mosul and 35 percent of Syria.

ISIS’s financial recovery has been marked by a slight shift away from reliance on local extortion networks (although those are still in effect), improved organizational and financial management by ISIS leader and self-proclaimed caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and the departure of U.S. troops in 2011.

The most important elements of ISIS’s funding are sadaqa (voluntary donations) from Arab donors in the Gulf; sales and tolls collected on sales of oil from fields under its control; and increasingly through money made by controlling key infrastructure.

Here’s a rundown of ISIS’s main funding channels:

Sadaqa from private donors

• Support from Saudi donors and fighters
• Qatari donors and bundlers (see here, here, and here)
• Kuwaiti fundraisers
• Donors from the United Arab Emirates
• Other donations around the world including Indonesia

Fundraising is aided by contemporary marketing methods

• Publication of a glossy annual report to attract “investors”
• Increased use of social media to raise funds

Oil

• ISIS controls 60 percent of Syrian oil including the lucrative Omar field
• In Iraq, ISIS controls Butmah and Ain Zalah oil fields, the refinery in Baiji, and oil and gas resources in Ajeel in northern Iraq
• ISIS sells or collects a portion on black market sales to Turkey, Iran, and in Syria itself
• Revenue estimates for ISIS range from $1 million to $3 million daily

Dams

• In addition to oil, control of key infrastructure such as the dams in Mosul, Fallujah, and Tabqa present increasingly significant revenue potential for ISIS.
• Professor Ariel Ahram notes this is already occurring at Tabqa, where ISIS is involved in selling electricity.
• New York Times reporter Tim Arango says that possession of the Mosul dam can enable ISIS to “use it as a method of finance” through extortion schemes to continue their operations.

Other sources

• Isis has seized arms from Iraqi depots, including U.S. weapons given to Iraqi forces, plus weapons smuggled from Turkey and Croatia
• The collection of ransom money has sustained ISIS throughout its existence
• Antiquities smuggling

Incidently, little is being done by the Gulf states to curtail the flow of donations to ISIS because they either want an independent Sunni state carved out of Iraq or to replace Iraq’s Shia-led government with Sunnis. Washington should designate Saudi Arabia and Qatar as state sponsors of terrorism, but it won’t because of diplomatic considerations.

Without interdicting the donations and the contraband oil, U.S. airstrikes will have limited effect on ISIS’s coffers.

This piece is also published at Terror Finance Blog.

Terror finance trio: Qatar, Kuwait, and KSA

They left out Turkey. It is great that more people are coming to this realization and that books are being written about it, but it doesn’t seem to be significantly changing the policies of the West (apart from a growing rift between the U.S. and the Sunni powers in the region over how we’re dealing with Iran). We have yet to designate the major institutional terror donors in Qatar Saudi Arabia as terrorist entities. Kuwait was never blacklisted by FATF even though it took it 10 years after 9/11 to outlaw terrorist financing. NATO has retained Turkey as a member even though it is partnering with Al Qaeda in Syria and helps Iran evade sanctions. And we mostly ignored attacks by Qatari-backed rebels in Mali fighting against our oldest ally, France. Instead of doing something significant, we just nod our heads and say, “yep, the Gulf is where the money for terrorism comes from,” and then we turn the page of the newspaper to something else.

From VOA on July 7 (h/t El Grillo):

Islamist Insurgency Fueled by Global Finance Web

Jeffrey Young

The little cans were at cash registers everywhere in Kuwait, where I lived during much of the 1990s. Covered with pictures of children in anguish amid burning rubble, these cans collected coins and cash for “Palestinian Relief” or the like. Sometimes, I put my change into these cans, causing the person behind the counter to often give me a puzzled look. Then, I learned from my Kuwaiti friends that these collection cans were not always helping those kids – many were funding Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, and other violent groups.

Now, 20 years later, there is an international web of finance that leads to deadly insurgents such as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Part of it runs through so-called “charities,” while another funding stream for terrorists is enabled by official complicity. And, these sources also intersect.

Colin Clarke, author of an upcoming book titled “Terrorism Inc: The Funding of Terrorism, Insurgency, and Irregular Warfare” says much of the cash now pouring into ISIL and other violent groups comes from three regional sources.

“A key component of support to Sunni extremist groups [including ISIL] comes from wealthy individuals in the Arab Gulf states of Kuwait, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia,” Clarke told VOA, adding “The majority of donors likely know exactly where their money is going. Some are blatant about it, while others enjoy the plausible deniability of ambiguity.”

Clarke also contends these three states are using this funding stream as a means of achieving influence with insurgent groups. “The Saudis,” he said, “are reportedly fearful of the threat posed by ISIL, but certainly contribute to radical groups, battling for a leadership role with Qatar, another country active in this funding.”

Kuwait has also allegedly kept the flames of insurgency fueled with cash. Until recently, one of those streams reportedly ran through Kuwait’s Aqaf, its Ministry of Islamic Affairs. In May, Aqaf Minister Nayef al-Ajmi resigned in the wake of accusations by a senior U.S. official that he was enabling terrorists…

5 big terror finance stories so far in 2014

Money Jihad has blogged or tweeted about all these news stories, but they’re all significant enough that they merit a second look by anybody interested in the topic of terror finance. Here are some of the most significant news articles and commentaries written about terrorist financing news developments of the year so far:

Australian money laundering bust: “Project Eligo” resulted in at least 105 arrests, 190 criminal charges, and over $500 million in assets seized in Australia since the beginning of the year. Exchange houses involved in the laundering operation were delivering a cut of profits to Hezbollah, illustrating the control that Hezbollah exerts over global financial transactions…more from the Sydney Morning Herald>>

Canada seizes $7 million in Iranian assets: The seizure is significant not only because it delivers justice to victims of Iranian-sponsored terrorism, but because it demonstrates the validity of the legal theory that terrorism can be partially bankrupted through litigation. Previous judgments have been just that—judgments without seizing or disbursing assets. Now legal methods prove that the lawyers of terrorists’ victims deserve a seat at the table along with military operations, intelligence, law enforcement, sanctions, and other counter-terror techniques…more from the CBC>>

Turkish corruption scandal: The ongoing Turkish corruption scandals boil down to a rivalry between two Islamists, Prime Minister Recep Erdogan and the cryptic Pennsylvania imam Fetullah Gulen. But the scandal has also revealed the degree to which Turkey has enabled Iranian sanctions evasion, and at the same time we’re learning more about Turkey’s support for Al Qaeda and Hamas…more from Jonathan Schanzer>>

Sanctions relief offered to Iran could fund terrorism. Easing Iranian sanctions as part of a larger diplomatic push offers no controls over how Iran uses the money. Not only will the money not be used to satisfy judgments won by the victims of Iranian terror, but the money could be given to the perpetrators of Iranian terror, including Hezbollah, the IRGC, Hamas, and the Quds Force…more from Adam Kredo of the Washington Free Beacon>>

Kuwait’s terror financing cabinet minister proves too hot to handle. Kuwait, whose hide the U.S. saved during the Gulf war, brazenly stabbed us in the back after 9/11 by failing to outlaw terrorist financing for 10 years. Then Kuwait added insult to injury in January by promoting a top private fundraiser for jihad in Syria to not one but two major government posts simultaneously. This prompted US Treasury officials to grow a spine and actually condemn Kuwait for rewarding this kind of person. Nayef al-Ajmi finally quit earlier this month… more from Reuters>>

Accounting for Kuwaiti cash among Syrian rebels

How Kuwait came to be such a major regional player in the financing of radical rebels in Syria is the subject of a recent interview with Elizabeth Dickens of the Brookings Institute conducted by Syria Deeply, a website run by journalists. Dickens chalks Kuwait’s ascendance as a financier up to:

• Lax regulation (ie, the failure of Kuwait to criminalize terrorist financing until recently)
• Business ties between Kuwait and Syria
• Numerous, experienced NGOs operate in Kuwait

Here’s an excerpt of the interview, with thanks to Arye Leonid Glozman for sending over a link:

Syria Deeply: Why has Kuwait emerged as a financing and organizational hub for charities and individuals supporting Syria’s rebel groups?

Elizabeth Dickinson: It’s a perfect storm. Kuwait has all the things that one would need to set up such a financing hub. The most important thing it has, or that it had until very recently, was extremely lax regulation. So after Sept. 11, most of the Gulf states had these really strict counterterrorism financing laws that gave them the ability to stop any suspicious transactions very swiftly, and they were cooperating with Western intelligence to build their capacity to find any suspicious transactions in the banking system.

Kuwait, however, did not do that, and its counterterror financing law basically said nothing about terrorist financing being illegal. And its central bank just didn’t have any investigative capacity – so even if they did want to stop something from going on, they wouldn’t really have the ability to investigate and figure out how to stop it.

Factor number two is extremely deep ties between Kuwait and Syria. Before the conflict started, Kuwaiti investors were among the single largest direct foreign investor in Syria, so there’s a lot of really longstanding business ties. You have a lot of Kuwaitis with homes and businesses in Syria, with Syrian wives. So there’s a really close personal connection there. There’s also 120,000 Syrian expats in Kuwait, which is a lot considering the population of Kuwait is only 3 million people.

Then you have all the factors that have made the Gulf a hub for financing – you have a lot of money, and a lot of people who are personally affected by what’s going on in Syria. I’ve had lots of people start crying in meetings there. They had the willpower to start getting involved.

The last part of this perfect storm is that Kuwait has the longest history in the Gulf of charitable and humanitarian work. Because of its relatively open political system, people living in Kuwait are allowed to start NGOs, there are private charities that are private, not semi-state organizations like they would be in Saudi Arabia. The Kuwaitis have a lot of experience doing project finance, going into a country and building mosques, wells and schools. The infrastructure of charitable giving is really strong there, and it has allowed a lot of people with expertise to move into sectors of aid that are more geared towards the military side.

There’s a lot of overlap – sheikhs will do a fundraiser for the mujahideen and their weapons … and hospitals.

Kuwait’s ability to be a hub was recognized early in the conflict by other Gulf citizens who were interested in getting financially involved in Syria. If I’m a Saudi and I want to give money to the rebels in Syria, I’m probably aware that my government is not going to look favorably upon that, so individuals elsewhere in the Gulf rely on bundlers in Kuwait to accept their donations on their behalf, and then the donations go from Kuwait to Syria, rather than directly from Saudi to Syria.

SD: What’s the breakdown of where the money from Kuwait is going?

ED: We have rough ideas of how much it is and where it’s going. Among the pro-rebel groups, the vast majority of the money is going to groups that are in the Islamic Front, like Ahrar al-Sham and Jaish al-Islam. There’s evidence that funds are going to Jabhat al-Nusra…

Read the rest here.  Previous Money Jihad coverage of Kuwaiti financing of Syrian militants can be found here, here, and here.

Kuwait names financier of Syrian rebels to top post

Far from cracking down on individual Kuwaitis who have contributed or bundled donations to fund and arm the most radical fighters in Syria, the government of Kuwait is actually rewarding one of the top bundlers, Dr. Nayef al-Ajmi, with new appointments as the minister of justice and minister of Islamic affairs.

Previous Money Jihad coverage of the role played by Kuwait in the financing of Al Qaeda linked rebels can be found here and here.  The National Interest (h/t El Grillo) has the details on the latest wrinkle:

…[B]y royal decree Kuwait just appointed a religious hardliner to head two important ministries whose name should be setting off alarm bells abroad. The individual in question, a Salafist former MP named Nayef al-Ajmi, was sworn in by the Amir as Kuwait’s justice minister and minister of Islamic affairs and endowments on Tuesday, January 7.

Dr. Al-Ajmi is a polished young preacher who had been serving as an assistant dean at Kuwait University’s College of Sharia and Islamic Studies, and he has sat on the Sharia supervisory boards of numerous investment corporations based in the country. However, Al-Ajmi’s case also sits at the nexus of perhaps the worst irritant in Kuwait’s foreign relations: its exportation of violent religious extremism.

The problem is a longstanding one. A 2009 memo signed by Hillary Clinton described Kuwait as a “source of funds and a key transit point” for Al Qaeda but that the government in Kuwait City was “less inclined to take action against Kuwait-based financiers and facilitators” provided their plotting was focused abroad. The Kuwaiti government has refused to take action against a Kuwait-based relief organization called the Revival of Islamic Heritage Society since it was blacklisted by the UN over a decade ago for giving material support to Al Qaeda.

Which is where Kuwait’s new minister comes in. For one thing, he has propagated anti-Semitic hate speech on national television. In a sermon documented by the Middle East Media Research Institute, Al-Ajmi instructed his congregants that “our struggle with the Jews is one of faith, identity, and existence” since “the Jews of the past were evil, and the Jews of today are even worse. He proceeded to call the Jewish people “the scum of mankind… whom Allah transformed into pigs and apes”.

In addition, Al-Ajmi brings to his new offices a clear record of embracing jihadism in Syria. On Twitter, he has answered theological questions from the general public by ruling that “without a doubt” the struggle in Syria is “a legitimate jihad”.

Even since his political appointment, Al-Ajmi has remained listed as the official spokesperson for a Kuwaiti preachers’ organization, for whom he has apparently helped raise Syria funds. When several of the most extreme battalions in Syria united during November to form an Islamic Front that rejects human legislation in favor of divine law and advocates ethnic cleansing, this association announced its “complete support for this blessed union for the mujahid factions”.

Nayef al-Ajmi also seems to have been associated with a more virulent fundraising network operated by a fellow member of his clan, Shafi al-Ajmi. The latter al-Ajmi has implied that he supports slaughtering captured Shi’ite fighters,women, and children in Syria and had his preacher’s license suspended in August for radical invective on Syria and Egypt.

Human Rights Watch cited reports that Shafi al-Ajmi was a key donor to an operation on Syria’s western coast by Islamist members of the opposition (including Al Qaeda) that led to the mass execution of Alawite villagers, a probable war crime. Fliers for this fundraising effort featured Nayef al-Ajmi’s image as a prominent backer.

After Human Rights Watch’s report stirred up an international controversy, Nayef said he dissociated himself from the donor network, but Shafi has since continued to promote fundraising material featuring Nayef’s image without obvious consequences. Journalist Elizabeth Dickinson has written that Nayef himself made comments at the time suggesting he embraced the sectarian nature and aims of the coastal operation.

Subsequently, Nayef al-Ajmi claimed he exclusively endorsed another Kuwait-based fundraising network called the Council of Supporters for the Syrian Revolution, run by a firebrand former MP named Mohammed Hayef al-Mutairy. Mutairy is famous for seeking a fatwa to murder Syria’s ambassador to Kuwait back in 2011, and in 2013 he suggested kidnapping U.S. soldiers to trade for Kuwait’s remaining detainees at Guantanamo. As the country’s new justice minister, al-Ajmi could be responsible for handling judicial proceedings against these jihadists and evaluating their risk of recidivism should they be repatriated.

The Syrian groups funded by Mutairy’s network have included Ahrar al-Sham, which has intimately coordinated operations with Al Qaeda’s recognized affiliates in Syria. Further, it is now emerging that Ahrar’s own senior ranks are packed with longtime Qaeda operatives, including an influential founding member of Ahrar who answers to Ayman al-Zawahiri and was once Bin Laden’s trusted courier. A recent feature on the Syria conflict by Politico not only described Ahrar al-Sham as “ideologically close to Al Qaeda” but also “heavily financed by Kuwaiti clerics and sheikhs”.

Yet Al-Ajmi seems to project confidence in the work of Mutairy’s group. In September he announced that “I have limited my support for Syria to the Council of Supporters,” making it “the only actor through which I gather funds”. He justified this action “because of my knowledge about all its aspects of exchanging money and because of my confidence in the parties which the Council funds”.

As recently as last month, fundraising fliers for the group boasted of Nayef’s involvement as one of seven “Members of the Council”. Similarly, his relative Shafi’s network has reportedly raised money not just for Ahrar but also for Jabhat al-Nusra, which openly pledges allegiance to Al Qaeda. Credible reports warn that Kuwaiti charities are probably supporting Al Qaeda’s other affiliate in the area, too, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)…

Al Qaeda boss was key financier of Syrian rebels

The Saudi commander of the Abdullah Azzam Brigades, which is Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Lebanon, has been an essential fundraiser for attacks against Alawites in Syria, according to a Reuters article from Jan. 3.  Muhammad al-Majid served as an interlocutor between Gulf donors and anti-Assad militants before being arrested by the Lebanese army in November.  But surely Majid can be replaced by another Saudi—they have unrivaled expertise in bundling donations for jihad.

Al-Qaeda leader held in Lebanon ‘raised funds for anti-Assad militants’

Muhammad al-Majid, whose Abdullah Azzam Brigades claimed a double suicide attack on the Iranian embassy in Beirut last year, is believed to have been a key fundraiser for militants in Syria

The Saudi leader of an al-Qaeda spin-off group arrested in Lebanon this week was a key fundraiser in the Gulf for militants fighting to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, official and private experts say.

The Lebanese army arrested Muhammad al-Majid, who leads the Lebanon-based Abdullah Azzam Brigades which claimed a double suicide attack on the Iranian embassy in Beirut last November.

That attack was part of a spiral of sectarian violence in Lebanon that appears to be a spillover from Syria’s civil war. In the latest incident, a car bomb killed at least five people in a Shi’ite Muslim stronghold in southern Beirut on Thursday.

Laith Alkhouri of Flashpoint Partners, a private group which monitors militant websites for business and government clients, said Majid had “been behind a great deal of financing to the jihadists fighting in Syria.”

U.S. and European officials say that the most militant Sunni factions fighting Assad’s forces, including the Nusrah Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, both aligned with al-Qaeda, are being financed largely by wealthy families in Saudi Arabia and Gulf states.

A U.S. official who declined to be identified said Majid’s arrest was, “at least a temporary setback, but certainly not a death blow, to the Ziad al-Jarrah Battalions, one of the most powerful Sunni terrorist groups in Lebanon.”

“Under Majid’s leadership, the group exported a degree of the sectarian carnage of the Syrian civil war to Lebanon by targeting Iranian and Hizbollah interests. At the same time, this is a faction that has demonstrated its resilience in the past, and Majid’s experienced deputies may well step up to the plate in his absence,” the official said…

Kuwaitis outspend each other on Syrian rebels

Private donations from Kuwaitis have been playing a significant role in funding Al Qaeda-linked rebels in Syria (see here, here, and here), including operations such as the August massacre of 190 Alawites in Latakia province.

The latest wrinkle is that fundraisers in Kuwait have practically become competitions, with different tribes and prominent Kuwaitis vying with each other to see who can raise the most zakat for jihad.  Foreign Policy has the details:

Shaping the Syrian Conflict from Kuwait

• BY Elizabeth Dickinson
• DECEMBER 8, 2013

One night during Ramadan this summer, Hamad al-Matar, a former Kuwaiti member of parliament (MP), invited guests over to donate “to prepare 12,000 Jihadists for the sake of Allah,” a poster invitation advised. Anyone could come to his diwaniya, a space used for weekly gatherings to talk politics and sip sweet hot tea. And many did come, their pockets open and their contributions generous.

“I think we raised 100,000 KD [$350,000],” he later recalled in the same diwaniya, a long room lined on the perimeter with ornate couches. “That amazed me. I was thinking I would collect a couple thousand KD. Never in my entire life did I get such an amount of money in my pocket in one day.”

But what happened to that sum of money next, Matar said, he isn’t certain. “I’m not involved actually honestly speaking in where this money goes, because there are so many people much better than myself. Even I didn’t know the map [of Syria],” he explained. “Honestly I don’t know actually” where the money went.

For the last two years, MPs like Matar, as well as Kuwaiti charities, tribes, and citizens have raised money — possibly hundreds of millions of dollars — for armed groups fighting the Syrian regime. In many ways, the financing is highly organized. Smartly aligned to a given theme, battle, or season, campaigns are broadcast on social media and advertised with signage and elegant prose.

But Matar’s account offers a glimpse of just how uncontrollable — even random — this support has become. In Kuwait, private financing came into political vogue in Sunni circles, bringing aboard legions of public figures seeking to associate themselves with support for the Syrian rebels.

That broad base of popular support among Sunnis has rendered the phenomenon nearly unstoppable for the Kuwaiti government. There is another complication too: some in the Shiite community have held events and possibly raised funds in support of the embattled Assad regime.

Donors on both sides of the political spectrum could prove perilous for Kuwait, home to a tiny population of just 3 million. Sectarian tensions have risen in recent months as events in the region have escalated. The war in Syria now threatens to invigorate a generation of extremists on both poles who may not take as kindly to the country’s mixed-sectarian make-up.

In the early days of the uprising, just a few individuals and charities were involved in shaping and funding rebel opposition groups. But as the level of violence rose, donations grew, and the funders were keen to see that their money had been well spent; YouTube and Twitter exploded with videos announcing the creation of new brigades, some even named after their donors in the Gulf.

Suddenly, everyone in Kuwait knew which diwaniyas and charities had funded a brigade. And that visibility attracted a new cohort of donors. Kuwait’s large Sunni tribes held massive fundraisers, in one case reportedly raising $14 million in just five days. They became competitions: Could the Ajman tribe outbid the Shammar? Social pressure increased the take — and made participation a necessity for many of Kuwait’s most prominent politicians.

MPs like Matar joined the fold, sometimes wrapping Syria’s story into Kuwait’s own political predicament. Since 2009, a coalition of Islamist, tribal, and youth groups have banded together to demand government and social reforms, among them an end to perceived government favoritism toward the mostly-Shiite merchant class. Now, Syria’s struggle seemed to fit into a narrative of Shiite repression of the Sunni common man. President Bashar al-Assad, an Allawite, was backed by Shiite Iran, while the Gulf states professed support to the mostly-Sunni rebels.

On Twitter, there was a rush to boast donations and solicit more. Fundraisers posted photos of cars and jewelry that had been sold to support the “mujahideen.” They also earmarked specific costs for weapons: For example by saying that an $800 donation will buy a directed missile or a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG). For Matar’s diwaniya fundraiser, a contribution of 700 KD ($2,500) was said to be sufficient to prepare one fighter for battle…

There’s a lot more.  Read it all here.

Kuwaiti tycoon runs Hamas’s newest sharia bank

In May, Kuwaiti businessman Dr. Riyadh Al-Khulaifi launched Al-Intaj bank, an Islamic financial institution that has no license to operate from the Palestinian Monetary Authority.  Hamas and Al-Khualifi conceived of the bank to help keep Hamas afloat, to help evade international sanctions, and to increase sharia-compliant services in Gaza.

Hamas is probably concerned that Islamic National Bank, the other unlicensed sharia bank upon which the terrorist group relies, could be disrupted again by Israel, prompting the creation of Al-Intaj.

Al-Khulaifi is a member the International Islamic Fiqh Academy, a Muslim Brotherhood affiliated group that supports “armed resistance.”  His leadership over the Gaza bank could indicate an acceleration in Kuwait’s foot race with Saudi Arabia and Qatar to see who can buy the most Islamist loyalty abroad.

From IslamicFinance.de earlier this year:

A new bank is set to be inaugurated in the Gaza Strip next week, although it has not yet received the necessary license from the Ramallah-based Palestinian Monetary Authority (PMA). The Al-Intaj bank has a capital of $20m and a board of directors chaired by Kuwaiti businessman and member of the International Islamic Fiqh Academy, Dr Riyadh Al-Khulaifi. The bank… will be headquartered in Gaza City and have branches in other parts of Gaza Strip in the coming years. 50% of its capital will be channelled to production-oriented activities, while 40% will be allocated to the traditional transactions. The remaining 10% will be set aside to the ‘murabahat’ (Shari’ah-compliant transactions), the lender’s deputy board chairman Rushdi Wadi said.