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Afghanistan/South Asia
Inside Bangla’s Jihadi Groups - Foreign Funding
2005-08-26
From outward appearance they were doing social works as welfare organisations, building mosques and setting up madrasas for the underprivileged children, many of whom are orphans. Then they started investing in businesses in such sectors as transport, pharmaceuticals, financial institutions, real estate, media and education. But behind the humanitarian and business façade, they were organising terrorists imbued with the ideals of armed Islamic revolution. Funding was no problem for them -- shady funders in Kuwait, the UAE, Bahrain, Libya, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia extended their hands, filling the pockets of the militant organisations. Outside the official channel, these organisations also bring in funds through money laundering. There was a time when financial institutions in Lahore and Karachi were the main distributors of terror funding flowing into Bangladesh. But after the Pakistan government clamped down on these institutions, funds are now coming to Bangladesh in the form of Hundi through Jessore, Chittagong and Dhaka, according to a source who has conducted detailed investigations on terrorism in Bangladesh for an international terror watch agency.

Saudi-based NGO Al Haramain Islamic Institute is one such organisation that brought in Tk 20 crore through the NGO Affairs Bureau from 1997 to 2001, its annual report of 2002 said. It was finally banned in September 2002 after the UN listed it as a terror cell. The police arrested seven foreign citizens of Al Haramain in September 2002 and later, under a special arrangement with a Middle Eastern country, they were taken to a five-star hotel right from the Dhaka Judge's Court and then put on a flight under strict secrecy. Militants received funds for madrasas from UAE-based welfare organisations Al Fuzaira and Khairul Ansar Al Khairia, Kuwait-based Doulatul Kuwait and Revival of Islamic Heritage Society and Bahrain-based Doulatul Bahrain, said intelligence sources. (Bin) Laden's close associate Enam Arnot and his organisation Benevolence International Organisation, which was registered with the NGO Bureau, had bank accounts in Bangladesh. Dr Asadullah Al Galib, a militant now under arrest for attacking different NGOs including Brac and Grameen Bank, had confessed to the Joint Interrogation Cell (JIC) that he received around Tk 27 crore every year from the Middle East, especially from an organisation called Revival of Islamic Heritage Society (RIHS) of Kuwait. RIHS was registered with the NGO Affairs Bureau on January 11, 1996. In his version, Galib spent the funds on the JMB, JMJB and Al Hiqma, all banned and the first one is suspected to be involved in the August 17 bombings. Since Galib's arrest, the government stopped disbursement of funds from RIHS. RIHS was blacklisted by the State Department on September 9, 2002 for funding Islamist terrorists.
Posted by:Paul Moloney

#1  It should be a sack of Riyals.
Posted by: 11A5S   2005-08-26 23:20  

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