Annotated Bibliography and Outline

Terrorist Financing and Resourcing

Ahmed Tohow

Charles Sturt University

The terrorist activities cost money, in other words, the fund generation is a crucial task for
terrorist organisations to conduct their business practices smoothly (Taylor, Fritsch and
Liederbach, 2014). However, such organisations have relatively limited resources, and
therefore there is a little room for mistake in identifying the best allocation of resources in
support of their objectives (Koh, 2006). The present study is an outline of a proposed
investigation carried out to that identifies and assesses the financing and resourcing methods
of a specific terrorist organisation. This unit will reflect on the previous researches along with
their respective authors who have conducted investigations to identify the methods used by
terrorist organisations to raise funds and networks utilised to generate income.

Napoleoni, L., 2006. Terrorist Financing: How the New Generation of Jihadists Funds
Itself. The RUSI Journal, 151(1), pp.60-65.

According to the author, terrorist funding has emerged as a dynamic technique which is
developed by new generation of Jihadists to sustain their terror activities across the globe. The
study discusses that the international organizations are increasing their combating financing
terrorism activities efforts, but are not successful in designing innovative strategies (Napoleoni,
2006). The investigation reveals that terrorist organizations are supporting each other in raising
financial capital and are adapting themselves to easy the source and new funding techniques.

Ehrenfeld, R., 2002. Funding Terrorism: sources and methods. In Workshop held at Los
Alamos National Laboratory March (Vol. 25, No. 29, p. 391).

The investigation introduces the main sources of terrorism funding and how the illegal money
is converted into legal money to use it for terrorism activities. The frequent use of charitable
organizations to collect and transfer illegal funds is quite witnessed in the present era, however,
alternative payment system also causes to illegal money. Nonetheless, the fund raised from
such sources are very limited in amount and can hardly pay for the training camps,
conventional, recruitment and unconventional weapons, but are enough for bearing costs like
as setting pre-agenda, traveling and housing expenses (Ehrenfeld, 2002.). The author of above-
discussed study believes that there are few sources through which a terrorist organization can
raise large funds required by the terrorists. Including this corruption and illegal trade are found
as the foremost and venomous source of funds.

Bantekas, I., 2003. The international law of terrorist financing. The American Journal of
International Law, 97(2), pp.315-333.
The findings of the study conducted by Bantekas revealed that there are many different sources
for terrorist organization to raise funds. However, the sources and methods of raising funds
vary from country to country as well as it is based on the needs of terrorist groups. The author
has argued that the support from states to terrorist groups is the foremost way of funding
terrorism. Nonetheless, it has been argued that international communities have taken various
steps to persuade state sponsor and advised the states to stop supporting terrorism funding, as
a results state sponsorship for terrorism has been diminished from past decade (Bantekas,
2003). Including this, criminal actions and activities are another sources of financing, such
activities include smuggling, gambling, fraud, drug trafficking, robbery, kidnapping, money
laundering, and so on. Contradictory to this, it has been argued that legal sources are also being
used to finance the terrorist activities. The legal activities include investments in stocks,
investing funds in real estate, selling publications which are exemplified for funding the
terrorist organizations (Bantekas, 2003).

Dalyan, S., 2008. Combating the financing of terrorism: Rethinking strategies for
success. Defense Against Terrorism Review, 1(1), pp.137-153.

The investigation carried out by above author reveals that legitimate businesses are the main
sources through which terrorist organizations acquire funds. The fund raised from such sources
is further used to support the different activities of terrorist groups. The supporters of terrorism
organizations help them to raise funds in support of logistic and operational requirements
(Dalyan, 2008). These supporters also cover the illegal activities (money laundering) of
terrorist groups or convert them to legal activities. The charities constitute are considered main
legitimate terrorist funding source, however, through charity, the funds are transferred to
terrorist groups in a legal way. Including this, indirect fund transfer from local authorities to
terrorist groups in the form of operating a legitimate business, like as door to-door requests,
funding to cultural events, personal donations etc (Dalyan, 2008). These events are indirectly
organized by some terrorist groups so that investment of people goes to those terrorist groups.

Yiagadeesen, S., 2006. Terrorist Financing and Financial System Vulnerabilities: Issues and
Challenges. Trends in Terrorism Series, Canadian Centre for Intelligence and Security
Studies, NPSIA, Carleton University, 3.

This investigation found that the terrorist organizations make use of formal banking systems
to move the funds which are raised from various sources. Nonetheless, the banking authorities
have been taken major steps to stop such kind of transactions, in the form of supervising and
monitoring the money transactions in all the stages of formal banking. However, the existence
of off-shore financial centers makes it difficult for formal banks to stops such activities of
terrorism groups (Yiagadeesen, 2006). The off-shore financial service providers are offering
lax regulations for the movement of funds over the globe and it makes easier for terrorist groups
to transfer their funds across international borders. The author in this investigation argued that
terrorists and their associated groups are significantly using informal value transfer (IVTs)
methods along with formal banking to move their funds over the globe. The main informal
value transfer (IVTs) method to transfer funds from one country to another is Hawala.
Additionally, it has been found that another method of moving money which is increasingly
used by terrorist groups is the utilization of cash couriers that further allows terrorists to avoid
detection, and facilitates easy transfer (Yiagadeesen, 2006).

The above information is collected from the wide range of literature on the methods and sources
to funding of terrorists organizations. All these investigations mentioned above are going to be
used in the further part of this study where all such information will be critically analysed.
REFERENCES
Bantekas, I., 2003. The international law of terrorist financing. The American Journal of
International Law, 97(2), pp.315-333.

Dalyan, S., 2008. Combating the financing of terrorism: Rethinking strategies for
success. Defence Against Terrorism Review, 1(1), pp.137-153.

Ehrenfeld, R., 2002. Funding Terrorism: sources and methods. In Workshop held at Los
Alamos National Laboratory March. 25(29). p. 391.

Koh, J.M., 2006. Suppressing terrorist financing and money laundering. Springer Science &
Business Media.

Napoleoni, L., 2006. Terrorist Financing: How the New Generation of Jihadists Funds
Itself. The RUSI Journal, 151(1), pp.60-65.

Taylor, R.W., Fritsch, E.J. and Liederbach, J., 2014. Digital crime and digital terrorism.
Prentice Hall Press.

Yiagadeesen, S., 2006. Terrorism Financing and Financial System Vulnerabilities: Issues and
Challenges. Trends in Terrorism Series, Canadian Centre for Intelligence and Security
Studies, NPSIA, Carleton University, 3.