Amidst all the “secrets” revealed in November 2010 by WikiLeaks, such as which First Lady had too much plastic surgery and where Qaddafi’s buxom personal nurse originates, it wouldn’t have been hard to miss a few cables from the State Department identifying “the most significant source of funding” for terrorist groups like al-Qaeda.
Was it donations from U.S. charitable groups? Guess again.
According to the leaked cables, the porous borders and ineffectual leaders of Gulf States like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) contribute to “a critical financial support base for al-Qaida, the Taliban, [Lashkar-e-Taiba], and other terrorist groups, including Hamas.” The leaked cables reveal a list of diverse methods terrorist outfits use to raise money. One network of terrorists in Pakistan smuggling weapons and fighters into Afghanistan “to fight U.S. and Coalition Forces” funds their activities through “illicit activities, including kidnapping, extortion, bank robbery, narcotics, smuggling, and fraud” in the Gulf region.
The cables also expose the apathy or unwillingness of these states to pursue and stop known sources of significant terrorist financing. For example, one cable identified Qatar’s level of counterterrorism cooperation with the U.S. as “largely passive” and officials as “hesitant to act against known terrorists out of concern for appearing to be aligned with the U.S.” Do not want appear “aligned with the U.S.?” I am sure the U.S. military personal stationed at U.S. Central Command headquarters at Al Udeid Air Base in Doha, Qatar might think that strange. This is the same country that the 9/11 Commission Report (p.73) said provided a safe haven to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed during the 1990s and news reports indicate other terrorists may have received financial support there after 9/11.
Of course, foreign funding of terrorism does not mean we can neglect targeting domestic sources of terrorist finance. But the information divulged by these leaked cables, combined with the fact that less than 2% of the terrorist groups on State and Treasury sanction lists are related to charities, can only lead to the conclusion that it is time for the Treasury Department to stop describing charities “as a primary source of financial and material support” for terrorists.