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| Terror Networks | |
| Paying Ransoms, Europe Bankrolls Qaeda Terror | |
| 2014-07-30 | |
While European governments deny paying ransoms, an investigation by The New York Times ...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize... found that Al Qaeda and its direct affiliates have taken in at least $125 million in revenue from kidnappings since 2008, of which $66 million was paid just last year. In news releases and statements, the United States Treasury Department has cited ransom amounts that, taken together, put the total at around $165 million over the same period. These payments were made almost exclusively by European governments, who funneled the money through a network of proxies, sometimes masking it as development aid, according to interviews conducted for this article with former hostages, negotiators, diplomats and government officials in 10 countries in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. The inner workings of the kidnapping business were also revealed in thousands of pages of internal Qaeda documents found by this news hound while on assignment for The News Agency that Dare Not be Named in northern Mali last year. "Kidnapping for ransom has become today's most significant source of terrorist financing," said David S. Cohen, the Treasury Department's under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, in a 2012 speech. "Each transaction encourages another transaction." And business is booming: While in 2003 the kidnappers received around $200,000 per hostage, now they are netting up to $10 million, money that the second in command of Al Qaeda's central leadership recently described as accounting for as much as half of his operating revenue. | |
| Posted by:trailing wife |
| #2 I just keep coming back to Justinian wasting the resources of the Eastern Roman Empire to rebuild the fallen Western Roman Empire (then under new 'German' management). That left the Eastern Empire with the barely the means to hold out, with a much truncated domain, against the first Muslim onslaught. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2014-07-30 09:19 |
| #1 Recent events in the Ukraine and votes condemning Israel in the UN should signal a reassessment of our relations with the Europeans. Sadly, my sense is they've permitted themselves to be seriously compromised by both economics and demographics. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2014-07-30 04:12 |