Targeting Terrorists’ Financial Networks: A Moving Target
By Matthew Levitt
As Michael Jacobson and I wrote in The Jerusalem Post, despite being under geographic siege and financial sanction, Hamas was still able to smuggle some 80 tons of explosives, roadside bombs and longer-range rockets into Gaza over the course of the past cease-fire.
It is ironic, then, that one of the most effective counterterrorism tools since 9/11 has been targeting terrorists’ finances. Disrupting terrorists’ means of financial support frustrates their ability to operate, while following the money trail up and down the financial pipeline can reveal to investigators otherwise covert terrorist networks.
As the current conflict illustrates, these tools face multiple challenges, the most pressing being the ability to be flexible enough to keep up with a constantly moving target. And therein lies the fundamental catch-22: In response to each successful disruption of illicit financing, be it of a terrorist, proliferation or other illegal nature, our adversaries change the way they raise, move and store.
continues....
http://counterterrorismblog.org/2009/01/targeting_terrorists_financial.php
Too many interesting articles at Atlas Shrugs to post.
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/
Also some must read articles at Jihad Watch:
“Anti-jihad, pro-Israel rallies in New York and all over!”
“Palestinian journo confirms what the world ignores — that Hamas uses civilians as human shields”
http://www.jihadwatch.org/