Category Archives: money jihad

Terror Finance: Supporting our Own Demise: Part 1

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by Samuel Westrop

Successive British governments continue to tolerate the existence of large charities that encourage and provide for Islamist terror groups. By failing to separate British Muslims from the Islamist charities that exploit them, we flatter and legitimize supporters of terrorism as humanitarians and community leaders. In the US, the charity Interpal is a proscribed organization: when you help terror groups build homes, you are also helping terror groups build bombs. In the UK, however, Interpal is a leading charity that provides support for terror groups. What is Interpal, and why isn’t the British government shutting it down?

For hundreds of years, London has mostly been a welcoming home for extremists who wished to destroy the very freedoms the city afforded them. It was here that 19th century nihilists such as Bakunin and Nechayev freely disseminated their violent ideas. In the 20th century, Soviet money seeped into our trade unions and lobbying groups. And now, today, London is a hub for Islamist and Arabist terror infrastructure. It is a city from which financial and logistical support sustains violent supremacist movements across the world. A few months ago, Lord Alton of Liverpool told the British parliament that he believed the Al Muntada Trust, a large London-based charity, is funding the Nigerian Al-Qaeda terrorist group Boko Haram[1]. The speakers at events previously hosted by Al Muntada have described Jews as the “descendants of apes and pigs” and have called for the execution of homosexuals and adulterous women[2]

We do not, however, just idly tolerate anti-Western groups in our midst and abroad; the harder truth is that government is often complicit with their activities, and when caught, our elected leaders simply refuse to discuss the facts. A recent report by Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) revealed that British taxpayers are contributing towards the $4.5 million paid each month to Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons, including terrorists and mass murderers. Despite the evidence gathered by PMW, the British Foreign Office continues to deny that British money is rewarding terrorism. In a letter to Robert Halfon MP, who had voiced his concern at the findings, the International Development Minister Alan Duncan wrote: “We have investigated the matter fully and can confirm that the allegations in Palestinian Media Watch’s report are both inaccurate and misleading.”[3] Duncan did not say how the report was inaccurate, and nor did he provide any sources or facts to back up his claim. As PMW sharply responded, “the general statements made by the Minister of State in his letter, which lack any sources that contradict PMW’s findings, are wrong”. [4]

This is unfortunately not the first time the British government has just rejected the accusations rather than examine the evidence. Several years ago, a report by the Taxpayers’ Alliance revealed that £100 million in British aid to Palestinian schools was funding textbooks indoctrinating children with pro-terror and anti-Jewish propaganda[5]. Similarly, rather than properly investigate, the government simply dismissed the claims as baseless. Why do politicians and the vehicles of government knowingly allow themselves to be complicit with groups that advance pro-terror and anti-Western ideas?

Look, for example, at a large organization called Interpal. Although in the UK it is a well-established charity which has enjoyed the support of leading British politicians and cabinet members, in the United States Interpal is designated a terrorist organization. What is Interpal, and why isn’t the British Government shutting it down?

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Read more at Gatestone Institute

Terror deaths and Pakistan aid correlated

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Money Jihad - January 2, 2013

The number of civilian fatalities from terrorist attacks in Pakistan is rising on a similar trend line with U.S. foreign aid to Pakistan over the past 10 years.

The foreign aid isn’t working. It actually appears to be backfiring. More aid = more terror.

Although American financial aid to Pakistan has begun declining, there is no appetite in Washington, D.C., to stop spending taxpayer dollars to fund the de facto terrorist state of Pakistan.  Sen. Rand Paul was right to push for at least making aid to Pakistan conditional.  Although Sen. Paul’s latest effort was defeated, these findings should give some reason for reconsideration:

Data from 2003 to 2012 show a general increase in American foreign aid to Pakistan measured in tens of millions of U.S. dollars and an increase in the number of civilian fatalities from terrorist attacks measured in tens.

Sources: Congressional Research Service and SATP.org, graph by MoneyJihad

The possible correlation resembles the relationship between aid to the Palestinian territories and the number of Palestinian terrorist attacks.

Data for this graph were compiled from CRS and SATP reports.

Qatar’s takeover of Europe

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Emir of Qatar, Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani

By Giulio Meotti

Read this carefully.  It is a shocking and factual description of the situation at present, but it is also the prophecy of the future for Europe – or should we already call it Eurabia.
Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal maintains a residence in Qatar, while the Taliban opened their first representation in a foreign country in its capital, Doha.

A hateful wind emanating from the small Islamic emirate is now blowing toward Europe, a wind accompanied by an ocean of poisonous, oily, bloody money – all coming from the peninsula in the Persian Gulf which today is the world’s richest country.

Slowly, Qatar is buying Europe’s assets.

Qatar, not exactly or even the slightest bit French-speaking, has just joined the “International Organisation of la Francphonie” as an associate member. Qatar’s goal is clear: to change and manipulate French culture. For example, the Voltaire School in Doha banned a religious book that discussed Christianity in the Middle Ages.

Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, who has cultivated the image of a pro-Western reformist, vowed to “spare no effort” to spread the teachings of Wahhabi Islam across “the whole world”. Last December Qatari Emir inaugurated the “Imam Imam Muhammad Ibn Abdul Wahhab” Mosque in Doha, dedicated to the founder of the most virulent, anti-Jewish and totalitarian Islamic school of religion.

Qatar’s octopus is working on three fronts: overthrowing despotic Arab regimes and replace these with sharia-based countries; destroying Israel by financing the terror groups (the emir just visited Gaza) – and Islamizing the European continent through mosques and investments.

In Germany, Qatar’s sovereign fund, the Qatar Investment Authority, owns 17 percent of Volkswagen, 10 percent of Porsche and 9 percent of construction giant Hochtief.

In Italy, to mention just one well known firm, Qatar just bought Valentino’s fashion style company, while AC-Milan owner Silvio Berlusconi is also ready to sell the powerhouse to the ruling Emir of the State of Qatar.

In the UK, the Qatar Muslims own swathes of the Canary Wharf financial district in London. Qatar also owns 20 per cent of the London Stock Exchange.

Qatar invested in the Paris St. Germain soccer club and it is an investor in the French Total Oil group, as well as British Shell.

Qatar financed the 95% of the Shard tower in London, the highest skyscraper in Europe.

In Cannes, the emir bought an hotel famous for hosting celebrities during the film festival, but it’s also looking to buy a Jewish symbol like the Les Trois Rois hotel in Basel, Switzerland, scene of the iconic portrait of Theodor Herzl.

Qatar has also purchased, for 300 million euros, the building which hosts part of the US Embassy in Paris.

Qatar announced last February, when Nicolas Sarkozy was still the President of France, that it was willing to spend $65 million in the French banlieues, the suburbs home to the vast majority of the six million Muslims in France. Then Qatar doubled the sum to €100 million, which the extreme leftist French newspaper Libération describes as a “Qatari take over of the banlieues.”

Another newspaper, Le Figaro, seeing the handwriting on the wall (writing a check?, published an article recently, titled: “Will France become an Islamic Republique?”.

Gas-rich Qatar may invest up to 10 billion euros in big French firms, the ambassador of the Gulf state in France, Mohamed Jaham Al-Kuwari, announced this week.

In Switzerland, where Qatar is economically very important, famous firms such as Swatch, Tissot and Victorinox, have removed the cross of the Swiss flag from many advertisements, especially in Arab and Asian countries. In many cases the cross on the red background, a sign of identity of the Swiss cantons, has been replaced by the words “Swiss Made”. The Victorinox, the famous manufacturer of knives, replaced the cross with the letter “V”. The Swatch justified the removal by saying that “Muslim countries are not allowed to show the cross in public.”

Qatar in Spain funnels its donations through the Islamic League for Dialogue and Coexistence , a group linked to the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria and which controls the Catalan Islamic Cultural Center. Qatar just paid $450,000 to renovate that center based in Barcelona.

In Italy, the Qatari emir is financing the construction of many mega mosques, while in Ireland Qatar recently donated €800,000 to build a mega-mosque in Cork.

Donations helped also to secure Qatar a seat in the Unesco’s World Heritage Committee, used by the Palestinians to advance their Jüdenrein agenda in Judea and Samaria.

Qatar also has an ambitious project to build a mega mosque and Islamic institute in Munich, Germany, which they say would “build a bridge between Islam and Europe”. Munich – where Pope Joseph Ratzinger was archbishop from 1977 to 1981 – is the city in which the Muslim Brotherhood has gained control of most of the mosques and of active Islam in Germany and in Europe.

The European Council for Fatwa and Research is headed by imam Yusuf al Qaradawi, based in Doha, Qatar.

Qatar is a bastion of anti-Semitism, which goes around the world along with the investments. A Qatari television show, based on a book by late Palestinian author Ghassan Kanafani, shows a Holocaust survivor who resorts to prostitution and claims the Nazis did no wrong. “I didn’t see any gas chambers”, she is seen saying. An actor depicting former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin calls on Jews to murder Arab civilians.

Qatar is also hosting many conferences which demonize the Jews.

Read more at Israel National News

Giulio Meotti, an Italian journalist with Il Foglio, writes a twice-weekly column for Arutz Sheva. He is the author of the book “A New Shoah”, that researched the personal stories of Israel’s terror victims, published by Encounter. His writing has appeared in publications, such as the Wall Street Journal, Frontpage and Commentary. He is at work on a book about the Vatican and Israel.

Money Jihad: How Islamists Finance Their Operations

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by: Ryan Mauro

The author of the Money Jihad blogwishes to remain anonymous. The daily blog documents how Islamists finance their operations. The author previously served in military-intelligence and has been blogging about terrorism financing for three years.

The following is RadicalIslam.or’s Security Analyst Ryan Mauro’s interview with the author of the Money Jihad blog about how the Islamist terrorism continues to be lavishly funded 11 years after the attacks of September 11, 2001.

Ryan Mauro: What legal loopholes are the Islamists using to finance their operations worldwide?

Money Jihad: Saudi Arabia’s approach to terror finance is a giant loophole in and of itself.  The Islamic zakat tax, what some call “Islamic charity,” is a massive source of jihadist revenues.  The Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency is supposed to approve charitable zakat transfers overseas, but it’s a fig leaf; the Saudis still fund the spread of radical Wahhabism abroad.  Also, it took Saudi Arabia’s Senior Ulema Council nine years after 9/11 to criminalize the financing of terrorism.  Whenever the Council comments on terror finance, it vigorously defends zakat in the same breath.  The Council won’t even define terrorism to include suicide bomb attacks against Israel.

In the U.S., we need a totally different approach to regulating hawala, the traditional Islamic system money transfer system that has helped fund terrorists.  But on balance I would say that most of the terror finance shortcomings in the West involve inadequate enforcement of existing laws rather than a lack of laws.

Ryan Mauro: What laws aren’t being enforced and why?

Money Jihad:  First, the Patriot Act prohibits providing material support to terrorism such as transferring money to Hamas.  The Holy Land Foundation (HLF) trial revealed that Islamic organizations such as the North American Islamic Trust and the Islamic Society of North America worked closely with HLF.  The Bush administration never intended HLF to be their final prosecution, but they ran out of time to pursue HLF’s associates.  Especially now that HLF’s final appeal was rejected by the Supreme Court, this would be a great time to enforce the material support provisions of the Patriot Act against HLF’s unindicted co-conspirators.

Second, the Foreign Agents Registration Act isn’t being enforced with respect to CAIR which engages in political activities in the U.S. but is funded from abroad.

Third, the nonprofit provisions of the Internal Revenue code are being abused by Islamic organizations that claim to be charities but are actually engaged in business activities.  For example, Islamic Food and Nutrition Council of America (IFANCA) is a certifier of halal foods.  It gets most of its revenues from inspecting food manufacturers that seek a halal certification label, but IFANCA claims tax-exempt status on the false basis of receiving revenues from charitable donations and grants, which is discredited by a simple review of their tax forms.  Canada does a better job than the U.S. of stripping bogus charity fronts of their tax-exempt status.

Fourth, Bank Secrecy Act and Treasury regulations require money services businesses, including hawala dealers, to register their business with the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. One study showed that about 85 percent of hawala businesses simply ignore the requirement.

As to why these laws aren’t being enforced, I think it’s political.

Ryan Mauro: What methods are the Islamists using today to raise money, besides soliciting wealthy donors?

Money Jihad: Well, it’s not just about zakat from wealthy donors.  Folks like Amina Farah Ali in Minnesota, Shabaaz Hussain in London, and Irfan Naseer in Birmingham have fundraised for relatively small donations from individual Muslims to support jihad overseas.  A few thousand dollars from the West goes a long way to fund a holy warrior on the ground in Somalia.

But apart from zakat donations, there are a whole host of other Islamic taxes that receive less attention but are huge revenue stream for jihad.  Western reporters call it extortion, but the mujahideen don’t look at it that way.

Take for example two terrorist organizations with a ground game:  Al-Shabaab and the Taliban.  They have fighters on the ground and control definite territory.  Organizations like that rely to a great extent on levying Islamic taxes on the people under their jurisdiction.  The Taliban still gets money from ushr, the Islamic tax on harvests, which includes poppy yields.  Al Shabaab imposes harbor taxes, checkpoint taxes (a practice from the early days of Islam up through Ottoman times), and a zakat on the lucrative Somali charcoal trade.

Ransoms, which are also permitted against infidels by the Koran, are a major revenue source for organizations like AQIM and Abu Sayyaf.  For Hezbollah, the West focuses on their drug money, but they get a lot of money from khums, the Shia Muslim tax on individual profit.

Counterfeiting, Sharia finance, street crimes, welfare fraud — those are all being used as well in different parts of the world to fund terrorism, individual Islamists or both.

Read more at Radical Islam

Ryan Mauro is RadicalIslam.org’s National Security Analyst and a fellow with the Clarion Fund. He is the founder of WorldThreats.com and is frequently interviewed on Fox News.

Muslim MasterCard: Compass pointing to Mecca embedded in new bank card

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Daily Mail:

A compass pointing the way to Mecca is embedded in a new MasterCard aimed at Muslims.

Gulf state-owned bank Al Hillal in the United Arab Emirates has rolled out the new bank card which complies with Islamic laws banning charging interest on loans in a bid to appeal to the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims.

Islamic law or Shariah forbids ‘riba’, the charging of interest on loans, because it enables the rich to exploit the poor, creates social and economic tension and encourages risk, according to scholars.

MasterCard spokesman James Issokson said, according to NBCNEWS.com: ‘We continue to see a growing demand, especially in the Middle East, for Islamic banking in general, and more specifically in our case, for cards that are Shariah-compliant in accordance with the tenets of the Islamic faith.’

As well as the compass which allows the cardholder to orientate themselves towards prayers five times a day, the new MasterCard has other benefits.

Cardholders have access to travel vouchers to pay for the Haj pilgrimage to Mecca, which Muslims are required to do at least once in their lifetime if they have the means.

Mr Issokson said: ‘A percentage of the money spent using the card is donated to local charities.’

Read more

Treasury Designation Latest of Hamas Challenges

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IPT News:

The Treasury Department announced Thursday that it designated two Lebanese-based charities which help fund Hamas.

Al-Waqfiya Al-Ri’aya Al-Usra Al-Filistinya Al-Lubnanya and the Al-Quds International Foundation, both Beirut based, were targeted by the designation, which makes it illegal for people in the United States from doing any business with them. The groups are controlled by Hamas and raise money for relatives of Hamas terrorists and prisoners, along with other projects in the Palestinian territories aimed at boosting Hamas’s standing.

Al-Waqfiya is described as “a central component of the Union of Good” in the Treasury announcement. The Union of Good was designated in 2008 and is led by Yusuf al-Qaradawi, an influential Muslim Brotherhood theologian.

“The Treasury Department will continue to work to disrupt Hamas’s efforts to radicalize vulnerable communities and undermine regional stability,” said Treasury Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence David S. Cohen. “Today’s action represents another step in our effort to ensure that charitable fronts are not used to finance terrorism.”

The designation comes amid difficult times for Hamas. A Washington Times column notes that its cause is being lost amid Arab Spring activity, especially the bloody battle for control of Syria. By siding with opposition leaders against dictator Bashar al-Assad, who along with his late father have allowed Hamas to operate out of Damascus, the group has alienated some supporters, including Iran which has financed Hamas for years.

And Human Rights Watch issued a 43-page report Wednesday detailing a pattern of abuse and torture of prisoners in Hamas custody in Gaza, “including arbitrary arrest, incommunicado detention, torture, and unfair trials.” Hamas, which seized power in Gaza in 2007, “executed at least three men convicted on the basis of ‘confessions’ apparently obtained under torture,” a Human Rights Watch release said.

There were 147 complaints of torture by Hamas police agencies last year alone.

Human Rights Watch called on the Egyptian-based Muslim Brotherhood – Hamas’s parent organization – to rein in the abuse.

“There is ample evidence that Hamas security services are torturing people in custody with impunity and denying prisoners their rights,” said Joe Stork, the group’s deputy Middle East director. “The Gaza authorities should stop ignoring the abuse and ensure that the justice system respects Palestinians’ rights.”

Sheikh: preventing terror finance violates rights

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Money Jihad:

Sheikh Saleh bin Abdulrahman Al-Hussein, formerly the chief of the presidency of Saudi Arabia’s two holy mosques and a member of the Senior Ulema Council, has written a 1,600 word opinion piece in the Arab News defending the transfer of funds overseas through “charity” from Saudi Arabia.  Hussein asserts that such “charity” is a personal freedom and human right.

In the piece, Sheikh Saleh Hussein slams a 2003 U.S. congressional hearing, which he claims had no facts, just emotional smears, about Saudi charities involved in financing terror.  He blames that hearing, subsequent arm twisting at the United Nations, and traitorous reporting by local Gulf journalists, for giving Saudi Arabia a bad reputation as the world’s terror financial hub.

If the evidence of Saudi perfidy is all based on false or exaggerated rhetoric, can the sheikh please explain the following events?

  • Why the Saudi International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO) branch in the Philippines, which was designated by the U.S. as a terrorist entity, was founded by Osama Bin Laden’s brother-in-law, Muhammad Jamal Khalifah—a senior Al Qaeda leader?
  • Why Saudi Arabia conceded that Al Haramain (a charity that operated under the control of the government of Saudi Arabia) branches in Bosnia, Indonesia, Kenya, Tanzania, and Pakistan were terrorist entities?
  • Why the former head of Al Haramain in the U.S. was convicted last year to 33 months in prison for funding jihad in Chechnya?
  • Why the founder of Saudi Arabia’s largest private bank (and the Sunni world’s largest sharia bank) was named in the infamous “Golden Chain” list of 20 financial benefactors of Al Qaeda, and why Saudi Arabia has resisted all legal attempts to access his bank’s records?
  • Why Saudi Arabia sponsors telethons to raise money for suicide bombers?
  • Why the chief of the Bangladeshi terrorist organization JMB says his funding sources include the Saudi-based Muslim World League and the World Assembly of Muslim Youth?
  • Why the Saudi government continues to award public contracts to the Bin Laden family for construction projects?

Oh, and one more question.  Sheikh Hussein concludes his commentary by invoking a verse from the eighth chapter of the Koran (“The Spoils”), a sura which addresses taking the spoils of war from conquered infidels.  If the sheikh is truly interested in defending the principle of charity toward the poor, this is a quite remarkable passage to select!

Money Jihad: Revisiting the Golden Chain, 11 years later

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Money Jihad:

It was the 1990s.  Osama bin Laden was broke, busted, and disgusted.  Al Qaeda had spent its last dime, and Osama needed a bailout.  Sulaiman Al-Rajhi and 19 other millionaire and billionaire Muslims came to the rescue.  They constituted a “golden chain” of financial backers that would enable a second life for Al Qaeda in Afghanistan from which to stage the terrorist attacks of 9/11.

The U.S. Senate presented the evidence against the Golden Chain once again this summer in its report about the misdeeds of the British bank HSBC.  HSBC maintained a relationship with Al-Rajhi Bank, of which Sulaiman Al-Rajhi was a founder, until 2005 despite the earlier discovery of the Golden Chain and Al-Rajhi Bank’s record of facilitating terrorist transactions.

Don’t take my word for it.  This comes from the Senate’s Jul. 17, 2012, report:

Al Qaeda List of Financial Benefactors. The al Qaeda list of financial benefactors came to light in March 2002, after a search of the Bosnian offices of the Benevolence International Foundation, a Saudi based nonprofit organization which was also designated a terrorist organization by the Treasury Department, led to seizure of a CD-ROM and computer hard drive with numerous al Qaeda documents.  One computer file contained scanned images of several hundred documents chronicling the formation of al Qaeda. One of the scanned documents contained a handwritten list of 20 individuals identified as key financial contributors to al Qaeda. Osama bin Laden apparently referred to that group of individuals as the “Golden Chain.” In a report prepared for Congress, the Congressional Research Service explained:

According to the Commission’s report, Saudi individuals and other financiers associated with the Golden Chain enabled bin Laden and Al Qaeda to replace lost financial assets and establish a base in Afghanistan following their abrupt departure from Sudan in 1996.

One of the 20 handwritten names in the Golden Chain document identifying al Qaeda’s early key financial benefactors is Sulaiman bin Abdul Aziz Al Rajhi, one of Al Rajhi Bank’s key founders and most senior officials.

The Golden Chain document has been discussed in the 9-11 Commission’s report, in federal court filings, and civil lawsuits. Media reports as early as 2004 noted that the al Qaeda list included the Al Rajhi name. HSBC was clearly on notice about both the al Qaeda list and its inclusion of Sulaiman bin Abdul Aziz Al Rajhi.

What became of the Golden Chain?  As for Al-Rajhi, the most prominent individual listed, he remains at large with an estimated net worth of $6 billion, showing up on Forbes magazine cover stories and feature interviews in the Arab News.  By Al-Rajhi’s own admission, he’s working out a “meticulous scheme” for a mysterious charitable endowment to dispose of his assets.

Money Jihad – Seven ways to stop funding terror

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Money Jihad:

Money Jihad has previously proposed methods to limit zakat and hawala—two major mechanisms for funding terror.  Here’s a more comprehensive set of our recommendations that would reduce terrorist financing overall:

  1. Drill, baby, drill.  The U.S. should expand offshore oil drilling, open federal lands for drilling, ease its permitting process for new refineries, encourage hydraulic fracturing methods that tap previously inaccessible energy sources underground, and approve the Keystone XL pipeline.  Increasing domestic U.S. and Western Hemisphere energy production will reduce reliance on Persian Gulf oil supplies and thereby minimize the profits reaped by hostile, foreign regimes that sponsor terror.
  2. Eliminate foreign aid to Pakistan.  Pakistan uses its ISI spy service to fund the Taliban, the Haqqani network, and Lashkar-e-Taiba.  Continuing to waste money on Pakistan is not only wasteful when we can least afford it, but it is suicidal.
  3. Study the true enemy and threat.  Among the most important concepts for the Western public to understand are:

    If we fail to acknowledge Islam as the animating force behind terror finance, we’ll get confused and aim at the wrong targets.  For example, we’ve spent billions of dollars complying with extensive bureaucratic requirements such as currency reports that have yielded minimal results.

  4. Launch a new offensive against Muslim American charities and entities that fund terrorism.  Pick a few of the highest profile ones and make an example of them by prosecuting their leaders and dressing them in orange jumpsuits.  Prosecute Islamic Relief USA under the laws against providing material support for terrorism.  Prosecute the Council on American-Islamic Relations under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.  Strip the halal food certifier IFANCA and the mosque deed financier North American Islamic Trust of their tax-exempt status.
  5. Tax hawala. Terrorists use the traditional Islamic money transfer system known as hawala to exchange money without being monitored.  Hawala dealers in the U.S. are required to register with FinCEN, a financial regulator, but about 85 percent of hawaladars ignore the requirement.  Imposing a simple one percent tax on hawala remittances would help put hawala under the jurisdiction of tax authorities rather than financial regulators who focus more attention on large banks than on small money services businesses.  A one percent tax would be a mild, positive step in beginning to track the transactions to countries that intend us harm.
  6. Designate ISI and Muslim World League as terrorist entities.  Pakistan funds jihadists through its ISI intelligence agency.  Saudi Arabia funds Hamas, Al Qaeda, and other Wahhabi movements abroad through the Muslim World League (MWL) which is comprised of eight subdivisions including the notorious International Islamic Relief Organization and the World Assembly for Muslim Youth.  The U.S. should declare the ISI and MWL to be foreign terrorist organizations in the same fashion that the Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps has been designated.
  7. Stop paying ransoms to jihadists.  Enforce U.N. Resolution 1904 which prohibits paying ransoms to terrorists or broker a new treaty banning the payment by governments or insurance companies of ransoms to specified terrorist groups.  Al Qaeda affiliates, the Taliban, Abu Sayyaf other jihadist organizations have made millions of dollars in the kidnap-for-ransom business.  Discourage recreational travel by Westerners to locations such as Somalia, Yemen, and the southern Philippines.

Any one of these proposals alone could help reduce terrorist revenues by hundreds of millions of dollars.

Other analysts have proposed improving and standardizing financial regulations, adopting conditions-based aid rather than open-ended foreign aid through the use of millennium challenge accounts, encouraging divestment and terror-free investing, promoting alternative energy sources, enacting harsher sanctions against Iran, a putting a greater focus on the prosecution of white collar financial crimes.

Ultimately, you have to examine the biggest sources of revenue for jihad, then look at what actions would be likeliest to reduce those revenue streams.

Regulator: British Bank Laundered Billions for Iran Through New York

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by IPT News  •  Aug 7, 2012 at 1:56 pm

Shares of Britain’s fifth largest bank, Standard Chartered, plummeted Tuesday after New York’s top banking regulator accused it of laundering $250 billion in prohibited Iranian transactions and threatened to revoke its license to operate in the state.

An order issued Monday by state Financial Services Superintendent Benjamin Lawsky accused the bank of being driven by its “evident zeal to make hundreds of millions of dollars [in fees] at almost any cost.” Its “actions left the U.S. financial system vulnerable to terrorists, weapons dealers, drug kingpins and corrupt regimes, and deprived law enforcement investigators of crucial information used to track all manner of criminal activity.”

The order is based on a review of 30,000 pages of internal documents, including emails, spanning from 2001-2010. It found that senior SCB officials schemed to use the New York branch to hide transactions with Iran. In doing so, SCB “indisputably helped sustain a global threat to peace and stability. By definition, any banking institution that engages in such conduct is unsafe and unsound.”

It called on the bank to show why its operating license shouldn’t be revoked and why other operations should be allowed to continue in the interim.

The bank denied the allegations, saying it complied with regulations in nearly every case and that the state order does not provide “a full and accurate picture of the facts.” But the order cites a statement by the group’s executive director in London, who in 2006 allegedly expressed “SCB’s obvious contempt for U.S. banking regulations” by saying ”You f—ing Americans. Who are you to tell us, the rest of the world, that we’re not going to deal with Iranians.”

The state order follows accusations by a U.S. Senate committee last month that another British bank, HSBC, laundered money for terrorists and drug traffickers. In June, ING Bank agreed to a $619 million penalty for similar violations involving Cuban and Iranian clients.

Tuesday’s stock dive decreased Standard Chartered’s value by billions of dollars.

But the order isn’t the bank’s only problem. The FBI reportedly is investigating, too, to determine if criminal charges are warranted.

Read the full New York State order here.