The Business of Terrorism and Paramilitarism

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The Business of Terrorism and Paramilitarism

• Bill Tupman
• Unit for Research on Community Safety
• University of Exeter

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Terrorism or Paramilitarism?

• Terrorism implies illegitimacy
• Paramilitary a more neutral term
• Dont want to get into arguments about the
  legitimacy or otherwise of a particular
  organisation
• No organisation of this type can survive without
  being legitimate for someone somewhere.

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The survivors

• IRA, UDA, UVF et al.
• ETA
• FLNC, Corsica
• FARC, Colombia
• Tamil Tigers
• Middle East groups, like Hezbollah
• Afghan veterans now Al Qaeda associates

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How have they survived?

• By organising funding streams for
• Training
• Weaponry
• Food, shelter
• Prisoner and prisoner family support
• Publicity
• Overground support groups and political parties

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Statement of income
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Statement of expenditure
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Old and New sources of funding

• Armed Robbery
• Extortion
• kidnap ransom
• Voluntary contributions
• Overseas diaspora
• foreign state support
• sale of literature

• Fraud
• Drugs
• Clubs
• Gambling
• counterfeit products
• legitimate businesses
• stock market manipulation
• franchising

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Terrorism needs an economic base as well as
weapons

• successful terrorist groups create a profitable
  business
• terrorist groups that survive turn their hands to
  crime mafia, triads
• violence is itself a business, or at least a
  service that can be bought and sold
• As Howard Marks said to Jim McCann if youre
  smuggling guns, you can smuggle drugs. Youre in
  the smuggling business

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ETA

• Picture now emerging as Spanish government
  prosecutes Herri Batasuna
• 10 tax
• Kidnapping
• Allegedly 30 militants for hire in South America

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The Narcotics question

• FARC most frequently accused
• But all groups have been accused at one time or
  another
• Is it just propaganda or is there evidence?
• Or does organised crime have to pay protection
  like any other business in order to operate in
  these guys area?

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Osama bin Laden

• Danger of making him into a Superman
• Did he start with 300 million, or less?
• How many banks did he or his associates own?
• How many businesses?
• Did he make a profit?
• He funded governments

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5 principle sources of funding Senator Bayh

• Own money
• Wealthy individuals in the Gulf
• Front companies run at a profit
• Illegal activities eg smuggling, money-laundering
• Charities, both directly and by skimming

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In the Sudan

• El-Hijrah Construction and Development
• Wadi al-Aqiq export-import
• Taba investment global stock markets
• part-owner el-Shamal Islamic Bank
• farms peanuts, sunflowers cattle-breeding
• Laden International export-import
• Bakery, Furniture
• International al-Ikhlar Co. honey

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Elsewhere at same time

• Sanctions-busting for Sudan to disguise product
  origin, used Cyprus and other countries
• Kenya ostrich farms and shrimp boats
• Turkey forests
• Africa Sierra Leone? diamond mines
• Tajikistan agriculture
• minor projects as cover for terrorist ops.

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Second Afghan period

• Al Barakat and al Taqwa
• Al Barakat is Somalias largest company and part
  owns the Somali Internet Company. It provides
  money transfer services for the Somali diaspora
• Al Taqwa also provides money transfer. Has
  offices in Lugano, Switzerland

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Non-business sources of funding

• Private individuals contribute, either because
  they believe or because they wish to avoid
  trouble
• States, too, allegedly
• Charitable and relief organisations. US list
  includes Wafa Humanitarian Org.
• Was he smuggling Afghani Opium?

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Charities

• US has designated 7 foreign charities as having
  links to al Q
• And closed two US-based ones as having links to
  bin Laden and the Taliban
• Holy Land Foundation, largest US-based Islamic
  foundation has had assets frozen because of links
  to Hamas

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Al Qaida is more than bin Laden

• Islamic World Front for the Struggle against the
  Jews and the Crusaders
• included estimated 24 groups, all of which would
  have own funding set-ups
• Egyptians, Jordanians, Yemenis, Iraqis, Syrians,
  Algerians, Sudanese, Tunisians, Moroccans,
  Palestinians, Pakistanis, Uzbeks, Tajiks,
  Philippinos, Saudis,Chechens, Albanians, Bosnians

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Difference between Al-Q and the IRA

• IRA is multistate operator UK, Ireland, USA,
  Australia, Sweden, Netherlands
• May run or have capitalised some pub chains, a
  pizza chain and a baked potato chain
• BUT only makes 10-15 million per annum
• AND thats a high percentage of turnover at 50-75

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Al-Qaida

• Bin Laden reckoned he lost 200-300 million on
  projects in the Sudan 91-96
• Bankrolled Taliban to tune of 100 million
  1996-2001
• We have no idea what he spent in Chechnya,
  Somalia, Bosnia or elsewhere
• So the outgoings are much higher than the IRA
  example

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Outgoings

• To be able to afford gifts of 20 million plus
  per annum to governments
• and to be able to bankroll his own private army
  of at least 5,000
• and to supply money to 23 other organisations
  unless some of these are in profit
• Annual income must be a lot more than IRA

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Income?

• Personal funds say 10 of 300 million would be
  30 million
• Donations from individuals 30 million?
• Zakat/ charities say 10 million
• States wouldnt settle for less than 10m
• Businesses? Can this be separated from personal
  investment above?
• 80 million per annum?

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Outgoings 2

• September 11th operation alleged to have cost
  700,000
• Money transferred through perfectly legal and
  open channels
• Are operations individually budgeted?
• And how are country campaigns budgeted?