Terrorism And Its Funding - Causes And Effects

Terrorism

The threatening use of violence to disturb the political, geological and ideological stability in a country or territory is coined as terrorism. Article 104 of draft law on counter-terrorism published by National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s top legislature defines the term “terrorist activity” as to include:

1. Propagating, inciting or instigating terrorism;
2. Forming, leading or participating in an terrorist organization;
3. Organizing, plotting, or implementing a terrorist action;
4. Supporting, assisting, or facilitating a terrorist organization or individual through the provision of information, funds, material, equipment, technologies or venues.

Nuclear Terrorism

Thomas C. Shelling while presenting an essay “War and Politics” in the year 1979 anticipated that in the 80s or in the 90s ‘an organisation that is not a national government may acquire a few nuclear weapons. ’ Nuclear terrorism is a low probability, high consequence threat. This means that the probability of a non-state actor using nuclear weapons is extremely low however on the flip side if the terrorist organisations do use it then the casualties and risks posed by nuclear terrorism is immense and inevitable.

Terrorist Funding

(Includes only terrorist organisation recognised by China) ISIS: ISIS depends primarily on two major sources for its revenue, (i) the extortion and taxation of civilian populations and economies in Iraq and Syria, and (ii) the smuggling and sale of oil and oil products. Revenues have also been generated from several other sources including American individuals. The most notable is the travel related expenses from aspiring Americans such as buying plane tickets or other materials in order to join ISIS or supporting it.

Al Qaeda: AQ and as well as its regional partners including Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and other terrorist groups associated with it including ANF continue to pose a major threat to several countries around the globe. Historically, AQ has generated most of its revenue from individual fundraisers in the Middle East, whose operations and supporters are scattered throughout the world. Although the growth of ISIS has led to a drastic drop in the funds received by the AQ and its supporters, it continues to generate limited funds in USA. On the 12th of April, 2018, three American individuals were found guilty of concealing the provision of thousands of dollars to Anwar Al-Awlaki, a member of AQAP. ANF also seeks to receive funds from USA. Methods of fundraising include direct solicitation through social media (MSBs or online payment systems), false pretences of charity and low level criminal activity.

Several governments such as those of Cuba, Iraq, North Korea, Sudan and Syria are also involved in funding terrorist organisations. Though many of these nations have agreed to cooperate with the international community, most of them still continued their actions which have led them to be termed as “state sponsors of terrorism”. State sponsors of terrorism are significant as they hinder the combined effort of the international community to fight against terrorism because they provide a critical foundation for the terrorist organisations to flourish. Without the funds from governments several terrorist organisations would fail miserably as these governments are sources to obtain funds, weapons, material as well as safe havens to manage and carry out operations. Apart from this, revenues are also generated through illegal activities including illicit drug trade, counterfeited CDs etc. and also through front companies wherein terrorist groups set up legitimate businesses and generate profits.

Causes

There are several reasons which cause individuals, entities or even governments to sponsor terrorism:

1. Commitments to the Jihadi message cause many to contribute revenues towards the terrorists. “Acceptance” can be the result of intrinsic conviction or from external motivation, such as extortion. Hence, this motivates support of violence and terror organisations.
2. The security environment of the state is yet an additional reason which affects an individual’s choice to sponsor terrorist organisations.
3. Certain governments openly fund terrorist organisations because they believe that these organisation are nothing but a legitimate resistance movements
4. Advancing aspects of technology have now caused entities to fund nuclear weapons for terrorism

Effects of Terror Funding

The Syria-Iraq conflict attracted thousands of individuals from other nations. These individuals were mainly engrossed in training and fighting, more specially supporting the militant group, predominantly the ISIS. Also known as foreign terrorists, these individuals may seek to attack their home country in the future or carry out other operations there. National security and border control face significant problems with the monitoring of cross border movements because of extremists and their ways or money laundering and smuggling. Exploitation of cash intensives and informal economies as they assist the terrorists to obtain funds anonymously. Vulnerability posed by terror funding is increase as self funing will be difficult to detect for a plethora of reasons:

• a. funds are almost always sourced through legitimate activity,
• b. transactions are often of low value and indistinguishable from ordinary financial behaviour,
• c. the time-lag between an individual accessing funds and committing an attack or travelling to a conflict zone can be very short,
• d. Cash-intensive economies throughout the region allow cash to change hands unnoticed.

Funds obtained in the name of charity also have a grave effect. Legitimate Non-Profit Organisation funds greatly reduce the visibility and detection of illegitimate funds. Furthermore, without any actions taken by the government, the NPOs can be corrupted to have their funds diverted to terrorist organisations and their associates. There will be a drastic increase in the criminal activity for funding purposes in the areas where the security environment are terrorist groups. In such situations the authorities will have a hard time in disrupting the illegal activities. Bank accounts also have high rates of vulnerability because of terror financing because:

• a. They can be used to access other financial systems and products.
• b. They can be used to build false customer profiles.
• c. They enable the individuals to withdraw cash around the globe, including the high risk countries.
• d. They are vulnerable to be misused by third parties.

Why is it difficult to track terror fundraisers? The terrorist organisations are well aware of the steps taken by governments to bring down terrorist sponsors. Napoleoni says that “terrorist funding mutates continuously”. Hence the terrorist are always a step ahead of the governments. Secondly, most terrorist organisations depend on illegal methods such as trafficking, smuggling and counterfeiting to generate revenues. Unfortunately, these cannot be detected by financial system. Moreover, terrorist have now started to depend more on cash leaving behind less of a paper trail. New methodology includes, planning a terrorist attack in the host territory itself. An example for this was the London attack in which the attack was planned inside Britain and the funds were raised locally.

Solutions

Terror financing is extremely hard to identify. However, collective coordination, innovation and training will help disrupt terror financing. Counterfeiting of currency has been detected as one of the major causes of terror finance. Detection of counterfeited currency comes a long way in curbing terror financing:

1. Increase the availability of scanners for detecting fake notes
2. To remain one step ahead of the terrorists, the international community must use technology to their advantage. Documentation of each counterfeit notes with the details of its origination, route of indication and persons involved must be adopted.

With regard to charitable funds, intelligence sharing becomes useful for monitoring charities where the focus is to terror finance. Given the large number of charitable organisation, it becomes difficult to monitor fund transfer, a sector based approach to information and risk assessment will help achieve more in depth scrutiny in vulnerable areas. When the question of state sponsored terrorism comes up, the international community should continually apply pressure on those nationals involved in terror financing. The UN has passed a number of resolutions, which aim at strengthening the international mandate against terrorism finance. These include United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolutions 1267, 1373, 1540, 1566, 1617 and 1624. These should be augmented by regional and bilateral endeavours to increase pressure on state sponsors of terrorism.

With regard to trade based money laundering, Recording and maintaining trade-based statistics help in identifying trade-based money laundering/terrorism finance trends. Furthermore, training for anti-trade-based money laundering/terrorism finance crimes should receive greater emphasis. Law enforcement conducts financially focused investigations to disrupt and/or prevent the flow of funds to terrorists. Using financial intelligence to develop actionable information for monitoring and/or investigating terrorist financing in a timely manner is essential. The better the financial intelligence and understanding of terrorist money flows, the better the prospect for developing targeted monitoring and/or investigative initiatives. Financial intelligence can be used effectively by trend analysis used to identify emerging trends, proactive targeted operations intended to disrupt funding flows and reactive traditional investigations conducted to follow the money. Prevention of nuclear terrorism and its funding can be brought about by international cooperation especially by those nations actively involved in proliferation of nuclear weapon and nuclear energy. Furthermore, securing of all nuclear weaponry to the highest standards and having screening personnel with access to sensitive materials will help detect illicit trafficking across borders. Lastly, nations can ensure accountability through oversight and build a strong security culture which includes practise exchanges, peer reviews and security exercises and assessments.

Scientific and Technological Mechanism to work against terrorism

1. Development of ‘early warning’ detectors which can be used during chemical and biological terrorism. Also lightweight protective masks can be manufactured that can be worn for lengthy periods of time, since it can be accomplished with the use of modern technology.
2. With current or near-term technology, a system combining profiling and bomb detection technology could be developed that could be expected to increase airline security.
3. Development of decontamination which can be significant after an attack. The rapid development of a real-time field device for detecting an infectious aerosol is a further need.

Bibliography

1. http://www. austrac. gov. au/sites/default/files/regional-risk-assessment-SMALL_0. pdf
2. https://www. researchgate. net/publication/327477644_A_Review_of_Sources_on_Terrorist_Financing
3. http://www. un. org/en/terrorism/ctitf/pdfs/ctitf_financing_eng_final. pdf