Posted on 02/13/2010 3:54:09 AM PST by TigerLikesRooster
Is al Qaeda Bankrupt?
Nathan Vardi, 02.11.10, 04:00 PM EST
Forbes Magazine dated March 01, 2010
Desperate for funds, the terrorist group has turned to affiliates that rely more and more on crime.
Jihadists had a name for Abd al Hamid al Mujil--"the million dollar man." Al Mujil had forged a personal relationship with Osama bin Laden and Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, the self-described mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, spending parts of the late 1990s in Afghanistan. In those days the Kuwaiti-born al Mujil traveled to various Arab countries to meet with bin Laden's deputies. As recently as 2006 al Mujil conducted fundraising in Saudi Arabia, where he was executive director of the eastern province branch of the International Islamic Relief Organization, a charitable group. He provided donor funds directly to al Qaeda, says the U.S. government, and was particularly focused on helping al Qaeda affiliates in the Philippines by handing out cash to a supporter who pretended to be on an Islamic pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia. These days al Mujil is out of business. That's largely thanks to efforts by the U.S. Treasury Department and the U.N. Security Council. Designating al Mujil as a terrorist financier and singling out the Philippine and Indonesian offices of his charity, they have prohibited U.S. financial firms from conducting any transaction with him or those offices and required U.N. member states to freeze his assets. The Saudi Arabian government has met that requirement, in addition to restricting the transfer of iiro funds outside of the kingdom. The charity's U.S. lawyer says the iiro is not a terrorist organization and has done nothing wrong. Al Mujil, he adds, no longer has a role with the charity.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
P!
I hope so.
Thanks for the ping Tiger Likes Rooster.
It’s not like they have any overhead.. cave rental is probably pretty low, I’ve yet to see any office furniture outside of a mat or two and a good mule can get 20 - 30 miles per bale of hay. Clothing is whatever rag they throw over their shoulder and I doubt they’re hitting any Ruth Chris steakuoses.
Their only expense is weapons.
“Their only expense is weapons.”
The good news is that a dirty nuke is expensive.
The bad news is that they only need to set off one.
It takes money to run a terrorist organization. It takes money to buy support from local warlords. It takes money to pay the salaries of thousands of radical clerics who recruit the jihadis. It takes lots of money to pay for radical madrassahs (Islamic schools) to indoctrinate kids in radical Islam.
Take away the sources of al-Qs money (and that SPECIFICALLY includes wealthy Arabs who support it behind the scenes, including prominent members of the various "royal" families), and the terrorist organizations would whither away.
See my previous post. It's not just weapons. Fighters need to get fed and clothed. They're going to want to get laid every once in a while. They need safe houses. They need training supplies. They need to buy off local warlords for protection and support.
And the very nature of the other needs makes them quite expensive. If we play our hand to its fullest doing anything to help the insurgents and would-be terrorists should be a very dangerous way to make a living. And the more dangerous we can make it the more locals will demand to provide support. True, they can save a few bucks by killing a man's family for not supporting them, but that sort of thing only goes so far. Iraqi insurgents learned that lesson a couple of years ago.
I can’t understand why we don’t napalm all the poppy fields.
Seriously....
I’ve seens mention that duering the financial collapse that it was DRUG MONEY that propped up many otherwise bankrupt banks???
Chocking them financially was a very determined effort by Bush. He spent a lot of political capital pressuring other countries to follow and participate in shutting down the money flow. I guess this will be one more thing Slo Joe can hand the credit off to Obama as having done.
Sorry, meant choking.
No more than the U.S. is.....or any other Western nation fighting terrorism.....=.=
That’s correct.
Paying for weapons, the terroristm and the terrorists’ needs with drug money has been a constant for a very long time.
#
Previously...
http://www.forbes.com/2009/12/18/al-qaeda-cocaine-business-beltway-al-qaeda.html
Terrorism
“Al-Qaeda’s New Business Model: Cocaine And Human Trafficking”
Nathan Vardi, 12.18.09, 05:05 PM EST
SNIPPET: “Arrests show terror group’s growing dependence on organized crime for funding.”
Bagmen are only one funding source.
Another is fraud.
Consider that the 1993 World Trade Center bombing was funded by a coupon-clipping operation.
Expand that by all the WIC/food stamp fraud committed by small markets and “halal” groceries, that are the first sign of newly emerging ethnic neighborhoods.
Then expand that into fraud of other social service programs (medical clinics set up “for the children” and to skim Medicare and so on) and add to that business scams and insurance scams by “rings” of participants who share a common ethnicity.
In the US, that funding gets directed to non-profit “charity” groups, which then take it offshore.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.