Pakistan, like world, now moves against terror financiers
LAHORE: The recent arrest of Sheeba Ahmed, an alleged financier of al-Qaeda in the Indian sub-continent, bears ample testimony to the fact that Pakistan has finally realised that money happens to be the lifeblood of terrorism and has started to focus practically on the funding sources of those involved in subversive activities.
The action by the Pakistani authorities is certainly belated, but more initiatives of the sort could help the National Action Plan meet its desired targets.
Previously, terrorists were getting killed or arrested, but not much was heard with reference to their sponsors and financiers.
The world, of course, is far ahead of Pakistan when it comes to tracking and disrupting the funding sources of terrorists.
According to the Council on Foreign Relations, an independent and nonpartisan American think tank/publisher, more than $140 million in terrorists’ assets had been frozen in some 1,400 bank accounts worldwide by 2006. The Council on Foreign Relations had then published one of its research papers that had revealed that although the 9/11 attacks had cost as much as half a million dollars, most terrorist operations have much more modest budgets.
Quoting the United Nations, this think-tank had asserted that while the 2002 bombing of a Bali nightclub had cost about $50,000, the 2004 Madrid train bombing was believed to have cost between $10,000 and $15,000. Similarly, the 2005 attacks on London’s mass transit system had cost about $2,000 only.
Research conducted by the Jang Group and Geo Television Network shows that in 2006, eight per cent of all 703 arrests in terrorism cases in the European Union were on terrorist financing suspicions.
In October 2001, within a month after the 9/11 episode, the United States had launched an initiative called “Operation Green Quest,” which had carried out more than 300 probes within just four months into terrorist finances, seizing about $10.3 million in smuggled US currency and $4.3million in other assets.
Its work had resulted in 21 searches, 12 arrests and four indictments.
However, as a result of conflicts between the American FBI and the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, “Operation Green Quest” was disbanded in May-June 2003.
The most spectacular operation of the “Operation Green Quest” was witnessed on March 20, 2002, when it had raided 19 interrelated business and non-profit entities. Although arrests were made and no organisations were shut down, over 500 boxes of files and computer files were confiscated, filling seven trucks.
The “Operation Green Quest” was actually a US multi-agency task force that was set up with a purpose of countering terrorism financing.
It had looked into account transactions that were inconsistent with past deposits or withdrawals such as cash, cheques and wire transfers etc, it had peeked into transactions involving a high volume of incoming or outgoing wire transfers with no logical or apparent purpose, it had examined unexplainable clearing or negotiation of third party cheques and their deposits in foreign bank accounts, it had analysed corporate layering, transfers between bank accounts of related entities or charities for no apparent reasons, it had checked wire transfers by charity organisations and their use of multiple accounts to collect funds that were then transferred to the same foreign beneficiaries and had questioned the cash debiting schemes in which deposits in the US had somehow correlated directly with ATM withdrawals in countries of concern.
Germany and Australia had also launched similar investigations, which had yielded fruits.
In July 2010, Germany had outlawed a charity, saying it has used donations to support projects in Gaza that were related to Hamas, which is considered by the European Union to be a terrorist organisation.
The then German Interior Minister had said donations to the “so-called social welfare groups belonging to Hamas actually supported the terror organisation.”
In Australia, during 2009, an investigation carried out by officers of the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre had determined that funds were being sent from Australia, for use by the Somalia-based terrorist group “Al-Shahab.” Probe had revealed that money was remitted with false names used to obscure the money trail.
This investigation had led to the ultimate arrest of the suspects on charges of conspiring to commit a terrorist attack on an Australian Army base.
And in 2015, Australian banks had ceased providing money-transfer facilities to Somalia.
(References: Israeli newspaper Haaretz, the ABC News and the Herald Sun etc)
By the way, just a few months ago in June 2015, the Obama administration was facing renewed pressure to release a top secret report that allegedly shows that a Middle Eastern country had directly helped to finance the September 11, 2001 attacks.
The June 5, 2015 edition of the “Telegraph” had stated: “Rand Paul, the Libertarian Republican senator from Kentucky, is demanding that Mr Obama declassify 28 pages that were redacted from a 2002 US Senate report into the 9/11 attacks. Mr Paul, who had been vocal in attacking the bulk NSA spying programmes revealed by the rogue security contractor Edward Snowden and is running for president in 2016, has now promised to file an amendment to a Senate bill that would call on Mr Obama to declassify the pages.
The blacked-out pages, which have taken on an almost mythical quality for 9/11 conspiracy theorists, were classified on the orders of George W. Bush, leading to speculation they confirmed involvement of a Middle Eastern country.”
“The Telegraph” had added: “According to Bob Graham, the former Florida senator who was chair of the Senate Intelligence committee at the time of the report, they show that the Middle Eastern country was the “principal financier” of the attack. The White House said in January that it was reviewing the file, said that it had set no timetable for the conclusions of its deliberations. Some families of 9/11 victims have campaigned for several years for the declassification of the 28 pages, supported by Mr Graham who has now enlisted the high-profile Mr Paul to his cause.”
The esteemed British daily newspaper had maintained that although 15 of the 19 hijackers were from a Middle Eastern country, previous investigations have always failed to find a formal link between the country and the terrorist attack, which killed 2,996 people.
This newspaper had gone on to write: “Many victims groups believe the full extent of a Middle Eastern country involvement in 9/11 has long been covered up by both the Obama and Bush administrations to protect relations. Earlier this year, the theory of the Middle Eastern country’s involvement was given added impetus by fresh testimony from Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called “twentieth hijacker” who had taken flying lessons but was arrested weeks before the September 11 attacks - although was later disowned by Osama bin Laden. In a plea to a New York court released last February, Moussaoui said that senior members of the royal family of the Middle Easter country were major al-Qaeda donors and were intimately involved with Osama bin Laden’s terror network in the 1990s.”
According to the “Telegraph,” “The embassy of the Middle Easter country had dismissed Moussaoui - who was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic - as “a deranged criminal” trying to get attention for himself and try to do what he could not do through acts of terrorism - to undermine bilateral relations.
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