generalspeaking

Financing The Ultimate Terror

"[The Islamic State represents] a new type of terrorist organization with unique funding streams."
"[We plan to] immediately review whether all [its] members have implemented measures to cut off terrorism-related financial flows."
"The report demonstrates that ISIL is essentially living off the  capital illicitly generated by the territory it occupies, primarily by looting banks, exploiting oilfields and robbing economic assets."
"ISIL can be stifled by frustrating its ability to generate funds from these activities and by preventing it from obtaining funds from other sources and activities."
Financial Action Task Force, Paris

Governments that are identified as failing to do their utmost to staunch the flow of cash to Islamic State have been given due notice that they will be pressured to take immediate remedial action by the global agency set up to represent the international community's dedication to fight terrorist financing and money laundering. All 36 of its members are required to freeze terrorists' assets and to ensure it is illegal within their jurisdictions to finance terrorists.

The Financial Action Task Force is preparing to "put pressure on any country that has failed to implement these measures". And what then of countries which are careful themselves to adhere to the agreed-upon measures, but which nonetheless maintain cheerfully close relations with other countries not part of the pact and therefore free to continue contributing to the well-being of Islamic State -- like Turkey, like Qatar?

US president Barack Obama and the Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani smile while in the Oval Office at the White House on February 24, 2015. Larry Downing/ ٍReuters

Take, for example, President Obama's beyond-courteous display of friendliness with a country that is well known to promote the activities of terrorist groups, like funding Hamas, and Islamic State, yet the emir of Qatar is honoured at the White House. What does this say for American commitment to the global goal of stifling Islamic State through cutting off its funding? Mind, the U.S. and Qatar mutually befriend another terrorist group, the Muslim Brotherhood.

Since the warning was issued with the  specific purpose of warning Gulf states such as Qatar, which the US. itself has accused of failing to crack down on Islamic State financiers, the meeting at the White House three days earlier appears mystifying indeed. Is this an instance yet again of the Obama administration stating an unequivocal position, and then surrendering it at the earliest occasion?

Turkey is another member of the Financial Action Task Force. And it is well enough known the viral antipathy that President Erdogan has taken to President al-Assad's campaign against Syrian Sunnis who had protested their status of an oppressed majority under the Alawite minority regime. Turkey is also known to have financed Islamic State operations, as well as those of Hamas, and it permits itself to be used as an entry point for those jihadis eager to join the Islamic State in Syria.

The U.S. Treasury had calculated that Islamic State looted a half-billion dollars from state-owned banks in Mosul alone when it flooded the city with its militias as Mosul was left undefended by fleeing Iraqi troops. The oil refineries Islamic State 'caliphate' now operates, selling their production on the black market earns it another $100 million annually from the sale of oil and oil products.

And add in another $20 million for ransoms of Westerners; those that aren't horribly mutilated and slaughtered whose countries will bargain with terrorists for the release of their nationals, exempting Britain and America. And the sale of looted architectural and archaeological treasures in the West demanding huge amounts of cash in exchange for black market sales of artefacts that legitimate collectors and national museums refuse to touch.

The Islamic State must qualify as the best-funded terrorist group that history has ever seen. It has its state and non-state backers handsomely funding its atrocious activities and aspirations. And the mass looting it is involved in remains capable of gains advantaging its positioning in its long-range plans of occupying ever-large geographic areas of the Middle East, killing and destroying as it proceeds.

The indirect aid given it by those countries sworn to defeat the Islamic State and its purpose, along with the discreet direct aid advantages its course of action. A situation that all countries signing on to the global pledge should be aware of, yet the leading country that has dedicated resources and ostensibly is geared to defeat ISIS, has been hobnobbing with those countries funding it, instead of remonstrating and demanding compliance.

Labels: Crisis Management, Finances, Islamic State, Politics of Convenience, Qatar, United States

posted by Pieface @ Saturday, February 28, 2015