Money and fundamentalism: suggested reading

• The Department of Justice considers protecting the Palestinian Authority from a civil suit verdict for the victims of terrorism… more>>

• Lobbyists peddle influence on behalf of an alleged Hamas-financing charity from Qatar… more>>

• Senators propose to declassify the report on Saudi sponsorship of 9/11 hijackers… more>>

• The rebels of the Free Syrian Army have used their Western funding and support to… kidnap Westerners… more>>

Shin Bet busts Hamas cell’s gold scheme

Forty members of a Hamas cell in Nablus, Israel, have been arrested by Israel’s domestic security service.  Shin Bet found the equivalent of $1 million in cash and gold during their raid on the cell.  Hamas operatives intended to buy night vision goggles and other equipment to terrorize Jews.  From The Times of Israel on Jul. 1 (hat tip to El Grillo):

Large, gold-funded Hamas cell uncovered in West Bank, Shin Bet says
Israel’s security agency breaks a 40-strong cell in the Nablus region, foiling a terror attack in the making

Israel’s domestic security service said Wednesday it had revealed and arrested members of a 40-person Hamas cell in the Nablus region of the West Bank, foiling an attack still in the planning stage and breaking apart a community-wide infrastructure.

The arrests, conducted over the past months, were made public amid a rise in terror attacks against Israelis in the West Bank and corresponding calls from settlers to increase the Israeli army’s preventative actions in the region.

Over the past 10 days there have been four shootings and two stabbings, claiming the lives of Israelis Danny Gonen and Malachi Rosenfeld and wounding several more.

The Shin Bet said the Nablus cells were run from Qatar, by Hussam Badran, a Hamas spokesperson and a native of Nablus.

Budran, operating under Saleh al-Arouri, the Turkey-based head of Hamas operations in the West Bank, sent messages to the operatives in Nablus via “email channels,” the Shin Bet said, apparently referring to non-direct messages, and laundered the money into gold jewelry transported into the West Bank from Jordan.

Anan Fatuah and Samih Aliwi, West Bank shop-owners, allegedly received cash from a Nablus couple that had traveled to Jordan for medical care but were, in fact, a forward unit of Hamas. The couple, Bassam and Mona Sayih, allegedly transferred the funds to Fatuah, who bought gold in Jordan and sold it along with Aliwi in their shop, funneling the money to Hamas operatives.

The Shin Bet and police said they found NIS four million (roughly one million dollars) in cash and gold during the arrests.

The 40-person infrastructure engaged in a wide range of activity, from education to media to charity, and was in the process of planning a terror attack.

Two of the arrested, Anas Abbas and Taufiq Sualmeh, admitted under questioning to planning a terror attack and buying night vision goggles to further the execution of that plan. They allegedly were in contact with operatives from Ahmad Jibril’s PFLP-GC terror organization in Syria…

France mulls ban on Gulf funding of mosques

France is considering a prohibition against foreign funding of domestic mosques. This is a sensible proposal given that Saudi funds have been coming with Wahhabi or Salafi strings attached for decades, and Qatar has joined the fray.

But some French Muslims and Socialists oppose the measure, arguing that if mosques cannot be funded by foreign powers then the French government should subsidize the mosques.

How about a third alternative which would be for these mosques to fund themselves through donations from their own members?

From Radio France Internationale on Feb. 15 (h/t EuropeNews):

France to cut Qatar funding of mosques in crackdown on islamic fundamentalism

By RFI with Christina Okello

The French government has announced a series of measures to clamp down on radical Islam being spread in mosques, and wants to cut financial support from countries like Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Critics warn that before it does, it first needs to revise its 1905 law separating Church and State which discriminates against Muslims.

“If foreign countries are stepping in to fund mosques, it’s because the French government won’t” Karim Bouamrane, a socialist candidate in next month’s local elections, told RFI on Saturday.

Bouamrane was reacting to plans by the French government to launch a cultural offensive against Salafist movements, held responsible for brainwashing the country’s young Muslims.

These movements are accused of spreading islamic fundamentalism in mosques, with the financial backing and complicity of countries like Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

“Muslims cannot run the risk of refusing cash from outside, because the French government won’t allocate them funds to build mosques” Bouamrane added, before concluding that the country’s 1905 law separating the Church and State needs to be updated.

The 1905 law, enshrining secularism as a national principle, bars the state from officially recognizing, funding or endorsing religious groups.

But it has come under increased scrutiny in connection with the integration of the Muslim community, many of whom arrived in France in the 1960s, after the 1905 law was passed.

However, Churches and synagogues for instance that were built before 1905, do receive funding and endorsement from the government, leading some Muslims to hit out at double standards.

“Yet the question to reform the law is difficult because France is a laic (secular) country,” Gérard Prudhomme, deputy mayor of Seine-Saint Denis, a rough suburb of Paris, told RFI, “many people against anything which can change this thing.”

However, there are growing calls for the state to fund Muslims’ religious worship in some way, in a bid to plug funding from foreign countries, without compromising its values of secularism…

(See prior Money Jihad coverage of a Gulf Arab funded mega-mosque in Marseille here.)

Terror finance predictions for 2015

• Counter-terror attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner says that a jury trial will begin in January for the Sokolow v. Palestinian Liberation Organization. The case is notable in that it takes on the Palestinian Authority itself in addition to the PLO, and could set the precedent for further lawsuits to help de-fund the PA and PLO by terrorist victims’ families.
• A trial to set damages for Arab Bank PLC’s role in financing terrorism is scheduled to begin in May (h/t Sal). Arab Bank wanted to skip the trial and settle for $12 million, but U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan ruled that a trial would be a more useful starting point.
• NYU professor Maha Hosain Aziz predicts that lone wolf Islamist terrorist attacks will increase, requiring closer monitoring of social media by law enforcement (h/t Don). Money Jihad predicts that public officials will cite these increased lone wolf attacks as an excuse for why they fail to interdict terrorist funds. They will claim that self-financed attacks are harder to detect than transactions across terrorist financial networks.
• Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford says Afghan forces will be “tested” by the Taliban in 2015. As Obama’s premature withdrawal from Iraq indicated, leaving inadequate forces to combat terrorists can lead to their financial resurgence as it did with ISIS. This looks even more ominous when coupled with the Pakistani Taliban’s “stockpiling” of cash through extortion and kidnap-for-ransom schemes in 2014.
• The FC Barcelona soccer team will not renew its sponsorship deal with Qatar in 2015 over terror finance concerns.
• Finally, increased cyber-attacks and cyber-theft are always a safe bet. McAfee Labs predicts that “Small nation states and foreign terror groups will take to cyberspace to conduct warfare against their enemies” and increased ransomware attacks in 2015.

Money Jihad predictions last year for 2014 were somewhat prescient, including the projection that Narendra Modi would move against illicit finance if elected as prime minister of India, which he was and which he did, and that ransomware would develop into a larger cyber-security threat. But our predictions that Congress would declassify 28 redacted pages of its report into 9/11, and that Congress would tighten sanctions on Iran proved to be off.

10 biggest terror finance news stories of 2014

1. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria rebounded from a weaker financial position to amass $3 billion in annual income after taking over Fallujah in January and Mosul in June. Its diversified portfolio makes ISIS the world’s best funded terror group. Western allies are trying to cut off ISIS’s money, but admit that the best case scenario is that ISIS will run out of cash on its own.
2. Treasury undersecretary David Cohen announced in March that “Qatar, a longtime U.S. ally, has for many years openly financed Hamas,” and that it is financing terrorists in Syria. These comments were followed up by former MI6 spy chief Richard Dearlove’s statement in July that “substantial and sustained funding” for ISIS comes from Saudi Arabia and Qatar. At least 5 but probably dozens more prominent Qataris are involved in the financial pipeline to Al Qaeda affiliates.
3. The 4,500 rockets fired by Hamas toward Israel from July to August were financed and supplied by Iran and Qatar, further calling into question the wisdom of Iranian nuclear negotiations and periodic U.S. communications through Qatari diplomats for outreach to the Taliban.
4. A ban from Israel and a designation as a terrorist entity by the U.A.E. made 2014 an annus horribilus for Islamic Relief Worldwide (IRW). The world’s largest Islamic charity was also tarnished by revelations that its German subsidiary has worked with a Hamas-connected charity in Syria and that IRW’s U.S. subsidiary, IR-USA, was documented to have given $118,000 to terror-linked groups.
5. Turkey’s role in financing terrorism spilled out into public view after paying $800 million to ISIS for oil. Turkey’s 2014 corruption scandal also revealed the extent of their involvement in Iranian sanctions evasion. Turkish president Erdogan’s support for Al Qaeda financier Yasin al-Qadi led his removal from U.S. terror blacklists.
6. Arab Bank was found liable in Linde v. Arab Bank, PLC in September for funding 24 terrorist attacks by Hamas. The case sets a powerful legal precedent for victims’ families to seek justice against Middle Eastern banks involved in financing terror.
7. A bill to declassify 28 pages of a Congressional report into 9/11 gained 20 new co-sponsors in 2014. The redactions deal with money given by Saudi officials and agents to the hijackers.
8. Sharia banker and Islamist militant financier Mir Quasem Ali was sentenced to death by a war crimes tribunal in November for 8 torture sessions he oversaw against Bangladeshis in 1971. Ali’s involvement highlighted the intersection between Saudi money, violent Islamist groups, and sharia-compliant banking.
9. Boko Haram kidnapped 200 girls in April, possibly for financial reasons, as suggested by Boko Haram’s demands for a ransom from the Nigerian government and from the girls’ families. Other motives include sex and household work and the prospect of money and prisoner swaps.
10. An outspoken singer and fierce critic of terror finance, Saado Ali Warsame, was slain in Somalia in July. Warsame previously called upon fellow Somalis to refrain from using the remittance company Dahabshiil because of the firm’s role in funding terrorism. Warsame alleged before her death that the company offered a contract for her assassination.

Newer Money Jihad readers may also want to look back at our biggest stories of 2013, 2012, and 2011 to see how the threats are evolving over time.

Jihad funding news: recommended reading

• A Pakistani jihadist group’s front charity is now operating in Gaza… more>>

• How Sokolow v. Palestinian Liberation Organization could help bankrupt the PLO… more>>

• Several countries have funded terrorists by paying ransoms to Al Qaeda; 6 those countries have been named… more>>

• When it comes to financing terrorism, Qatar runs with the hare and hunts with the hounds… more>>

FSA hammered by Qatar-funded al-Nusra Front

The Free Syrian Army, Washington’s best hope for a Syrian alternative to Bashar al-Assad and Al Qaeda, suffered a major defeat last week at the hands of Jabhat al-Nusra—Al Qaeda’s formal affiliate in Syria.  The FSA was recently forced to leave their Western-provided arms behind them as they retreated from advancing Nusra forces.

In case you’ve forgotten who funds al-Nusra, it’s Qatar. And their foreign minister’s cousin.  It’s not just private donors working outside the Qatari ruling class—the money and support for al-Nusra comes from within their very own ranks.  From The Telegraph (h/t Sal):

Minister’s family ties to terror

Cousin of Qatari foreign minister was arrested for terrorist funding but freed after intense lobbying

The cousin of Qatar’s foreign minister has been convicted of funding international terrorism and is believed to be linked to an alleged terrorist known as the “Wolf of al-Qaeda”.

Abdulaziz bin Khalifa al-Attiyah was found guilty in absentia by a Lebanese court of channelling financial support to al-Qaeda.

He was detained in Lebanon – apparently following a tip-off by British and American intelligence – but was allowed to leave the country before his trial after intense pressure by Qatar on the Lebanese government.

On social media, al-Attiyah appears to have energetically supported Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda’s Syria franchise, the al-Nusra Front.

He also appears to have tweeted support for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil.)

The al-Nusra Front last year instructed donors to channel money to it through an organisation closely linked to al-Attiyah.

Al-Attiyah is also associated with Umar al-Qatari, known as the “Wolf of al-Qaeda”. Al-Qatari was named last month by the United States government as a designated terrorist.

In a brief statement, lawyers for al-Attiyah insisted that he had not funded terrorism.

However, they repeatedly refused to deny that he had been arrested and convicted for doing so in Lebanon or that he had written pro-terrorist messages on social media.

The lawyers declined to respond to any further questions about him, despite repeated requests over several days.

Al-Attiyah’s conviction, in June, brings the funding of terrorism closer to the heart of the Qatari government and will increase the growing pressure on the country to end its role as a centre for the funding of global jihad…

Still think that Qatar is a good intermediary for prisoner swap deals in Afghanistan, or for peace negotiations between Israel and its neighbors?  Now we see clearly that Qatar holds the bloody dagger that stabbed Pres. Obama, the State Department, and the CIA in the back in Syria. Will Qatar’s victims learn for this treachery or sit down at the bargaining table to be betrayed one more time?

Qatar terror finance news: recommended reading

• Qatar paid for thousands of rockets for Hamas to fire at Israeli civilians… more>>

• Qatar offers $1 billion to Gaza. What could go wrong? More>>

• Money for some of Denmark’s 100 ISIS fighters came from Qatar… more>>

• Qatar will pay Turkish front charity IHH to launch a second anti-Israel flotilla (h/t Scot Infidel)… more>>

• Turns out that a man who sent hundreds of thousands of dollars to Al Qaeda was working for the government of Qatar  (h/t El Grillo)… more>>

• Britain sanctions a Qatari who was sending £1 million a month to Al Qaeda (h/t El Grillo)… more>>

• Israel’s economy minister says Qatar pays a quarter billion dollars to Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal… more>>

• With a straight face, the emir of Qatar says “We don’t fund extremists”… more>>

Clandestine money news: recommended reading

• Qatar is arming the revolutionary Islamist militia known as “Libya Dawn”… more>>

• The international watchdog Financial Action Task Force finds that soccer and money laundering are a perfect match for each other… more>>

• Arab Bank wasn’t the only financial institution funding Hamas.  Enter National Westminster Bank… more>>

• How ISIS’s antiquities smuggling and the Islamic khums tax finance the blood-letting in Iraq and Syria… more>>

Terror payola news: recommended reading

• 300 plaintiffs would have their health or loved ones back if it hadn’t been for Arab Bank and the money they handled for Hamas, a jury finds… more>>

• Qatar gave $15 million to the institute that keeps a key U.S. negotiator for peace in the Middle East on its payroll.  The summary in Latin is quid pro quo… more>>
  (h/t Europe News)

• The smoke clears on the history of Hezbollah‘s cigarette smuggling in North Carolina with the publication of Lightning out of Lebanon… more>>
  (hat tip El Grillo)

• The Israel-Gaza rocket war was triggered by a $61.5K contract killing of three Israeli teenagers ordered by Hamas… more>>

• Treasury’s top authority on the subject says, “Qatar, a longtime U.S. ally, has for many years openly financed Hamas”… more>>

• On Hamas’s recent bank robbery of $750,000 from the Bank of Palestine in Gaza City… more>>
  (h/t El Grillo)

• Ukraine lists 172 Russian citizens & 65 Russian companies to be sanctioned “for financing terrorism”… more>>

 

Terror finance frontal assault: recommended news reading

• The Turkish Islamic front charity behind the illegal Gaza flotilla has just inked a pact with Qatar. What could go wrong?  More>>

• After Egypt shut down Sinai smuggling tunnels, Hamas became desperate for cash. So it launched its rocket war against Israel with a global shakedown in mind… more>>

• How Arab Bank transferred millions of dollars from Middle East “charities” to Hamas’s “martyrs”… more>>

• Poorly informed Pentagon spokesman is concerned about Qatar’s support for terrorism only “if the reports are true”…more>>

• ISIS poses an economic threat to the U.S….more>>