Paying Ransoms, Europe Bankrolls Qaeda Terror

[LarryW]

It's a global business. The CEOs of AQ, etc (ad nausea) run a conglomerate and are raking in a rather comfortable income. It's all paid in cash. It doesn’t appear to have anything to do with achieving any spiritual or religious purity anymore. It’s all about the money. God has left the building.

(Partial of NYT article below. Remainder available via link.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/30/wo...as-patron.html

BAMAKO, Mali — The cash filled three suitcases: 5 million euros.

The German official charged with delivering this cargo arrived here aboard a nearly empty military plane and was whisked away to a secret meeting with the president of Mali, who had offered Europe a face-saving solution to a vexing problem.

Officially, Germany had budgeted the money as humanitarian aid for the poor, landlocked nation of Mali.

In truth, all sides understood that the cash was bound for an obscure group of Islamic extremists who were holding 32 European hostages, according to six senior diplomats directly involved in the exchange.
The suitcases were loaded onto pickup trucks and driven hundreds of miles north into the Sahara, where the bearded fighters, who would soon become an official arm of Al Qaeda, counted the money on a blanket thrown on the sand. The 2003 episode was a learning experience for both sides. Eleven years later, the handoff in Bamako has become a well-rehearsed ritual, one of dozens of such transactions repeated all over the world.

Kidnapping Europeans for ransom has become a global business for Al Qaeda, bankrolling its operations across the globe.

While European governments deny paying ransoms, an investigation by The New York Times found that Al Qaeda and its direct affiliates have taken in at least $125 million in revenue from kidnappings since 2008, of which $66 million was paid just last year.

In news releases and statements, the United States Treasury Department has cited ransom amounts that, taken together, put the total at around $165 million over the same period.

These payments were made almost exclusively by European governments, who funneled the money through a network of proxies, sometimes masking it as development aid, according to interviews conducted for this article with former hostages, negotiators, diplomats and government officials in 10 countries in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. The inner workings of the kidnapping business were also revealed in thousands of pages of internal Qaeda documents found by this reporter while on assignment for The Associated Press in northern Mali last year.

In its early years, Al Qaeda received most of its money from deep-pocketed donors, but counterterrorism officials now believe the group finances the bulk of its recruitment, training and arms purchases from ransoms paid to free Europeans.

(Remainder available via link above.)

[Streck-Fu]

Europe would be well served to review the Barbary Wars and why our Marines (with many mercenaries) went to Tripoli.....

[Flagg]

Originally Posted by LarryW

It's a global business. The CEOs of AQ, etc (ad nausea) run a conglomerate and are raking in a rather comfortable income. It's all paid in cash. It doesn’t appear to have anything to do with achieving any spiritual or religious purity anymore. It’s all about the money. God has left the building.

(Partial of NYT article below. Remainder available via link.)

IF that's the case then I would think its potentially a good thing in a way.

I would think that an organisation increasingly motivated by money rather than ideology may represent both a lesser threat and be potentially more vulnerable to disruption.

Maybe along the lines of the IRA?

Ideological terrorism morphing into transnational criminal networks?


Glass half full rather than half empty?

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I would think that the "industrialisation" of K&R activity and the response to it is a tough one. Get 10 people back in the short term at the cost of losing 100-1000 over a longer time horizon by funding their operations with the ransom for the 10. Rinse and repeat, invest in and grow the illicit niche market cash flow until you can't.

How do you stop paying ransoms to break the chain of that income stream?

It reminds me of Kilcullen's book "Out of the Mountains" discussions on illicit networks and income streams. And how shutting down one income stream will likely result in a shift to a new income stream.

Does organisational emphasis on money(developing revenue streams to fund operations) actually represent proof that the organisation has lost its ideological focus?

Isn't assuming success in operational fund raising equating to a loss of ideological focus potentially dangerous?

I would think unless there is widespread systemic evidence of AQ franchisees burning cash flow on lavish lifestyle rather than kinetic and information operations I would think the article premise might be premature.

[mark46th]

"Ideological terrorism morphing into transnational criminal networks?" Flagg

It worked for the KGB.

[Flagg]

Originally Posted by mark46th

"Ideological terrorism morphing into transnational criminal networks?" Flagg

It worked for the KGB.

Good point.....and I'm sure others such as Hezbullah can be added to the list.

It makes me wonder why there hasn't been a law enforcement analog to an ODA created, or if existing ODAs have been enabled/extended to include more of the law enforcement end of the conflict continuum in partner states.