Muslim Brothers’ revenue tactic: ransoming Copts

September 20, 2013

Copying the tactics of jihadists in Pakistan, the Philippines, and the Sahel, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood has increasingly turned towards kidnap-for-ransom schemes as a fundraising method.  As the Brotherhood will also tell you, the imposition of ransoms is justified by Islamic law.  The revenues also help them buy arms or fund terrorists in the Sinai.
One difference, however, in the Egyptian case is that the captors seem to have an inflated sense of how much money the Coptic minority can pay to redeem their loved ones.  Many of the ransom demands are simply too high, resulting in no profit for the abductors and the death of the captive.
From the Middle East Forum:

Egypt: Christians Killed for Ransom

by Raymond Ibrahim
September 2, 2013
Not only are the churches, monasteries, and institutions of Egypt’s Christians under attack by the Muslim Brotherhood and its supporters—nearly 100 now have been torched, destroyed, ransacked, etc.—but Christians themselves are under attack all throughout Egypt, with practically zero coverage in Western media.
Days ago, for example, Copts held a funeral for Wahid Jacob, a young Christian deacon who used to serve in St. John the Baptist Church, part of the Qusiya diocese in Asyut, Egypt. He was kidnapped on August 21 by “unknown persons” who demanded an exorbitant ransom from his impoverished family—1,200,000 Egyptian pounds (equivalent to $171,000 USD). Because his family could not raise the sum, he was executed—his body dumped in a field where it was later found. The priest who conducted his funeral service said that the youth’s body bore signs of severe torture.
In fact, kidnapping young Christians and holding them for ransom has become increasingly common in Egypt. Last April, 10-year-old Sameh George, another deacon, or altar boy, at St. Abdul Masih (“Servant of Christ”) Church in Minya, Egypt, was also abducted by “unknown persons” while on his way to church to participate in Holy Pascha prayers leading up to Orthodox Easter. His parents said that it was his custom to go to church and worship in the evening, but when he failed to return, and they began to panic, they received an anonymous phone call from the kidnappers, informing them that they had the Christian child in their possession, and would execute him unless they received 250,000 Egyptian pounds in ransom money.
If those in Egypt being kidnapped and sometimes killed for ransom money are not all deacons, they are almost always church-attending Christians. Last April, for example, another Coptic Christian boy, 12-year-old Abanoub Ashraf, was also kidnapped right in front of his church, St. Paul Church in Shubra al-Khayma district. His abductors, four men, put a knife to his throat, dragged him to their car, opened fire on the church, and then sped away. Later they called the boy’s family demanding a large amount of money to ransom child’s life.
The hate for these Christians—who are seen as no better than dogs—is such that sometimes after being paid their ransom, the Muslim abductors still slaughter them anyway. This was the fate of 6-year-old Cyril Joseph, who was kidnapped last May. In the words of the Arabic report, the boy’s “family is in tatters after paying 30,000 pounds to the abductor, who still killed the innocent child and threw his body into the toilet of his home, where the body, swollen and moldy, was exhumed”…

Posted in News commentary | Tagged Copt, Egypt, fai, Muslim Brotherhood, ransom | Leave a Comment »

Financial data mining yields no gold nuggets

September 19, 2013

Financial privacy is becoming a fading memory of the past due to aggressive regulations by Western governments that require bankers to serve as snitches against their own customers for transactions that may or may not be criminal in nature. These regulations are costly for the banks to comply with (costs which are ultimately passed on to customers), and they carry a price for citizens’ privacy as well.
All that might be forgiven if the invasive policies actually result in stopping terrorists, their financial transactions, or their operations.  But according to new research being conducted in the European Union, the results of such programs are “meager and sometimes debatable.” The government holds the data while you’re left holding the bag.
A tip of the hat to Andrew S. Bowen for sending this over:

Terrorism financing barely traceable using data analysis

28 August 2013
Doctoral research by Mara Wesseling has shown that the data analyses being performed as part of the European fight against terrorism financing are of little use for preventing terrorism. Wesseling will receive her doctorate from the University of Amsterdam (UvA) on 3 September.
Immediately following the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001, the European Union created the EU Action Plan for Combating Terrorism, which included action against terrorism financing as a ‘core component’. Politicians, policymakers and legal experts stress the importance of combating terrorism financing, as they see money as a crucial element in the propagation of terrorism. Specific programmes have been set up to address the problem.
‘My research shows that it cannot yet be demonstrated whether these programmes have had much success with regard to tracking down suspected terrorists or preventing terrorist attacks. In light of the meagre and sometimes debatable results of both programmes, the question arises whether the social and political changes instituted as part of the data-analysis-driven fight against terrorism are (still) desirable or justified,’ Wesseling says.

Terrorist Finance Tracking Program

In her research, Wesseling analysed the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program (TFTP – better known as the SWIFT programme in the wake of the ‘SWIFT affair’) and the Third European AML/CFT directive. These two programmes constitute the most significant initiatives in the European fight against the financing of terrorism.
It has been shown that risk analyses carried out by banks as part of the Third European AML/CFT directive have revealed virtually no patterns that point to terrorism financing. Wesseling goes on to say that the preventive power of the TFTP to detect terrorist networks at an early stage is also limited…

Posted in Columns, essays, & pure opinion | Tagged AML, banking, BSA, CFT, compliance, EU, regulation, terrorist financing | Leave a Comment »

$100,000 sent from Gulf to fund 25 assassins

September 18, 2013 Amniyat, the elite intelligence unit of the Somali terrorist organization al-Shabaab, received 100,000 USD from Somali businessmen based in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the U.A.E. to carry out a wave of assassinations in Mogadishu, according to a UN report.
The money was remitted between October to December 2012 with bombings and suicide attacks conducted from January to April of 2013.  At least 22 people were assassinated in Mogadishu as a result of the operation.
The following findings come from the July report of the UN Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea, with internal citations omitted:

26.  The Monitoring Group was also provided with confidential information regarding the preparation at the end of 2012 and the partial execution of a large-scale assassination operation by an Amniyat cell in Mogadishu. The objective was to mobilize a team of 25 Amniyat operatives to conduct a wave of assassinations of national intelligence officers and members of the Federal parliament. To that end, money was collected amongst supporters of Al-Shabaab within the Somali business community in Qatar and sent via Dahabshil, a money remittance company, to Mogadishu, where it was received by the Amniyat Finance Officer in Mogadishu, Ali Mohammed Ali ‘Abdullahi’, and delivered to the Amniyat commander in charge of the operation.
27. The Monitoring Group had further access to three additional cases in which cash U.S. dollars were collected from the Somali business communities in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and transferred by remittance companies to Mogadishu, with the knowledge and aim of financing terrorist activity in Somalia, and specifically to support Amniyat operations in Mogadishu. In the period October to December 2012, the aggregate amount transferred for the four operations was approximately 100,000 USD.  In addition to spreading fear amongst the population and government officials, Somali businessmen in the diaspora supporting Amniyat assassinations may serve to achieve ulterior goals, whether clan revenge or elimination of business competitors or political opponents.
28.  In a press communiqué dated 18 April 2013, the so-called Press Office of Harakat Al-Shabaab Al-Mujahideen claimed responsibility for the killing of “127 Somali intelligence agents, officials and spies in Mogadishu”, and for the subsequent resignation of the head of the National Intelligence and Security Agency (NISA) of Somalia, Ahmad Mo’alim Fiqi. It further stated that the assassination campaign was conducted by the “Mujahideen counter-intelligence teams” in Mogadishu, and led by the “Muhammad Ibn Maslamah Brigade”.  The phrase “counter-intelligence teams” is in reference to Amniyat. However, the high casualty figure appears to be propaganda, since, according to UN statistics, only 22 individuals were assassinated by Al-Shabaab in Mogadishu between January and March 2013.

Amniyat answers directly to the chief of al-Shabaab.  Amniyat’s clandestine cell structure is designed to avoid detection and survive even if al-Shabaab itself were destroyed.
Amniyat financing from Persian Gulf countries suggests independence from conventional al-Shabaab revenue sources of local taxation and money laundered through Al Hijra (Muslim Youth Center) by the Pumwani Riyadha Mosque Committee in Kenya.