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Funding Evil: How Terrorism Is Financed--and How to Stop It

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If fanaticism is the heart of modern terrorism, then finance is its lifeblood - British Chancellor Gordon Brown November 24, 2002

Even the most devastating terrorist attack carries a surprisingly low price ticket. The organizers of the September 11 attacks are reported to have received change from their $500,000 stake money. Killing tens and injuring hundreds - whether in a Bali nightclub, a Jerusalem bus or a car bomb in India - sometimes costs less than a good meal. Nevertheless, the infrastructures of international terrorist networks cost billions of dollars.

Funding Evil, the latest book by Dr Rachel Ehrenfeld, director of the American Center of Democracy, details the organizations and their methods. Ehrenfeld shows the links and similarities between terrorists as diverse as The Hizballah, the many Palestinian terrorist groups, Tamil Tigers, Colombian narco-terrorists and radical Islamic terrorism around the world.

As US Attorney General John Ashcroft has said "Terrorists cannot terrorize without money...Those who knowingly finance terrorist organizations are just as dangerous and just as responsible as those who carry out the ultimate acts of terrorist violence." Funding Evil details how this funding of terror has taken place, exposing the state sponsorship, corruption, drug trafficking, money laundering and other criminal activities that have allowed these organizations and their leaders to amass fortunes and feed the spreading tentacles of terror. Ehrenfeld's timely book doesn't stop there, but recommends practical steps that can be taken to curb it.

Dr Ehrenfeld is a world expert in the topic, having lectured around the world, written copiously and been invited to make submissions and statements to world policy making bodies concerned with terrorism and its funding. It is clear that world leaders are slowly taking note of Ehrenfeld's advice, with the latest actions taken against the Hamas organization being one small step along the path.

Just this month, action has been taken against the Palestinian Relief and Development fund (known as Interpal), amid charges by the US Treasury that the London based charity - which raises between 3 to 5 million dollars a year - has been used to hide the flow of money to Hamas. The funds of the charity have been frozen, and will only be released under the tight scrutiny of the UK Charities Commission. Interpal's chairman, Ibrahim Hewitt is quoted as saying "We've been told this is for our own protection, so that any money going through can't be hijacked along the way." Hopefully these actions will ensure that funds collected for charitable purposes will end up helping their intended recipients - the Palestinian people who are in the most critical need ever, having been ignored by the Arab world, and having international aid and their livelihoods diverted into a war to the death with Israel that they have been unable to win. While up until recently, Europe carefully differentiated between the `political' and `military' wings of Hamas - a distinction long denied by the Hamas itself - Ehrenfeld's message is slowly being accepted by the countries at the forefront of the fight against terror. Removing any lingering doubt about the link between the charitable, political and military arms of these terrorist organizations, the Palestinian Authority itself just froze the 39 bank accounts of nine Islamic charities, in order regain control of rogue terrorist organizations that it unleashed in October 2000.

One of Ehrenfeld's long time recommendations, which she details in her book, is for donor countries to insist on the introduction of democratic norms and behaviors by recipient regimes, in order to qualify for ongoing support. Recently, after a very public campaign in which Ehrenfeld actively participated, the US and EU applied pressure to the Palestinian Authority. As a direct result, the PA has catalogued their visible financial assets and now claims to flow all public funds through a single, centralized bank account. Certainly the above clampdown on Islamic charities is also part of this process. Today's newspapers report that the Palestinian Authority has succumbed to American pressure and ordered its schools to take down posters glorifying suicide bombers before the start of the new school year.

These steps are just a start, but they do show a pragmatic determination to directly address the sources of funds of terrorist organizations. The Palestinian model also shows that these ideas can work if applied with consistency and courage. The question is whether there is the political will to apply these standards to other rogue regimes, where the political stakes may be higher.

Funding Evil is not just essential reading for policy makers and academics, but helps us all understand the dynamics of terrorism, its collaboration with criminal organizations to undermine democratic societies, and what we should expect our leaders to do to stop it.

Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld is a world authority on narco-terrorism, providing commentary on the topic and consulting on the problems of international terrorism, political corruption and drug trafficking; so she's the perfect choice to author Funding Evil: How Terrorism Is Financed-And How To Stop It. Many experts may claim terrorism doesn't require money and while individual acts can be low-budget, global terrorist efforts require money to work. Dr. Ehrenfeld here draws a map between sources of funding and terrorist results.

A dramatic episode in the annals of publishing history began early on January 23, 2004, when Rachel Ehrenfeld received an email from a London law firm threatening to sue her for libel for statements in this 2003 book concerning Saudi billionaire bin Mahfouz. Nine months later, his action was filed in London-where British laws make libel especially difficult to disprove.

Ehrenfeld's offense? Her book reports that bin Mahfouz, the former chairman of Saudi Arabia's largest bank, National Commercial Bank, had allegedly deposited "tens of millions of dollars in London and New York directly into terrorist accounts-the accounts of the same terrorists who were implicated in the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, in which 224 people were killed, including twelve Americans, and more than four thousand were injured."

The book implicated bin Mahfouz in transferring from the bank's Zakat (charity) Committee some $74 million to the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO) and to the Muwafaq "blessed relief" Foundation. Muwafaq in turn allegedly deposited funds directly with al Qaeda. Finally, Ehrenfeld also indicated that much of the funding for terrorism emanates from the Saudis, and from the bin Mahfouz and al Rahji families, who allegedly funnel the monies through a host of "charitable" institutions.

The reporter based her account of bin Mahfouz' alleged miscreance on a variety of reports from reputable journals and magazines, lawsuits, government documents, and data from public and anonymous government officials, among other sources. Although he denies any connection with terrorists, bin Mahfouz is among the targets of 10 lawsuits by the families of the September 11 victims, seeking damages of more than $1 trillion.

In Rachel Ehrenfeld v. Khalid Salim a bin Mahfouz, the author responded by seeking a declaratory judgment that her assailant could not prevail against her in the U.S. on libel charges arising from her 2003 book, Funding Evil. The case was assigned to Manhattan Federal Judge Richard Casey, who is also handling the bulk of the 9/11 lawsuits.

Ehrenfeld's attorney, Daniel Kornstein, considers her suit as important as New York Times v. Sullivan-the 1964 case in which the courts decided for the first time "the extent to which the constitutional protections for speech and press limit a State's power to award damages in a libel action brought by a public official..."

In the U.S., where Ehrenfeld lives and works (and her book was published) her allegations seem reasonable and should therefore be free speech protected by the First Amendment. Undeterred by U.S. law, however, the sheik reportedly sent emissaries at all hours to threaten Ehrenfeld. "You had better respond," his agent told her on March 3, 2005, in delivering some documents from the British action. "Sheik bin Mahfouz is a very important person and you ought to take very good care of yourself."

In Britain, libel laws place the burden on the defendant. Law courts require a reporter to prove the truth of his or her written allegations. In her defense, she must call to testify original sources--including government officials both public and anonymous. Given the impossibility of getting former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright (among others) on the stand, Ehrenfeld chose not to respond in Britain at all. Consequently, she lost the British case by default in May.

Bin Mahfouz is no stranger to U.S. courts of criminal law. In 1992, for example, he paid $225 million (including a $37 million fine) to escape criminal charges in New York involving his role as chief operating officer of the shuttered Bank of Credit and Commerce International. Its New York and London branches were closed, and BCCI was implicated by the Central Intelligence Agency for laundering drug money and supporting international terrorists. In settling, Bin Mahfouz admitted no wrongdoing.

Nevertheless, in October 2001, according to former national security advisor Richard Clarke, the U.S. Treasury Department listed Yasin al Qadi as a designated terrorist for his financial support of al Qaeda. Qadi headed Muwafaq, a Saudi "relief organization" that Clarke said "reportedly transferred at least $3 million, on behalf of Khalid bin Mahfouz, to Usama bin Laden [sic] and assisted al Qida [sic] fighters in Bosnia." So testified Clarke before the Senate banking committee on Oct. 22, 2003.

"Sullivan established the modern ground rules of libel actions and they have been in place since 1964," says Kornstein. Those standards, very friendly to reporters and writers, have put the onus of proof on libel plaintiffs. In this case, 23 copies of a book published in America were picked up in a foreign jurisdiction, which was used to seek judgment against an American. "The question is," Kornstein concludes, "do the Times Sullivan rules mean anything in a world so dependent on the Internet, instantaneous communication and international process that did not exist in 1964." Do they carry the same weight they were meant to carry 40 years ago?

Among those supporting Ehrenfeld in an amici filing with the U.S. District Court in New York are Amazon.com and the American Society of Newspaper Editors. Her legal expenses are expected to top $300,000--although she has to date received no financial backing from the publishing industry. According to the friends of the plaintiff,

"Rarely in the history of the United States have the principles underlying our First Amendment - the need for vigorous, open debate, particularly of matters of such vital public concern as the book at issue here - been more important. The energy, drive and credibility of our investigative journalists and book authors are critical to understanding and coping with international terrorism and other threats to our society. The dangers of foreign litigation against publishers, authors and journalists become more acute daily, in direct proportion to our society's increasing reliance on the Internet for dissemination of information and publications."

Anyone who cares about free speech should read this book.

--Alyssa A. Lappen

In the global war against terror now being undertaken by the Bush Administration one important component is cutting off funds to the terrorists. In this informative volume Rachel Ehrenfeld one of the world's foremost experts in tracing illegal money exposes networks of Terror, including surprisingly those that have their base in the United States. She makes recommendations about how these networks can be closed down,and enjoins greater vigilance upon the part of US Govt. agencies in this struggle. This book exposes too the connections between various terror groups throughout the world.
It is a must read for anyone who wishes to understand an important component in the Western world's defense of itself against chaos and destruction.

As the author explains, an individual act of terror does not have to be very expensive. That's easy to believe. After all, many people could wreak havoc just with items they already possess, such as cars and rifles. And, as Ehrenfeld says, even a very sophisticated and deadly attack such as that of September 11, 2001, has been estimated to have cost only 500,000 dollars.

But we're not dealing with a few isolated attacks. We're dealing with a terror network that needs plenty of money for recruitment, training camps, housing, equipment, bribes, weapons, and various day-to-day expenses. And the author says that the total cost of maintaining the entire Islamist terror network is in the billions of dollars. Where does this money come from? And what can be done to stop it?

We learn that the money comes from governments, such as those of Saudi Arabia and Iran, from charitable organizations, from legitimate businesses operating as fronts, from investments ... and from criminal activities. Ehrenfeld identifies some of the organizations and banks that terrorists have used, and she pays particular attention to terrorrist use of drug money.

The author explains the PLO, an infamous terrorist group, had received 5.5 billion dollars in outright aid from the international community, including over 2.5 billion dollars from Europe. I was shocked that the European community couldn't find something much more productive to do with two and a half billion dollars than fund terror.

Ehrenfeld recommends adoption of an international integrity standard. Corrupt nations could be given economic penalties. Audits could show where money is actually going. And if we are honest about who our enemies are, we could cut off funds to them. She reminds us that if we do nothing, on the grounds that the problems are too small to be worth fighting, one day these problems may be too large to fight. If we fight against evil, we may save not only ourselves, but large numbers of people who are at present oppressed by their own corrupt governments.

This book is certainly worth reading.

This is an important book in the war on terror. Rachel Ehrenfeld covers a neglected area in that war. The war on terrorist money. She shows, not suprisingly, that the united states is still being used as a base for criminalistic organizations that are giving assistance to the enemies of america.

Other authors, like David Horowitz in his book _unholy alliance_ have shown the role that liberals and liberal groups play in the support of terrorism. Groups like the ACLU, moveon.org and the NAACP need to be shut out of our courts and shut down once and for all by our government. They are part of the terrorist network and a clear threat to our freedom. Rachel Ehrenfeld is one of the greatest experts in the world in tracing the flow of dirty political money. She makes a series of recommendations as to how the financial network of treason within the united states can be shut down. The enemies of freedom will be critical of this based on so-called rights, but the greatest freedom we have as americans is the freedom to be safe in our own homes. If we don't have that, all the so-called rights that liberalism has invented will mean less than nothing anyway.

She makes as well the case that it is not a small group of terrorists that is the problem, but that the America's enemy is a pervasive organzation with friends in every islamic country and government. She shows how Islam, oil money and arab dictators combine into a powerful far-reaching organization that wishes to destroy western civilization. Enemies of freedom like Clinton funded the PLO's international terror war to the tune of billions of dollars. This has to stop.

This book is a vital read for any person who wishes to understand civilization's fight in the world against the evil forces that want to tear it down. I can only fault the book for not drawing the lines between these groups and the international liberal movement clear enough. Rachel herself is under attack in the islamified european courts for telling the world the truth about what is going on. That alone shows how great the terrorst friends reach into old europe is now and how alone america stands today in the war for freedom.

Imperative reading to all.

This outstandingly well researched book alarms your mind towards understanding why many cartels, drug and gun traffickers, and bandits keep on "working" with no punishment and are so difficult to be caught.
Who help to protect and cover them? Islamists.

The Islamic and Islamist Gross revenue comes not only from blowing up infidels and from Oil, but also from blackmailing and threatening government officials and from making alliances with drug dealers, with who they destroy other infidels, making them eternal "customers", in other words: The eternal sponsors of Islamic and Islamist terrorism - thus bastardies.

Also $$$ comes from trafficking alcohol.

Why do you think it is so against "Islam" to a Muslim drink and take drugs?

Among THEIR (religious) allegations of impurity, recalling that it is not sacred to drink, but to blow up infidel babies and pregnant mothers is very sacred, you find that if their "soldiers", the soldiers of Muhammad and the god of the moon allah-(warranq), if they do not take neither drugs nor alcohol, they will be easily controlled and will not fall victim of their own kind.

Check and see in South America, Ciudad Del Este, where Islamic (not Christians) Palestinians control illegal traffic of drugs, counterfeit products, women slavers (A good product to be sold) and alcohol, and the way they threaten Paraguay's Population, a starting point to send $$$ and Guns to Islamic Palestinians terrorists and Predators in the ME- then you will see how "poor" these "poor" victim Actors and Players are- filthy bastards.

Also the Colombian Traffic so well supported by the "poor" Palestinians, soooo "oppressed" all over the world and in the Jewish Land of Israel...Come and See how "poor" this kind is wrongly pictured. After you check the link in between them, All jemaah, Hezbollah and Hamass and the "Friends" of America, the Saudis, then you will understand what islamism, Islamists mean to the world.

BTW, never any of these Islamic and islamists bastardies were ever cited or condemned by councils.....

This book is pivot to understanding the economy behind the Islamic and Islamist terror , agenda against the western civilization to Islam (Surrender)- THEIR kind, and ultimately, bestiality.

If a Saudi royal is spending millions on muzzling the author of this book, you better believe it has some good stuff inside! This is a must-read for any non-Muslim, and it is important to purchase this book to support the brave, idealistic, sacrificing author, who is in the same righteous league as other heroes like Robert Spencer, Andrew Bostom, Ibn Warraq, Ali Sina, Walid Shoebat, Brigitte Gabriel, Bat Ye'or, and a few others. Buy a copy for yourself. If you have a relative or friend who works in any capacity for DHS, buy him or her a copy, too. This is especially important because of infiltration of Muslims into our government (read also Infiltration by Paul Sperry), as evidenced by the recent termination of Stephen Coughlin, a key Pentagon specialist on Islamic law and jihad, as a result of Muslim pressure by Hesham Islam and the terrorist front groups CAIR and ISNA.

Funding Evil will arm you with enough knowledge to see the outlines of the jihad strategy to spread sharia and Dar al Islam around the world. It is dense with enough detail to make it a vital reference, yet engaging and readable for mainstream audiences. It ought to be available in every library in America and the West.

Scanning the book, it's not hard to see why libel tourists such as Khalid bin Mafouz want it squashed and sue to keep it out of your hands. He appears on page 22 accused of dropping tens of millions of dollars directly into terrorist bank accounts. He appears on page 39 dropping funds into the bank accounts of "charities" that are in turn known supporters of Hamas and al Qaeda. His family turns up throughout the book funding various causes that just happen to funnel money to terrorist groups. The book certainly either defames or defines his character. Given the fact that other authors have researched bin Mafouz's finances and found similar financial connections and transactions, it's more likely the latter. So he sues.

Dr. Ehrenfeld's fight against libel tourism will set free speech precedent for decades to come. If she succeeds, courts outside the US will not be able to punish authors whose books are published in the US but sold internationally via Amazon and other online outlets. If her fight fails, then Khalid bin Mafouz will use his billions to come after other American authors who expose how terrorism is financed and fueled by wealthy Saudis and others who appear to be trying to buy their way into paradise by funding worldwide homicide bombing. And he'll come after US reporters, columnists and bloggers too. Her fight is our fight and your fight too.

Funding Evil is essential reading. With a foreword by former DCI James Woolsey and a critique of the 9-11 Commission report as well as details on terror financing and support for the legal jihad that reach right into the Saudi royal family, Funding Evil is indeed a book that the Saudis don't want you to read.

"Funding Evil" is an excellent book. It is so well resourced that powerful forces have seen fit to place this book and its courageous author on the literary endangered species list, a situation that has "ominous implications" into researching the financing of terrorism, according to Daniel Pipes, director of the Middle East Forum. That this single volume has produced such international controversy and acclaim is indicative of the fact that it is right on target. This is not surprising, given Dr. Ehrenfeld's extensive experience in this realm, meticulous research, and unique understanding of terrorist networks. All this and more make this book a "must have" for anyone who is interested in the subject of terrorism or actively involved in counterterrorism. The bottom line? To quote Daniel Pipes yet again, "Brava, Rachel Ehrenfeld." Brava!
Donna Rice-Bassett, President, The Information Project