Viagra in the Service of the Hezbollah

By Amit Cohen
Maariv, December 8, 2006


Ten facts on the green fuel that sets the wheels of terror in motion. Millions of dollars' worth of stolen medicine and contraband cigarettes sold in America. A lucrative industry of abducting people for ransom. Banks that can do nothing about it.

1. This scenario has become almost routine in Gaza: gunmen or unmarked vehicles ambush passing cars, preferably with foreign nationals inside. The unsuspecting passengers are then dragged out of their car at gunpoint and driven to secret locations. The abduction is carried out in a couple of minutes and is over in several days. So far no Gaza abduction has resulted in bloodshed, for one reason only: it is business. The rationale behind snatching foreign nationals is purely financial: ransom, extortion or employment opportunities. It is very difficult to try and estimate how much money found its way into the Palestinian terror business coffers thanks to the practice of abduction, since all the abductees deny having ever paid for their freedom - e.g., Spanish Foreign Secretary Miguel Moratinos denies having paid any kind of ransom for the release of abducted Spanish AP photographer Emilio Morenatti.
2. We got some kind of clue as to the sums paid for the release of foreign nationals this last August, when Fox journalists Steve Centanni and Olaf Wiig were detained by a group calling itself "Holy Jihad Group" that threatened to execute the two hostages and even forced them to convert to Islam in front of the cameras. When they were freed 13 days later, there were allegations that Fox News had paid $2 million for their release. But not according to Gaza officials, who claim that $200,000 had been the price of their freedom, and that the tab was picked up by Hamas. According to Palestinian sources, the man behind the abduction was
Muataz Durmush and here, head of National Resistance Front branch. The Durmush clan is considered one of the most dangerous in Gaza and is in fact closely connected to Hamas. Mumtaz Durmush, Muataz' brother, is the one who snatched IDF corporal Gilad Shalit and here together with Hamas. Muataz Durmush's branch, as well as other branches, receives monthly funding from Hamas for their supporting the organization or for carrying out attacks on its behalf. However, at some stage, Hamas decided to cut Muataz' funding. This angered Muataz, who abducted the two Fox journalists and threatened to kill them in order to "embarrass" and compromise Hamas in the eyes of public opinion. Following lengthy negotiations, Hamas gave in and paid Durmush the requested ransom, as per the monthly budget received until the abduction.
3. Taking hostages for ransom has also become the favorite source of funding for terrorist organizations operating in Iraq. This article published by the New York Times reveals that foreign governments, such as France and Italy, paid Iraqi terrorists over $ 30 million for the release of their abducted nationals during the last year alone. The document also reveals that last year terrorist operations succeeded in raising $ 70-200 million dollars. The money was made by means of extensive criminal operations such as smuggling oil, counterfeiting money and fund-raising through fictitious charities. But even these sums appear somewhat conservative versus the estimations of the Iraqi Oil Ministry. According to figures released by the Iraqi government, the local terror groups managed to raise $ 200 million by oil-smuggling alone.



4. Terror-funding in Iraq has changed significantly since the beginning of the Second Gulf War. During the first year of the hostilities terror was funded by Saddam loyalists. But in 2004 foreign couriers began bringing suitcases full of cash into Iraq. Currently, Iraqi terrorists can sustain themselves without any kind of foreign assistance. This financial independence makes it very difficult to put and end to terrorism or to attempt to cut its financial lifeline. These huge cash stashes go to show how extremely difficult it is for the US administration to deal with terror in Iraq, and they also explain the current Iraqi government failure to freeze the money flow into the insurgents' coffers. Estimates go so far as to suggest that if nothing changes, the insurgents will not only be able to fund their own operations in Iraq, but also to extend financial support to terrorist organizations worldwide.
5. Despite Iranian funding, Hezbollah also resorts to criminal activities to increase its budget – 19 people were brought to trial in the US this year for fundraising on behalf of the Hezbollah by means of illegal activities such as selling stolen Viagra pills and smuggled cigarettes, extortion, theft and money laundering to the tune of over $ 20 million.
6. Following 9/11 the White House decided that terrorist organizations, mainly Al-Qaeda, should be separated from their cash sources, assuming that if there is no money, there will be no terror. But reality backfired. Blocking money channels proved impossible, while the destruction of several financial routes brought about a change in the modus operandi. True, the annual Al-Qaeda budget was cut down from $ 30 million to a mere couple million, but at the same time the cost of terror activities also went down significantly. The 9/11 attack cost half a million dollars, while the Madrid and London cost a mere few thousand dollars. This forced the US intelligence services to re-evaluate their priorities. US officials are now admitting that the main goal is not to divert the terror funds, but rather to follow the money trail in order to identify and locate terror infrastructures. A US official report maintains that freezing assets is not the only or most important objective of monitoring the money trail; it is a means of identifying terrorists or their supporters, and has become instrumental in the war against terror groups.
7. "This is a cat and mouse game", says Yair Dagan, a specialist in the prevention of money laundering and terror sponsoring. "We are always one step behind the terrorists. Attempts to thwart terrorist funding are bound to fail, much like the battle against crime. Terror organizations are beginning to employ financing patterns similar to those used by organized crime." Dagan also maintains that the banking system is unable to cope with this trend. However, he claims, the intelligence community is more apt do deal with it if they turn to non-banking areas." He is worried that Israel cannot keep up with what is going on in the world at large. "The Israeli law prohibiting terror funding compels financial organizations to check all transactions with the Ministry of Defense black list, which is incomplete, to say the least, and full of typos, and this makes it very difficult for the checkers to pinpoint suspects. For instance, the Al-Aksa fund set up by the Hamas appears only once on the Israeli blacklist, while on the US list it is mentioned over 180 times."
8. The US administration has recently admitted that the special powers it enjoyed in the first stages of the war waged against terror are beginning to wear out. The war on terror was authorized mainly by a special executive order issued a few days after 9/11, which placed the crackdown on terror funds at the top of the priority list. At the time, President Bush promised to "starve the terrorists of funding, turn them against each other, rout them out of their safe hiding places and bring them to justice." But last month, for the first time since the order was issued, a federal judge ruled to limit the President's authority. Judge Audrey Collins overruled the President's decision to freeze the assets of two organizations defined as "terrorist" – the Tamil Tigers and the PKK. The judge cancelled the executive order allowing the US Treasury the privilege to blacklist suspected terror sponsors.
9. Banks are most likely the ones to suffer because of terror funding. The Royal Bank of Scotland was sued recently for managing a Hamas-linked charity. Previously, American terror attack victims sued French Credit Lyonnais for Hamas funds funneling. A huge $ 875 million dollar suit was filed against the Arab Bank by families of suicide bombings victims. Such suits are a serious threat to banks. Since these are civil suits, the prosecution does not need to prove that the bank actually knew about the terror connection, all it needs is to make the jury think so. In fact, this suspicion acts as indirect aid to terror sponsors. Banks unwilling to risk being associated with terrorist assets flood the system with tens of millions of reports, which make it very difficult to pinpoint the real blood money.
10. Attempt by banks to freeze automatically charity funds suspected of being connected to terrorist organizations are facing judiciary difficulties. A Michigan-based Moslem charity an American bank for violation of its civic rights, because the bank was planning to shut down the accounts of the organization in the wake of an FBI raid of its premises and haul of documents and computers form its offices (and here).