Terrorist groups like Al Qaeda are relying on "cash couriers" to smuggle finances across international borders for their activities - throwing up a new challenge to the war on terrorism, a US official has said. At a symposium here, US State Department official William Pope said Washington was facing a more determined and lesser known but equally powerful cadre of terrorist leaders who were harder to track down. Delivering the keynote address at the symposium organised by the National Bureau of Asian Research on Strategic Asia, Pope said the US had effectively driven out terrorists from the international financial system with greater international vigilance of banks.
However, these groups were seeking other means of moving money across international borders, evading banks and using informal financial channels, he said. Pope said: "The movement of money via cash couriers is now one of the principle methods that terrorists use to move funds." The Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups were in the process of forming "a global jehadist network" by establishing links with like-minded groups, he said. The network controlled by Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, who has claimed responsibility for a series of beheadings of hostages, including of US citizens, in Iraq, is part of this. Pope said there were also growing indications that a number of extremist Sunni organisations were try to imbibe the Al Qaeda in an attempt to pursue a global jihad. Since the end of 2001, more than 170 countries had issued orders freezing or seizing about $142 million in terrorist-related financial assets while 1,500 terrorist related accounts and transactions have been blocked, Pope said. |