 |
| Pâ•qidꞋ Yi•rᵊmᵊyâhꞋ u |
 |
| Khamas terrorist wearing bomb belt |
2002.12.15 – (condensed from MERIA article by Matthew A. Levitt) "Terrorist groups' ability to act more frequently and effectively is closely linked to financing. Such patronage today, however, is proportionately less in the hands of state sponsors. While Iran and Syria continue to back international terrorism, groups increasingly finance their own activities through a network of charitable and humanitarian organizations, criminal enterprises, front companies, illicit and unregulated banking systems, and the personal wealth of individual militant Islamists…
"Effective though it may be, stemming the flow of terrorist financing will not stamp out terrorism. In fact, unlike Polio or Small Pox, terrorism cannot be eradicated. There will always be grievances, causes, conditions that, coupled with a healthy dose of evil, will lead people to target civilian noncombatants for political purposes or even as a means in itself.
"The primary responsibility of all states, however, is to protect their citizenry, and to that end it is incumbent upon all states to employ the full range of protective, deterrent, and preventive counter-terrorism measures available in an effort to provide for the security of its populace. The fact that terrorism cannot be eliminated does not absolve states of the responsibility to fight it as much as possible.
"In this regard, tackling terrorist financing represents a critical and effective tool both in reacting to terrorist attacks and engaging in preemptive disruption efforts to prevent future attacks…
"Contrary to conventional wisdom – which pigeon-holes al-Qa'ida in one box and Hizballah, Hamas, Iran and Syria in boxes of their own – militant Islamic groups from al-Qa'ida to Hamas interact and support one another in a matrix of international logistical, financial and sometimes operational terrorist activity. State sponsors of terrorism, particularly Iran and Syria, are similarly woven into the fabric of militant Islamist terrorism…"
All of these various terrorist organizations in this matrix activate temporary international ‘sleeper’ connections as needed for a given attack and then sever the active connections after the attack until the next time, effectively disassembling the international network to make cells appear independent and unrelated. By thusly making it difficult to reconstruct which groups were responsible for an operation, to determine from whom they obtained their support or to "follow the money," terrorist cells try to vanish leaving no trail or definite target against which to retaliate.
 |
|
 |