Showing posts with label threat-financing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label threat-financing. Show all posts

Sunday, November 22, 2015

"Follow the Money"

"Follow the Money". A phrase used many times by "counterterrorist' experts in containing the terrorist or insurgent threat is "follow the money". If you can cut the funding stream then you can degrade the operational capacity and capability of the terrorist or insurgent group. "Counter Threat Financing" is a field of counterterrorism that has seen increased interest this past decade. ISIS - based in eastern Syria and western Iraq - receives money from a variety of sources to include taxation of the residents living within the geographical areas it controls (the size of the United Kingdom), smuggling of goods and oil, proceeds from kidnappings, spoils from conquering places like Mosul (bank holdings, etc.), selling antiquaties on the black market, and donations from wealthy Arab nations and organizations in the Middle East. Tracy Samuelson tells us how ISIS is funded in "Where ISIS gets its money", Marketplace World, November 16, 2015.

FATF Report. The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) is an independent inter-governmental body that develops and promotes policies to protect the global financial system against money laundering, terrorist financing and the financing of weapons of mass destruction. FATF has produced a report that analyzes recently identified terrorist financing (TF) methods and phenomena. Read Emerging Terrorist Financing Risks, October 2015.

Afghan Mines - Taliban Insurgency. The Natural Resources Monitoring Network (NRMN) said that the Taliban are trying to take control of provinces that are rich in minerals in a bid to bolster their finances. Security has drastically deteriorated in mineral rich provinces in Afghanistan over recent months. See "Taliban Eyes Afghanistan's Mines to Fund Insurgency", Tolo News, October 25, 2015.

Sunday, October 19, 2014

Taliban's Financial Activities replace Ideology

The motivation for many of the Taliban may no longer be revenge or ideology according to a recent online article posted on Foreign Policy. The authors believe that money has now become the primary motivator for belonging to the Taliban. They state that the Taliban have become the ". . . gatekeepers to a host of black market activities that both sustain the organization and help recruit members". Recommendations from the authors include strategies that address these extra-legal funding sources. Sources of money include the drug trade, protection money paid by international and government contracts, Islamic taxes, smuggling, and other financial activities. The article explores three transforming periods of time of the Taliban (post-2001) explaining how it went from an ideological organization to one very keen on financial activities. Sometimes it is difficult to distinguish between a Taliban organization and a criminal patronage network in several provinces. Read more in "The Taliban's Transformation from Ideology to Franchise", The South Asia Channel Foreign Policy, October 17, 2014.