Warning: Europe Terrorist Explosive Stockpiles

Terrorists likely stockpiling explosives in EU, says Europol

The threat of terrorists attacks in the EU remains the top national security concern among member states, with some 211 foiled plots last year alone, according to a top EU security official.

The threat of another attack similar in scale to the Paris attack in November last year or in Brussels this past March has national authorities on edge. Manuel Navarrete Paniagua, the head of the European Counter Terrorism Centre at the EU police agency Europol, told euro-deputies on Monday (23 May) that terrorist cells in the EU were likely stockpiling explosives for later use.

“We have some information reported by the member states that terrorists groups are trying to establish large clandestine stockpiles of explosives in the European Union to be used eventually in large scale home attacks,” he said.

Related: EU Terrorism Situation and Trend Report

Paniagua was briefing MEPs in the civil liberties committee on the yet-to-be published EU Terrorism Situation & Trend Report (TE-SAT) compiled by Europol and member states.

The report is set for publication in a few weeks’ time.

Paniagua cited figures and broader conclusions due in the report, noting that “jihadist terrorism” remains the top threat to security in the European Union.

The latest attacks in the EU suggest much better coordination among the terrorists than previously thought. He said their combined use of explosives and firearms was also a novelty and a threat that is evolving rapidly.

Authorities have yet to nail down any single profile of a home-grown terrorist or foreign fighter.

But he said many have petty criminal backgrounds. He pointed out a significant proportion of foreign fighters have also been diagnosed with mental problems.

More than 4,000 so-called foreign fighters have been identified in the EU and entered into a Europol database.

“Using the terrorist financial tracking programme, we provided last year more than 2,700 leads regarding foreign terrorist fighters to the member states,” he said.

Some 1,057 people were also arrested last year on terrorism-related offences, he said.

He said there are also unconfirmed reports that some jihadist militants have set up training camps in the Western Balkans and some EU states.

Terrorists and migration flows

Other concerns related to terrorists exploiting the migration flows from Turkey and elsewhere to enter the European Union.

“We found no evidence of the systematic of using this flow to infiltrate terrorists into the European Union. But they do, they use it, we have some cases, some of the people that perpetrated the Paris attacks were eventually disguised in this immigration flow,” he said.

Paniagua said migrants were being victimised twice as result. First they flee terrorists and then again when the same attempt to infiltrate the EU by hiding among the refugees, he said.

“Again, we have no indication that this systematic,” he said.

Earlier this month, Europol announced it would deploy some 200 counter-terrorist and other investigators to migrant arrival centres known as hotspots in Italy and Greece.

Related: Implementing the European Agenda on Security:
EU action plan against illicit trafficking in and use of firearms and explosives.

Of those, Europol said it would dispatch around 50 “at key points on the external border of the EU” to track down and help identify suspected criminals and terrorists.

A European Commission report earlier this month noted that Turkey is suspected to have around 1,300 Turkish citizens fighting alongside Islamic militant groups in Syria and Iraq.

It noted that the plan to lift visa restrictions on Turkish nationals “could potentially have an impact on the terrorist risk in the EU”.

*****

For the United States, the Warning from DHS in 2011

(U//FOUO) DHS Warning: Terrorists Making Explosives With Commercial Products

Terrorist Acquisition of Commercial Products for Improvised Explosive Device Production(U//FOUO) Recent plots and attacks in the Homeland and overseas demonstrate a continuing terrorist focus on acquiring commercially available materials and components that can be used in constructing improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Heightened public and state and local official awareness, as well as tightened legal controls, have made it more difficult to purchase certain products that contain explosive precursors in bulk quantities or concentrated forms. Operatives are now more likely to use surreptitious, though legal, methods—such as multiple purchases in smaller quantities—to acquire sufficient amounts to create explosives.

— (U) On 27 July 2011, investigators found precursor chemicals and other IED components, including smokeless powder, clocks, batteries, wires, and other items commonly used to make IEDs in the hotel room of a US Army soldier who allegedly sought to target military personnel.
— (U) The admitted perpetrator of the 22 July 2011 attacks in Oslo, Norway avoided law enforcement suspicion by acquiring through legal means the ammonium nitrate, aluminum powder, nitromethane, and blenders he used in constructing IEDs.

(U//FOUO) Commercial products containing precursor materials may include:
— (U//FOUO) Fertilizer and first aid cold packs (ammonium nitrate).
— (U//FOUO) Swimming pool chemicals (calcium hypochlorite/hydrogen peroxide).
— (U//FOUO) Some types of water filtration/treatment systems (potassium permanganate).
— (U//FOUO) Beauty supply products (hydrogen peroxide and acetone).
— (U//FOUO) Industrial cleaning supplies (hydrochloric acid or sulfuric acid).

(U) Potential Indicators of suspicious purchases: Most commercial products suitable for constructing IEDs serve legitimate purposes. Consequently, it is often difficult to identify purchases or other activities that may be associated with terrorist intent to create explosives. No single indicator is likely to divulge suspicious purchases, but, depending on specific circumstances, a combination of the behaviors listed below may warrant reporting and investigation:

— (U) Attempts to purchase all available stock or materials in bulk, especially by individuals with no previous history of bulk purchases.
— (U) Payment or insistence on payment in cash for bulk purchases, or using a credit card in another person’s name.
— (U) Insistence on in-store pickup instead of store delivery of bulk purchase.
— (U) Use of rented or out-of-state vehicle to transport bulk purchases.
— (U) Smaller purchases of the same products at different locations within a short period of time.
— (U) Displays of nervous or suspicious behavior and evasive or vague responses to questions about intended use of products.

(U//FOUO) For additional information, please see DHS-FBI Joint Homeland Security Assessment “(U//FOUO) Use of Common Precursor Chemicals to Make Homemade Explosives,” 10 August 2010; and Roll Call Release “(U//FOUO) Indicators of Suspicious Acquisition of Beauty Supply Products,” 26 February 2010.

Europe: Micro-financing of ISIS

Microfinancing the Caliphate: How the Islamic State is Unlocking the Assets of European Recruits

 

   

 

Author(s): Magnus Ranstorp

CTC/AbstractIslamic State recruits from Europe are raising significant funds for the group through multiple microfinancing techniques within the European Union. Moneymaking schemes have included petty theft, fraudulent loan applications, social insurance fraud, and VAT fraud. A range of techniques are being employed by aspiring and active European Islamic State operatives to transfer money to the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, including bringing money with them when they travel to join the group, withdrawing funds from money transfer businesses operating along the Turkey-Syria border, sending cash couriers, and using the hawala system. To shrink this funding pipeline, financial intelligence must be better integrated into EU counterterrorism efforts. 

Much attention is focused on the Islamic State’s macro-level financial resources from within Syria and Iraq, where oil sales, plundering, and taxation as well as donations are the group’s primary funding sources. The Islamic State is also known to raise significant funds from exchange rate manipulation and transactions in Jordan and Iraq.[1] There has been, however, less focus on the range of foreign terrorist fighter (FTF) microfinancing schemes and transactions within Europe. This article explores the range of methods used by European Islamic State FTFs to raise and then transfer funds to Islamic State coffers. It is based in large part on a study conducted for the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority focusing on FTFs from northern European countries as well as extensive interviews with law enforcement, financial investigators, and intelligence officials.[2]

A Caliphate Cashing In  The Islamic State is encouraging each individual recruit to bring whatever assets are available to contribute to the group’s cause. The resulting efforts are often well-organized. As this article will outline, FTF microfinancing schemes range from sophisticated VAT (value-added tax) fraud schemes to benefit fraud. Money Service Businesses (MSBs) like Western Union, Moneygram, and a myriad of other companies operating along the Turkish-Syrian border are heavily used to transfer money, including to middlemen in Turkey and Syria.

The scale and scope of the travel of European FTFs to Syria and Iraq to join the Islamic State is unprecedented. It is estimated that around 5,000 European Union nationals have joined the Islamic State and to a lesser extent Jabhat al-Nusra since the onset of the Syrian civil war. While there are significant numbers of FTFs departing from France (1,700), Germany (800), and the United Kingdom (700-1,000), there are other smaller states with proportionately higher ratio of their Muslim population leaving for Syria. Belgium has 470 FTFs (including 50 women) who have joined the Islamic State. In Austria, there are over 300 FTFs (with a high proportion of individuals of Chechen descent), which is probably a spillover effect of its vicinity to the Western Balkans, an area from which several hundred FTFs have departed.[a] There are an estimated 210 FTFs from the Netherlands. Denmark has 135 FTFs, and Sweden has 299 FTFs, out of which at least 45 are women. In Scandinavia there is a cumulative total of 500 FTFs with almost 200 who have returned.

The large number of European FTFs have provided the Islamic State with significant incoming cash flows. Facilitators encourage aspiring fighters to raise as much money as possible before immigrating to the Islamic State. These facilitators help the recruits identify ways to unlock funds. Recruits with good credit histories and those well placed to defraud financial institutions, as well as those with a network of contacts willing to provide funds, are particularly prized.

Financial contributions vary according to the recruit’s individual financial position, ability, and situation. Often male recruits come from dysfunctional families or single-parent families (often without a father) and with multi-criminal backgrounds, having past convictions for drug offenses, theft, or violence. Many have operated together with territorial criminal gangs. Acquiring available funding provides FTFs with enhanced status and position upon their arrival in Syria with the Islamic State, providing significant incentives for them to raise as much cash as possible.

Consequently, there are a number of indicators that may allow law enforcement to identify FTFs before travel. FTFs often make sudden asset sales or transfers ahead of their departure. They often quit their jobs if they have one, and they commonly make unusually large withdrawals from their accounts. A red flag is unusually high activity in combination with many different loans and cash withdrawals. In terms of company financial activity, recruits often generate very large revenue in short periods. Credit is accumulated, and business purchases are at high levels to maximize credit limits with orders placed within a short period, with purchases often of IT or mobile phones. Bills are never paid. This means that by the time recruit has traveled, unpaid invoices accumulate.

FTFs travel to and from the principal conflict regions in Syria or Iraq through direct or indirect air travel routes (they often break up travel patterns to disguise destination) or through various land routes to staging points in Turkey, Jordan, and Lebanon. Turkey is a key hub for FTFs and for funding sources, particularly because of its long, porous land border with Syria. Often FTFs fly into Istanbul and then proceed to fly to Hatay or other airports closer to the Turkish-Syrian border. Some are turned back in Istanbul but then travel via boats through the Greek archipelago to gain entry to Turkey. Many FTFs now avoid Istanbul altogether because they are regularly refused entry. Instead they travel to charter destinations close to Syria. There have been cases of travel through several detour destinations.

There are a range of options used by European FTFs to transfer funds to the Islamic State. Some bring cash on their person across the border in to Syria even though there is a risk the funds will be confiscated by border security agents along the route. This has led others to withdraw funds from Money Service Businesses (MSBs) stationed in the Turkey-Syria border area. Groups of Europeans on their way to join the Islamic State sometime use fixers in the border region to withdraw funds from MSBs, as do Europeans who have already joined the group.[3]

All this has made Turkey a key hub for the flow of funds to Syria for terrorist use, especially its border towns with Syria. Intelligence suggests that foreign fighters engaged in fighting in Syria withdraw cash from ATMs on the border of Turkey and Syria and that the facilitators who bring them back and forth across the border play a key role in aiding this monetary activity.[4] Periodic withdrawals occur over prolonged periods along the border areas through MSBs. Small amounts of EUR €500–EUR €1,000 are typically withdrawn to avoid suspicions.

This article will now explore in detail how European FTFs are (1) raising funds for the Islamic State and then (2) transferring this money to the group in Syria and Iraq.

Part 1: Raising Funds  It is important to recognize that there are many legal fundraising activities that are exploited by FTFs, particularly the large charitable sector. The complexity of the crisis in Syria and huge need for humanitarian assistance make the issue of detection of terror finance extremely sensitive and difficult. A few aid agencies operate under strict Islamic State supervision (by the Islamic State Department of Relief) and no international staff is present.[5] Both charities that are genuinely seeking to provide humanitarian assistance and fake charities that have been set up to channel funds to the Islamic State operate under these conditions. A 2014 Financial Action Task Force (FATF) report found that well-intentioned non-profit organizations (NPOs) most at risk of having funds requisitioned by the terrorist groups were “those engaged in ‘service’ activities … operating in close proximity to an active terrorist threat” and those “that send funds to counterpart or ‘correspondent’ NPOs located in or close to where terrorists operate.”[6]

Another common method of individual Muslim contribution is through Tajheez Al-Ghazi, which roughly translates as waging jihad by proxy by those unable themselves to travel.[7] This typically involves a complex web of sponsorship with no central hub or connector, which makes this type of effort difficult to pinpoint and counter. Funds can be distributed via humanitarian channels, or it may be as simple as buying someone’s airline ticket or sponsoring a piece of equipment. For FTFs from Middle Eastern countries, this contribution is often collected through online crowdfunding from sources in the Gulf States, and there is concern such activity is also going on in Europe.[8]

Theft and Petty Crime  European FTFs have funded their travel to Syria through a range of illicit streams including thefts and petty crime. The fact that a significant number of FTFs have past criminal convictions means they already have experience in raising funds this way. Extremist preachers have justified such criminal fundraising on religious grounds. A prime example was Khalid Zerkani, a Moroccan veteran of the Afghan Jihad who recruited dozens of Belgians to fight jihad in Syria between 2013 and 2014, including the team leader of the Paris attacks Abdelhamid Abaaoud. Zerkani was known as “Papa Noel” by his acolytes in and around the Brussels district of Molenbeek because he encouraged them to rob people in the street and steal the luggage of tourists and then distributed the proceeds to fund their travel to Syria. One Brussels-based FTF received €5000 ($5700) from Zerkani to make the trip.[9]

Bank Fraud Many FTFs have taken out loans from banks[b] without any intention of paying them back. Amedy Coulibaly, who attacked a kosher grocery store in Paris in January 2015, took out a €6,000 ($6,700) bank loan in Lille using a fake payslip shortly before the terrorist attack.[10] Some FTFs have applied for the funds via internet applications. In Sweden there are several cases of FTFs taking out unsecured bank loans in combination with other types of fraud such as quick loans (SMS loans) and the leasing of SUVs and other cars with no intention of paying them off and every intention of reselling the vehicles.[11]

There are also other types of banking fraud. In the United Kingdom, the Metropolitan Police unravelled a large-scale fraud by British FTFs in March 2015 who had pretended to be police officers and were targeting elderly citizens for their bank details. After telling them their bank accounts had been compromised, the FTFs instructed their victims to transfer money to an account under the control of the fraudsters.[12] In May 2016, eight individuals were jailed for defrauding U.K. pensioners out of more than £1 million ($1.44 million). Around 140 frauds or attempted frauds were discovered by the investigation; the group had used “16 telephone lines to make 5,695 calls to 3,774 different numbers.”[13]

VAT and Business Fraud The issue of withholding VAT payment is a very common and lucrative method for terror financing. Very large sums can be generated quickly via consumer goods that are easily resold. In Sweden, a 30-year-old salafi preacher, influential among FTFs, was charged with VAT fraud amounting to SEK6 million ($740,000) in a scheme lasting four months during the first quarter of 2013. He purchased mobile phones and tablets for SEK29.7 million ($3.6 million) in the United Kingdom and sent the order to his company in Finland. He then resold the shipment to a 23-year-old Swedish FTF and his company in Bergsjön. SEK5 million is believed to be missing still and is thought to be in the Middle East or North Africa.[14]

Another Swedish case involves the combined VAT fraud of the 20-year-old son of the late Islamic State of Iraq leader in Mosul (Mohammed Moumou who was killed in 2008 by U.S. forces in Iraq) and a 25-year-old man who worked as case officer for the Swedish Tax Authority.[15] The pair established a company with no employees and began importing iPhones from Lithuania for SEK28 million ($3.4 million), which they resold to retail outlets at a bargain price, withholding payment of any VAT to the Tax Authority. Owing SEK7.1 million ($870,000) in VAT payments, the company had no assets. Simultaneously, the 25-year-old had taken out several loans from SEB, Swedbank, Bank Norwegian, and dozens of other credit institutes amounting to SEK1 million ($120,000).[16] Criminal proceedings were transferred to Turkey and other countries in the region. There are indications these two individuals were part of a much broader financial, criminal enterprise led by Soheil Raffieé Bakhtiarzadeh and Shahin Raffieé Bakhtiarzadeh, two brothers wanted by Europol, on request by Sweden, and involving dozens of companies.[17]

These kinds of VAT carousels where phones are sold and resold to different companies create profitable criminal proceeds. In business jargon, these so-called “missing traders” receive a VAT number and then trade quickly before dissolving their companies.[18]

Another case of VAT fraud was perpetrated by Abdessamad Fateh in Denmark. Also known as Abu Hamza, he was officially designated by the United States as a foreign terrorist fighter and “a member of a Scandinavia-based network of extremists allegedly linked to al-Qa’ida, [who] has traveled to Syria.”[19] [c] Abu Hamza had been arrested previously as a suspect in a terror plot against the cartoonist Kurt Westergaard at Jyllands-Posten in 2008. He owned a company importing large quantities of chicken and cheese from Germany to Denmark and failed to pay DKK3 million ($460,000) VAT in a scheme in which accountants acted as facilitators through a series of shell companies—including a travel agency—that were created and then dissolved.[20]

VAT fraud can assume massive proportions. In 2014 Italian authorities discovered that so-called carbon credit and VAT fraud had occurred between 38 middlemen who sold carbon-credit between Italian SF Energy and a series of companies in Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. This €1.15 billion ($1.3 billion) tax scam resulted in significant funds being channeled to the Taliban via bank transactions in Cyprus, Hong Kong, and the UAE.[21]

Often these VAT fraud schemes involve fake addresses or designated “fall guys” who assume the legal and financial consequences. This enables the real culprits to continue the scheme elsewhere.

Lease/Loans of SUVs and Cars  One of the most common fraudulent practices is to secure a car loan or leasing option with no intention of paying back the debt. This provides Islamic State sympathizers with opportunities to send cars to the Islamic State in Syria. Often these cars are larger SUVs. For example, Toyota Hilux pickups and Toyota Land Cruisers retrofitted with heavy weapons frequently appear in Islamic State propaganda videos in Iraq, Syria, and Libya.

Toyota Hilux models, for example, whether stolen or purchased, are shipped from around the world to Turkey. There are numerous reported cases of the vehicles coming from as far away as Canada and Australia.[22] Vehicles are also often driven from Europe to Turkey and then into Syria by FTFs. Turkish border authorities require coupling a driver with a foreign-registered vehicle for each entry/exit into Turkey. These transfers have become more difficult.

Social Insurance Fraud The issue of social insurance or benefit fraud has been flagged as a method exploited by FTFs in Syria and Iraq. Much of this problem stems from inadequate control systems requiring unemployed individuals to report regularly to authorities. In some EU states the problem has been exposed by inquiries by authorities. For example, investigation in Denmark revealed that 32 FTFs had received social insurance benefits amounting to DKK379,000 ($58,000) while they were in Syria fighting for the Islamic State.[23]

In Britain a probe has been launched to examine the extent to which British FTFs are abusing the taxpayer social insurance system through false claims, online fraud, and student loans. Police officials have confirmed that women were being used to smuggle out cash derived from benefit fraud as they aroused less suspicion.[24] In July 2015, the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) Fraud and Error Service launched a wide probe into the extent of this benefit fraud. Investigations were prioritized after three women from Bradford with nine children between them claimed benefits and had allegedly left for Syria.[25]

In Belgium in August 2013, the cities of Antwerp and Vilvoorde stopped welfare payments to 29 FTFs as they did not live at their registered address. These FTFs had managed to access their bank accounts via ATMs across the border in Turkey and withdraw money.[26] The Dutch authorities took steps to freeze the payment of social benefits to 85 FTFs.[27] In France, authorities decided to cut welfare benefits last year for 290 persons identified as jihadis.[28]

Social Media Crowdfunding  As mentioned above, intelligence officials have flagged crowdfunding as an emerging source of funding for the Islamic State and its terror activity.[29] Crowdfunding for specific projects combines clever social media and emotional telethons with the fundraising power of a multitude of individuals. Establishing charitable NPOs for this purpose can attract funding through diverse social media sites. According to FATF reports, there are plenty of cases where the appeals for supply and equipment were quickly matched and specific instructions were given over encrypted platforms about where to direct the funds.[30]

Part 2: Transfer of Funds Interviews the authors conducted with Western intelligence and law enforcement officials provide a picture of how European FTFs are transferring funds to the Islamic State. It is important to note the Islamic State still relies on access to banking services in Syria and Iraq and in neighboring areas contested by the group. According to one report, “in Iraq alone, approximately ninety such international bank branches continue to operate in contested areas of Ninawa, Salah al-Din, Anbar, and Kirkuk provinces.”[31] One of its most important access points to the international financial system are bank branches situated in the border region between Turkey and Syria. The Islamic State was also for a period accessing the government funding of workers, which was provided every month in Mosul. The Iraqi government stopped paying these salaries in Mosul last August.[32]

Money Service Businesses (MSBs) Money remittance and currency exchange providers have been exploited for money laundering purposes and terrorism finance. Like money laundering, terrorists use sequencing or the breaking down of amounts into multiple/sequential transactions below the threshold, thereby circumventing mandatory reporting. They also may employ smurfing[d] or proxy techniques to avoid detection.

MSBs are widely used in Turkey to transfer FTF funds coming from Europe to recipients within the Islamic State using MSB offices and ATMs along border towns straddling the Syrian-Turkish border. Gazientep, Akcakale, Adiaman, Hacipasa, Reyhanli, and Sanliurfa are just some of the places where arriving and departing FTFs can access financial services. After receiving instructions from recruiters and facilitators, FTFs arrive in pre-determined destinations where they take out funds from MSBs through their home country bank accounts or via wired cash.

Regular withdrawals of smaller amounts along the border is common. As noted by U.K. authorities in a 2015 report, “funds are typically broken down in to smaller amounts to avoid the need to provide identification and to avoid detection. Intelligence also indicates that employees have been known to facilitate funds to terrorists through their position within MSBs.”[33] [e]

To avoid detection, the Islamic State regularly changes the playbook it provides European FTFs and their facilitators on how to move money. For example, after Western Union and a number of other MSBs began watching more closely for Islamic State linked transactions in the Syria-Turkey border area, the Islamic State urged aspiring European FTFs to transfer sums under €5,000 ($5,700). For a period of time, they also encouraged them to transfer funds through MSBs to recipients in Bosnia, particularly in the Brcko district, because it was seen as a safer option. Islamic State operatives provided contact details for these recipients.[f]

Pre-paid debit cards Another way FTFs and terrorists conceal their tracks have been through pre-paid debit cards. These can be recharged without identity checks as long as the total amount does not exceed €2,500 ($2,800) per year. They were used to rent hotel rooms outside Paris the night before the November 13, 2015, attacks.[34]

Informal Money Transfer Systems (Hawala) The traditional system of hawala is in operation around the world. In many cases Islamic State financial transactions are conducted through an underground hawaladar network established throughout Iraq, Syria, and beyond. As the Islamic State consolidates control over its provinces, such as in Libya, it is clear the group is relying increasingly on hawala networks for transferring funds.[35] This mechanism will increase in importance as the Islamic State expands in operational areas with infrequent or no access to international financial institutions.

In Europe it has been easier to detect and disrupt hawala networks being used for terrorist purposes. The most prominent case was the 2015 roll-up of a massive, secret hawala network composed of 300 hawaladars with clandestine offices in Spanish cities through 250 butcher shops, grocery stores, and telephone call centers. They managed “the savings of over 150,000 Muslims, many of whom were believed to be receiving social welfare payments from the Spanish state, without any legal oversight. The network allegedly paid the salaries of Spanish jihadis in Syria: They received about $800 if they were single and $1,200 if they were married.”[36]

Cash Couriers The Islamic State uses cash couriers to circumvent multi-layered barriers placed on the group by Western financial institutions. These cash couriers provide essential services for the Islamic State inside Syria and Iraq as well as across the border in Turkey where the money is distributed to trusted networks and used to buy essential equipment.

The system of cash couriers also works the opposite direction with European FTFs and support networks concealing and transporting cash to the Islamic State and their fighters. In one such case, Amal el-Wahabi, a British mother-of-two, was arrested and convicted in the U.K. for trying to smuggle €20,000 ($23,000) to her husband in Syria.[37]

Conclusion FTF microfinancing schemes are important to focus on for a number of reasons. They reveal a disturbing pattern of the Islamic State’s wider and deeper efforts to find funding from a diverse range of sources. For the Islamic State, every recruit holds the potential to unlock financial assets. Focusing on FTF financial sources also provides important insights into the web of the Islamic State’s transnational networks and local recruitment/facilitation focal points. There is a greater need to tackle the Islamic State’s network in Europe using financial enforcement agencies and tools. This requires a more concerted effort by governments to integrate financial intelligence into counterterrorism machinery within and across EU states. This is increasingly urgent as intelligence officials point out that money flows are not just going in one direction—from recruits to the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. Intelligence now suggests that money is sent from Islamic State sources to recruits and supporters in Europe as ways to fund terror operations.[38]

Dr. Magnus Ranstorp is Research Director (CATS) at Swedish Defence University and Quality Manager at the EU Radicalisation Awareness Centre of Excellence. He has worked on terrorism and counterterrorism issues for over 25 years around the world. Follow @MagnusRanstorp

Substantive Notes [a] This information was collected by Linus Gustafsson at Swedish Defence University throughout 2015-2016 and is based on officially available figures by national authorities or media reports. These figures have been collected from open sources by Swedish Defence University on behalf of the Swedish National Countering Violent Extremism Coordinator every month since mid-2015.

[b] In the 2000s multiple British al-Qa`ida plotters funded their operations through bank fraud. For example, three of those involved in the 2006 transatlantic airline plot successfully applied for loans totaling GBP26,000 ($37,600). See Paul Cruickshank, “The 2006 Airline Plot,” in Bruce Hoffman and Fernando Reinares eds., The Evolution of the Global Terrorist Threat, (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, October 2014).

[c] Abu Hamza returned to Denmark after traveling to Syria and later died of natural causes there.

[d] Smurfing involves the process of making numerous cash deposits into several bank accounts.

[e] It is also important to recognize that FTF facilitators use the MSBs for a variety of purposes. They receive payment for facilitation of travel of fighters on behalf of the Islamic State but have also received funds through them from worried parents who want to extract radicalized children from the clutches of the Islamic State. This information is based on testimony from relatives of FTFs in both The Hague (September 2014) and Stockholm (November 2014).

[f] This area is a well-known jihadist hotspot. The village of Gornja Maoca, for example, contains a high concentration of jihadis. See Gordon N. Bardos, “Jihad in the Balkans: The Next Generation,” World Affairs, September/October 2014.

Citations [1] U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs, “Fact Sheet: Taking Stock of the Counter-ISIL Finance Group’s Achievements in its First Year,” April 12, 2016. For example, see UK Foreign Affairs Sub-committee, ISIL financing inquiry, Oral and Written Evidence.

[2] Magnus Normark and Magnus Ranstorp, Understanding Terrorist Finance Modus Operandi and National CTF Regimes, March 2016. The law enforcement and intelligence officials were interviewed between June-December 2015 in a number of countries: in the U.K., the Metropolitan Police (SO15); in the Netherlands, the National Coordinator for Counterterrorism (NCTV); in the United States, the Department of the Treasury, Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, Department of Justice, and Department of State Office of Counterterrorism; in Canada, the Canada Security and Intelligence Service, Royal Canadian Mountain Police (RCMP), Public Safety Canada, and FINTRAC Canada; in Sweden, the Swedish Security Service (SÄPO) and the Swedish Finance Police (FIPO); and in Denmark, the Danish Security & Intelligence Service (PET). The authors also interviewed officials at Europol, Counter Terrorism and Financial Intelligence in The Hague.

[3] Personal interviews, several European intelligence officials, 2015-2016.

[4] Personal interviews, several European intelligence officials and Swedish banks, 2015-2016.

[5] Eva Svoboda and Louise Redvers, “Aid and the Islamic State,” IRIN/HPG Crisis Brief, December 2014.

[6] Financial Action Task Force (FATF), “Emerging Terrorist Financing Risks,” October 2015, p. 14.

[7] Aimen Dean, Edwina Thompson, and Tom Keatinge, “Draining the Ocean to Catch one Type of Fish: Evaluating the Effectiveness of the Global Counter-Terrorism Financing Regime,” Perspectives on Terrorism 7:4 (2013).

[8] Personal interviews, European law enforcement and intelligence officials, 2015; Normark and Ranstorp.

[9] Jugement contre Khalid Zerkani et al., Tribunal de Premiere Instance Francophone de Bruxelles, July 29, 2015, pp. 44-65.

[10] ”Paris attacks: Investigators turn up new leads,” BBC News, January 19, 2015.

[11] “Lån och bedrägerier finansierar terrorresor,” Sveriges Radio, June 22, 2015.

[12] Jonathan Owen, “British pensioners targeted in scam by extremists raising funds for Isis,” Independent, March 5, 2015.

[13] “Gang jailed over pensioner phone scam,” BBC, May 4, 2016.

[14] “Momsfiffel finansierade jihadister I Syrien,” November 28, 2004.

[15] For an earlier article on circumstances surrounding the 25-year-old, see Magnus Ranstorp, “The Foreign Policy Essay: Scandinavian Foreign Fighters—Trends and Lessons,” Lawfare, December 7, 2014.

[16] Lasse Wierup, ”Tjänsteman åtalas för svindel,” Dagens Nyheter, April 11, 2016.

[17] Soheil Raffieé Bakhtiarzadeh and Shahin Raffieé Bakhtiarzadeh, ”Momsfusk ger nätverk miljoner,” Dagens Nyheter, April 12, 2016.

[18] “Julhandeln högtid för kriminellas momsfiffel,” Dagens Nyheter, December 3, 2014.

[19] U.S. Department of State, “Designation of Foreign Terrorist Fighters,” September 24, 2014.

[20] Personal interview, journalist Troels Kingo Larsen at DR, May 2015; “Terrormistænkte indblandet i fødevarefusk i København,” DR, January 24, 2016.

[21] “Milliardsvindel med dansk kvoteregister er mistænkt for at finansiere terror,” DR, October 1, 2014; “Italy tax scam ‘may have funded terrorism,’” Local, September 24, 2014.

[22] Stewart Bell, “Ontario extortion racket has ties to Hezbollah,” National Post, July 21, 2011.

[23] ”Syrienkrigere har fået 378.000 kroner i velfærdsydelser,” Ritzau, May 18, 2015.

[24] Peter Dominiczak, Tom Whitehead, and Christopher Hope, “Jihadists funded by welfare benefits, senior police officer warns,” Daily Telegraph, November 26, 2014.

[25] Imogen Calderwood, “ISIS jihadis in Syria and Iraq are funding their evil war by milking Britain’s benefits system through false claims, online fraud and student loans,” DailyMail, June 7, 2015.

[26] “Belgian jihadists in Syria stripped of welfare benefits,” France 24, August 19, 2013.

[27] FATF.

[28] “France cut welfare benefits for 290 jihadists last year,” France 24, March 18, 2015.

[29] “Islamic State using social media as crowdfunding platform for terrorist activities, expert warns,” ABC News, November 17, 2015.

[30] FATF.

[31] Matthew Levitt, “Here’s how ISIS still has access to the global financial system,” Business Insider, March 24, 2015.

[32] Aymenn al-Tamimi, “A Caliphate under Strain: The Documentary Evidence,” CTC Sentinel 9:4 (2016).

[33] HM Treasury/HM Home Office, “UK national risk assessment of money laundering and terrorist financing,” October 2015.

[34] “France targets prepaid debit cards in fight against terror finance,” Agence France-Presse, November 23, 2015; “Prepaid cards: help for financially excluded or finance for terrorists?” Express Tribune, November 29, 2015.

[35] Personal interviews, European intelligence and law enforcement officials, 2015.

[36] Jose Maria Irujo, “Una extensa red de 250 locutorios y carnicerias financia la yihad en Siria,” El Pais, February 2, 2015.

[37] Sandra Laville and Duncan Gardham, “Two unlikely jihadis: the ‘weed-smoking kaffir’ and the ignorant dupe,” Guardian, August 13, 2015.

[38] Personal interview, intelligence source, spring 2016.

 

Confused About the Middle East That Costs Us Billions?

You are not alone if foreign policy is either boring, confusing or just over there. Foreign policy is domestic policy given what we are forced to spend in money and human treasure to maintain some kind of equilibrium in the region. Under the Obama regime, the United States has backed off substantially and the reasons were explained in the Jeffrey Goldberg Atlantic article which was a VERY long read. However, it is important because war and political conflict began in the 70’s for the United States and has no end in sight as told by the intelligence experts due to militant Islam.

Fighting against Islam has been a centuries old condition and there is no forecast for any sort of resolution while treaties, accords and agreements have populated presidential administrations for decades.

We, in the West just cannot bail out and leave it to those ‘over there’ to deal with it all, as there are countless ramifications to that notion, and we are war weary. We are out of money and out of solutions. Do we stay the course in some form?

Below are some maps to help you understand better the entire region, the history and the dynamic of where the world is today. Maps are of great help and this should be a useful tool.

40 maps that explain the Middle East

by Max Fisher on March 26, 2015

Vox: Maps can be a powerful tool for understanding the world, particularly the Middle East, a place in many ways shaped by changing political borders and demographics. Here are 40 maps crucial for understanding the Middle East — its history, its present, and some of the most important stories in the region today.

Middle East History

  1. The fertile crescent, the cradle of civilization

    The fertile crescent, the cradle of civilization

    If this area wasn’t the birthplace of human civilization, it was at least a birthplace of human civilization. Called “the fertile crescent” because of its lush soil, the “crescent” of land mostly includes modern-day Iraq, Syria, Jordan, and Israel-Palestine. (Some definitions also include the Nile River valley in Egypt.) People started farming here in 9000 BC, and by around 2500 BC the Sumerians formed the first complex society that resembles what we’d now call a “country,” complete with written laws and a political system. Put differently, there are more years between Sumerians and ancient Romans than there are between ancient Romans and us.

  2. How ancient Phoenicians spread from Lebanon across the Mediterranean

    How ancient Phoenicians spread from Lebanon across the Mediterranean

    The Phoenicians, who lived in present-day Lebanon and coastal Syria, were pretty awesome. From about 1500 to 300 BC, they ran some of the Mediterranean’s first big trading networks, shown in red, and dominated the sea along with the Greeks, who are shown in brown. Some sailed as far as the British Isles, and many of them set up colonies in North Africa, Spain, Sicily, and Sardinia. This was one of the first of many close cultural links between the Middle East and North Africa – and why Libya’s capital, Tripoli, still bears the name of the ancient Phoenician colony that established it.

  3. How the Middle East gave Europe religion, three times

    How the Middle East gave Europe religion, three times

    The Middle East actually gave Europe religion four times, including Islam, but this map shows the first three. First was Judaism, which spread through natural immigration and when Romans forcibly dispersed the rebelling Israelites in the first and second century AD. In the first through third centuries A.D., a religion called Mithraism — sometimes called a “mystery religion” for its emphasis on secret rites and clandestine worship — spread from present-day Turkey or Armenia throughout the Roman Empire (at the time, most adherents believed it was from Persians in modern-day Iran, but this is probably wrong). Mithraism was completely replaced with Christianity, which became the Roman Empire’s official religion, after a few centuries. It’s easy to forget that, for centuries, Christianity was predominantly a religion of Middle Easterners, who in turn converted Europeans.

  4. When Mohammed’s Caliphate conquered the Middle East

    When Mohammed’s Caliphate conquered the Middle East

    In the early 7th century AD in present-day Saudi Arabia, the Prophet Mohammed founded Islam, which his followers considered a community as well as a religion. As they spread across the Arabian peninsula, they became an empire, which expanded just as the neighboring Persian and Byzantine Empires were ready to collapse. In an astonishingly short time — from Mohammed’s death in 632 to 652 AD — they managed to conquer the entire Middle East, North Africa, Persia, and parts of southern Europe. They spread Islam, the Arabic language, and the idea of a shared Middle Eastern identity — all of which still define the region today. It would be as if everyone in Europe still spoke Roman Latin and considered themselves ethnically Roman.

  5. A map of the world at the Caliphate’s height

    A map of the world at the Caliphate’s height

    This is a rough political map of the world in 750 AD, at the height of the Omayyad Caliphate (“caliph” means the ruler of the global Islamic community). This is to give you a sense of how vast and powerful the Muslim empire had become, barely one century after the founding of the religion that propelled its expansion. It was a center of wealth, arts, and learning at a time when only China was so rich and powerful. This was the height of Arab power.

  6. The six-century rise and fall of the Ottoman Empire

    The six-century rise and fall of the Ottoman Empire

    The Ottoman Empire is named for Osman, its first ruler, who in the early 1300s expanded it from a tiny part of northwest Turkey to a slightly less tiny part. It continued expanding for about 500 years — longer than the entire history of the Roman Empire — ruling over most of the Middle East, North Africa, and southeastern Europe for centuries. The empire, officially an Islamic state, spread the religion in southeast Europe but was generally tolerant of other religious groups. It was probably the last great non-European empire until it began declining in the mid-1800s, collapsed after World War I, and had its former territory in the Middle East divided up by Western Europe.

  7. What the Middle East looked like in 1914

    What the Middle East looked like in 1914

    This is a pivotal year, during the Middle East’s gradual transfer from 500 years of Ottoman rule to 50 to 100 years of European rule. Western Europe was getting richer and more powerful as it carved up Africa, including the Arab states of North Africa, into colonial possessions. Virtually the entire region was ruled outright by Europeans or Ottomans, save some parts of Iran and the Arabian peninsula divided into European “zones of influence.” When World War I ended a few years later, the rest of the defeated Ottoman Empire would be carved up among the Europeans. The lines between French, Italian, Spanish, and British rule are crucial for understanding the region today – not just because they ruled differently and imposed different policies, but because the boundaries between European empires later became the official borders of independence, whether they made sense or not.

  8. The Sykes-Picot treaty that carved up the Middle East

    The Sykes-Picot treaty that carved up the Middle East

    You hear a lot today about this treaty, in which the UK and French (and Russian) Empires secretly agreed to divide up the Ottoman Empire’s last MidEastern regions among themselves. Crucially, the borders between the French and British “zones” later became the borders between Iraq, Syria, and Jordan. Because those later-independent states had largely arbitrary borders that forced disparate ethnic and religious groups together, and because those groups are still in terrible conflict with one another, Sykes-Picot is often cited as a cause of warfare and violence and extremism in the Middle East. But scholars are still debating this theory, which may be too simple to be true.

  9. An animated history of great empires in the Middle East

    An animated history of great empires in the Middle East

    You may have noticed a theme of the last eight maps: empires, mostly from outside the Middle East but sometimes of it, conquering the region in ways that dramatically changed it. This animation shows you every major empire in the Middle East over the last 5,000 years. To be clear, it is not exhaustive, and in case it wasn’t obvious, the expanding-circle animations do not actually reflect the speed or progression of imperial expansions. But it’s a nice primer.

  10. The complete history of Islamic states

    The complete history of Islamic states

    This time-lapse map by Michael Izady — a wonderful historian and cartographer at Columbia University, whose full collection can be found here — shows the political boundaries of the greater Middle East from 1450 through today. You’ll notice that, for much of the last 500 years, most or all of the region has been under some combination of Turkish, Persian, and European control. For so much of the Arab Middle East to be under self-rule is relatively new. Two big exceptions that you can see on this map are Morocco and Egypt, which have spent more of the last 500 years as self-ruling empires than other Arab states. That’s part of why these two countries have sometimes seen themselves as a degree apart from the rest of the Arab world.

  11. The 2011 Arab Spring

    The 2011 Arab Spring

    It is still amazing, looking back at early and mid-2011, how dramatically and quickly the Arab Spring uprisings challenged and in many cases toppled the brittle old dictatorships of the Middle East. What’s depressing is how little the movements have advanced beyond those first months. Syria’s civil war is still going. Egypt’s fling with democracy appeared to end with a military coup in mid-2013. Yemen is still mired in slow-boil violence and political instability. The war in Libya toppled Moammar Qaddafi, with US and European support, but left the country without basic security or a functioning government. Only Tunisia seems to have come out even tenuously in the direction of democracy.


The Middle East today

  1. The dialects of Arabic today

    The dialects of Arabic today

    This map shows the vast extent of the Arabic-speaking world and the linguistic diversity within it. Both go back to the Caliphates of the sixth and seventh century, which spread Arabic from its birthplace on the Arabian Peninsula across Africa and the Middle East. Over the last 1,300 years the language’s many speakers have diverged into distinct, sometimes very different, dialects. Something to look at here: where the dialects do and do not line up with present-day political borders. In places where they don’t line up, you’re seeing national borders that are less likely to line up with actual communities, and in some cases more likely to create problems.

  2. The Sunni-Shia divide

    The Sunni-Shia divide

    The story of Islam’s division between Sunni and Shia started with the Prophet Mohammed’s death in 632. There was a power struggle over who would succeed him in ruling the Islamic Caliphate, with most Muslims wanting to elect the next leader but some arguing that power should go by divine birthright to Mohammed’s son-in-law, Ali. That pro-Ali faction was known as the “Partisans of Ali,” or “Shi’atu Ali” in Arabic, hence “Shia.” Ali’s eventual ascension to the throne sparked a civil war, which he and his partisans lost. The Shia held on to the idea that Ali was the rightful successor, and grew into an entirely separate branch of Islam. Today about 10 to 15 percent of Muslims worldwide are Shia — they are the majority group in Iran and Iraq only — while most Muslims are Sunni. “Sunni” roughly means “tradition.” Today, that religious division is again a political one as well: it’s a struggle for regional influence between Shia political powers, led by Iran, versus Sunni political powers, led by Saudi Arabia. This struggle looks an awful lot like a regional cold war, with proxy battles in Syria and elsewhere.

  3. The ethnic groups of the Middle East

    The ethnic groups of the Middle East

    The most important color on this map of Middle Eastern ethnic groups is yellow: Arabs, who are the majority group in almost every MidEast country, including the North African countries not shown here. The exceptions are mostly-Jewish Israel in pink, mostly-Turkish Turkey in green, mostly-Persian Iran in orange, and heavily diverse Afghanistan. (More on the rich diversity of Iran and Afghanistan below.) That splash of red in the middle is really important: ethnic Kurds, who have no country of their own but big communities in Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. But the big lesson of this map is that there is a belt of remarkable ethnic diversity from Turkey to Afghanistan, but that much of the rest of the region is dominated by ethnic Arabs.

  4. Weighted Muslim populations around the world

    Weighted Muslim populations around the world

    This map makes a point about what the Middle East is not: it is not synonymous with the Islamic world. This weighted population map shows every country in the world by the size of its Muslim population. Countries with more Muslim citizens are larger; countries with fewer Muslim citizens are smaller. You’ll notice right away that the Middle East makes up just a fraction of the world’s total Muslim population. There are far more Muslims, in fact, in the South Asian countries of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. The biggest Muslim population by far is Indonesia’s, in southeast Asia. And there are millions in sub-Saharan Africa as well. The Islamic world may have begun in the Middle East, but it’s now much, much larger than that.


Israel-Palestine

  1. Israel’s 1947 founding and the 1948 Israeli-Arab War

    Israel's 1947 founding and the 1948 Israeli-Arab War

    Left map: Passia; center and right maps: Philippe Rekacewicz / Le Monde Diplomatique

    Israel’s 1947 founding and the 1948 Israeli-Arab War

    These three maps show how Israel went from not existing to, in 1947 and 1948, establishing its national borders. It’s hard to identify a single clearest start point to the Israel-Palestine conflict, but the map on the left might be it: these are the borders that the United Nations demarcated in 1947 for a Jewish state and an Arab state, in what had been British-controlled territory. The Palestinians fought the deal, and in 1948 the Arab states of Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, and Syria invaded. The middle map shows, in green, how far they pushed back the Jewish armies. The right-hand map shows how the war ended: with an Israeli counterattack that pushed into the orange territory, and with Israel claiming that as its new national borders. The green is what was left for Palestinians.

  2. The 1967 Israeli-Arab War that set today’s borders

    The 1967 Israeli-Arab War that set today's borders

    BBC

    The 1967 Israeli-Arab War that set today’s borders

    These three maps (click the expand icon to see the third) show how those 1948 borders became what they are today. The map on left shows the Palestinian territories of Gaza, which was under Egyptian control, and the West Bank, under Jordanian control. In 1967, Israel fought a war with Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. The war ended with Israel occupying both of the Palestinian territories, plus the Golan Heights in Syria and Egypt’s Sinai peninsula: that’s shown in the right map. Israel gave Sinai back as part of a 1979 peace deal, but it still occupies those other territories. Gaza is today under Israeli blockade, while the West Bank is increasingly filling with Israeli settlers. The third map shows how the West Bank has been divided into areas of full Palestinian control (green), joint Israeli-Palestinian control (light green), and full Israeli control (dark green).

  3. Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank

    Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank

    Since 1967, Israelis have been moving into settlements in the West Bank. Some go for religious reasons, some because they want to claim Palestinian land for Israel, and some just because they get cheap housing from subsidies. There about 500,000 settlers in 130 communities, which you can see in this map. The settlements make peace harder, which is sometimes the point: for Palestinians to have a state, the settlers will either to have to be removed en masse, or Palestinians would have to give up some of their land. The settlements also make life harder for Palestinians today, dividing communities and imposing onerous Israeli security. This is why the US and the rest of the world opposes Israeli settlements. But Israel is continuing to expand them anyway.

  4. Israeli and Hezbollah strikes in the 2006 Lebanon War

    Israeli and Hezbollah strikes in the 2006 Lebanon War

    BBC

    Israeli and Hezbollah strikes in the 2006 Lebanon War

    This map shows a moment in the 2006 war between Israel and Lebanon. It also shows the way that war between Israel and its enemies has changed: Israel now has the dominant military, but the fights are asymmetrical. Israel wasn’t fighting a state, but the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. It launched many air and artillery strikes in Lebanon (shown in blue) to weaken Hezbollah, destroying much of the country’s infrastructure in the process. Israel also blockaded Lebanese waters. Hezbollah fought a guerrilla campaign against the Israeli invasion force and launched many missiles into Israeli communities. The people most hurt were regular Lebanese and Israelis, hundreds of thousands of whom were displaced by the fighting.

  5. Which countries recognize Israel, Palestine, or both

    Which countries recognize Israel, Palestine, or both

    The Israel-Palestine conflict is a global issue, and as this map shows it’s got a global divide. Many countries, shown in green, still do not recognize Israel as a legitimate state. Those countries are typically Muslim-majority (that includes Malaysia and Indonesia, way over in southeast Asia). Meanwhile, the blue countries of the West (plus a few others) do not recognize Palestine as a country. They still have diplomatic relations with Palestine, but in their view it will not achieve the status of a country until the conflict is formally resolved. It is not a coincidence that there has historically been some conflict between the blue and green countries.


Syria

  1. Syria’s religious and ethnic diversity

    Syria’s religious and ethnic diversity

    Each color here shows a different religious group in the part of the eastern Mediterranean called the Levant. It should probably not be surprising that the birthplace of Judaism and Christianity is religiously diverse, but this map drives home just how diverse. Israel stands out for its Jewish majority, of course, but this is also a reminder of its Muslim and other minorities, as well as of the Christian communities in Israel and the West Bank. Lebanon is divided among large communities of Sunnis, Shias, Christians, and a faith known as Druze — they’re at peace now, but the country’s horrific civil war from 1975 to 1990 divided them. There may be a similar effect happening in Syria, which is majority Sunni Muslim but has large minorities of Christians, Druze, Shia, and a Shia sect known as Alawites whose members include Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad and much of his government.

  2. Current areas of control in the Syrian Civil War

    Current areas of control in the Syrian Civil War

    This map shows the state of play in Syria’s civil war, which after three years of fighting has divided between government forces, the anti-government rebels who began as pro-democracy protestors, and the Islamist extremist fighters who have been moving in over the last two years. You may notice some overlap between this map and the previous: the areas under government control (in red) tend to overlap with where the minorities live. The minorities tend to be linked to the regime, whereas the rebels are mostly from the Sunni Muslim majority. But the anti-government Syrian rebels (in green) have been taking lots of territory. Syria’s ethnic Kurdish minority also has militias that have taken over territory where the Kurds live. Over the past year, though, there’s been a fourth rising faction: Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (sometimes called ISIS, shown in blue), an extremist group based in Iraq that swears allegiance to al-Qaeda. They’re fighting both the rebels and the government. So it’s a three-way war now, as if it weren’t already intractable enough.

  3. Syria’s refugee crisis

    Syria’s refugee crisis

    Syria’s civil war hasn’t just been a national catastrophe for Syria, but for neighboring countries as well. The war has displaced millions of Syrians into the rest of the Middle East and into parts of Europe, where they live in vast refugee camps that are major drains on already-scarce national resources. This map shows the refugees; it does not show the additional 6.5 million Syrians displaced within Syria. Their impact is especially felt in Jordan and Lebanon, which already have large Palestinian refugee populations; as many as one in five people in those countries is a refugee. While the US and other countries have committed some aid for refugees, the United Nations says it’s not nearly enough to provide them with basic essentials.


Iran

  1. How Iran’s borders changed in the early 1900s

    How Iran’s borders changed in the early 1900s

    Iran is the only Middle Eastern country was never conquered by a European power, but it came pretty close in the 1900s. It lost a lot of territory to Russia (the red stripey part). After that, the Russian Empire and British Empire (the British Indian Raj was just next door) divided Iran’s north and south into “zones of influence.” They weren’t under direct control, but the Iranian government was bullied and its economy and resources exploited. This remains a point of major national resentment in Iran today.

  2. Iran’s religious and ethnic diversity

    Iran’s religious and ethnic diversity

    Iran is most associated with the Persians — the largest ethnic group and the progenitors of the ancient Persian empires — but it’s much more diverse than that. This map shows the larger minorities, which includes Arabs in the south, Kurds in the west, and Azeris in the north (Iran used to control all Azeri territory, but much of now belongs to the Azeri-majority country Azerbaijan). The Baloch, in the southeast, are also a large minority group in Pakistan. There is significant unrest and government oppression in the “Baluchistan” region of both countries.

  3. Iran’s nuclear sites and possible Israeli strike plans

    Iran's nuclear sites and possible Israeli strike plans

    BBC

    Iran’s nuclear sites and possible Israeli strike plans

    This is a glimpse at two of the big, overlapping geopolitical issues in which Iran is currently embroiled. The first is Iran’s nuclear program: the country’s leaders say the program is peaceful, but basically no one believes them, and the world is heavily sanctioning Iran’s economy to try to convince them to halt the nuclear development that sure looks like it’s heading for an illegal weapons program. You can see the nuclear development sites on here: some are deep underground, while others were kept secret for years. That gets to the other thing on this map, which was originally built to show how Israel could hypothetically launch strikes against Iran’s nuclear program. Israel-Iran tensions, which have edged near war in recent years, are one of the biggest and most potentially dangerous things happening right now in a part of the world that has plenty of danger already. Israel is worried that Iran could build nukes to use against it; Iran may be worried that it will forever be under threat of Israeli strike until it has a nuclear deterrent. That’s called a security dilemma and it can get bad.


Afghanistan

  1. How the colonial “Durand Line” set up Afghanistan’s conflict

    How the colonial “Durand Line” set up Afghanistan’s conflict

    So, first ignore everything on this map except for the light-orange overlay. That shows the area where an ethnic group called the Pashtun lives. Now pretend it’s the 1800s and you are a British colonial officer named Mortimer Durand, and it’s your job to negotiate the border between the British Indian Raj and the quasi-independent nation of Afghanistan. Do you draw the border right smack across the middle of the Pashtun areas, thus guaranteeing decades of conflict by forcing Pashtuns to be minorities in both states? If you answered “yes,” then you would have made a great British colonial officer, because that’s what happened. The “Durand Line,” marked in red, became most of the border between modern Afghanistan and Pakistan. Many Pashtun now belong to or support a mostly-Pashtun extremist group called the Taliban, which wreaks havoc in both countries and has major operating bases (shown in dark orange) in the Pakistani side of the border. Thanks, Mortimer!

  2. The 1989 war that tore up Afghanistan

    The 1989 war that tore up Afghanistan

    In 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan to defend the pro-Moscow communist government from growing rebellions. The US (along with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan) funded and armed the rebels. The CIA deliberately chose to fund extremists, seeing them as better fighters. When the Soviets retreated in 1989, those rebel groups turned against one another, fighting a horrific civil war that you can see on this map: the red areas were, as of 1989, under government control. Every other color shows a rebel group’s area of control. Some of these rebels, like the Hezb-i Islami Gulbuddin, are still fighting, though most of them were defeated when the Taliban rose up and conquered the country in the 1990s.

  3. How the Taliban overlaps with ethnicity

    How the Taliban overlaps with ethnicity

    This is to underscore the degree to which Afghanistan’s current war (the war that began when the US and allies invaded in 2001, not the 1979 to 1989 war against the Soviets or the civil wars from 1989 to 2001) is and is not about ethnicity. The Taliban does very broadly, but not exclusively, overlap with the Pashtuns in the south and east. That’s especially important since there are so many Pashtuns just across the border in Pakistan, where the Taliban have major bases of operation. But there are rebel groups besides the Taliban, not all of which are Pashtun. Generally, though, the north of the country is stabler and less violent than the south or east.

  4. The most important parts of the Afghan War, in one map

    The most important parts of the Afghan War, in one map

    The Afghanistan War is extremely complicated, but this map does a remarkable job of capturing the most important components: 1) the Taliban areas, in orange overlay; 2) the areas controlled by the US and allies, in depressingly tiny spots of green; 3) the major Western military bases, marked with blue dots; 4) the areas of opium production, which are a big source of Taliban funding, in brown circles, with larger circles meaning more opium; 5) the supply lines through Pakistan, in red, which Pakistan has occasionally shut down and come under frequent Taliban attack; 6) the supply line through Russia, which requires Russian approval. If this map does not depress you about the prospects of the Afghan War, not much will.


Saudi Arabia and Oil

  1. What Saudi Arabia and its neighbors looked like 100 years ago

    What Saudi Arabia and its neighbors looked like 100 years ago

    The Arabian peninsula has a very, very long history, and the Saudi family has controlled much of it since the 1700s. But to understand how the peninsula got to be what it is today, go back about a 100 years to 1905. The Saudis at that point controlled very little, having lost their territory in a series of wars. The peninsula was divided into lots of little kingdoms and emirates. The Ottoman Empire controlled most of them, with the British Empire controlling the southernmost third or so of the peninsula — that line across the middle shows how it was divided. After World War I collapsed the Ottoman Empire, the Saudis expanded to all of the purple area marked here, as the British had promised for helping to fight the Ottomans. (This deal is dramatized in the film Lawrence of Arabia). By the early 1920s, the British effectively controlled almost all of the peninsula, which was divided into many dependencies, protectorates, and mandates. But the Saudis persisted.

  2. Oil and Gas in the Middle East

    Oil and Gas in the Middle East

    The Middle East produces about a third of the world’s oil and a tenth of its natural gas. (It has a third of all natural gas reserves, but they’re tougher to transport.) Much of that is exported. That makes the entire world economy pretty reliant on the continued flow of that gas and oil, which just happens to go through a region that has seen an awful lot of conflict in the last few decades. This map shows where the reserves are and how they’re transported overland; much of it also goes by sea through the Persian Gulf, a body of water that is also home to some of the largest reserves in the region and the world. The energy resources are heavily clustered in three neighboring countries that have historically hated one another: Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. The tension between those three is something that the United States, as a huge energy importer, has been deeply interested in for years: it sided against Iran during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, against Iraq when it invaded Kuwait and threatened Saudi Arabia in the 1990s, again against Iraq with the 2003 invasion, and now is supporting Saudi Arabia in its rapidly worsening proxy war against Iran.

  3. Oil, trade, and militarism in the Strait of Hormuz

    Oil, trade, and militarism in the Strait of Hormuz

    The global economy depends on this narrow waterway between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula. Ever since President Jimmy Carter issued the 1980 “Carter Doctrine,” which declared that the US would use military force to defend its access to Persian Gulf oil, the little Strait of Hormuz at the Gulf’s exit has been some of the most heavily militarized water on earth. The US installed a large naval force, first to protect oil exports from the brutal Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, then to protect them from Saddam Hussein in the 1990s Gulf Wars, and now to protect them again from Iran, which has gestured toward shutting down oil should war break out against Israel or the US. As long as the world runs on fossil fuels and there is tension in the Middle East, there will be military forces in the Strait of Hormuz.

  4. Why Egypt’s Suez Canal is so important for the world economy

    Why Egypt’s Suez Canal is so important for the world economy

    The Suez Canal changed everything. When Egypt opened it in 1868, after ten years of work, the 100-mile, man-made waterway brought Europe and Asia dramatically and permanently closer. The canal’s significance to the global order was so immediately obvious that, shortly after the British conquered Egypt in the 1880s, the major world powers signed a treaty, which is still in force, declaring that the canal would forever be open to trade and warships of every nation, no matter what. Today, about eight percent of all global trade and three percent of global energy supply goes through the canal.


Iraq and Libya

  1. The ethnic cleansing of Baghdad during the Iraq War

    The ethnic cleansing of Baghdad during the Iraq War

    BBC

    The ethnic cleansing of Baghdad during the Iraq War

    There are few grimmer symbols for the devastation of the Iraq War than what it did to Baghdad’s once-diverse neighborhoods. The map on the left shows the city’s religious make-up in 2005. Mixed neighborhoods, then the norm, are in yellow. The map on right shows what it looked like by 2007, after two awful years of Sunni-Shia killing: bombings (shown with red dots), death squads, and militias. Coerced evictions and thousands of deaths effectively cleansed neighborhoods, to be mostly Shia (blue) or mostly Sunni (red). Since late 2012, the sectarian civil war has ramped back up, in Baghdad and nationwide.

  2. Where the Kurds are and what Kurdistan might look like

    Where the Kurds are and what Kurdistan might look like

    The ethnic group known as Kurds, who have long lived as a disadvantaged minority in several Middle Eastern countries, have been fighting for a nation of their own for a long time. This map shows where they live in green overlay, and the national borders that they have proposed on three separate occasions, all of them failed. The Kurds have fought many armed rebellions, including ongoing campaigns in Syria and Turkey, and suffered many abuses, from attempted genocides to official bans on their language and culture. Their one major victory in the last century has been in Iraq: as a result of the US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, Iraqi Kurds have autonomous self-rule in Iraq’s north.

  3. A hypothetical re-drawing of Syria and Iraq

    A hypothetical re-drawing of Syria and Iraq

    This is an old idea that gets new attention every few years, when violence between Sunnis and Shias reignites: should the arbitrary borders imposed by European powers be replaced with new borders along the region’s ever-fractious religious divide? The idea is unworkable in reality and would probably just create new problems. But, in a sense, this is already what the region looks like. The Iraqi government controls the country’s Shia-majority east, but Sunni Islamist extremists have seized much of western Iraq and eastern Syria. The Shia-dominated Syrian government, meanwhile, mostly only controls the country’s Shia- and Christian-heavy west. The Kurds, meanwhile, are legally autonomous in Iraq and functionally so in Syria. This map, then, is not so much just idle speculation anymore; it’s something that Iraqis and Syrians are creating themselves.

  4. How Libya’s 2011 War changed Africa

    How Libya’s 2011 War changed Africa

    Noble as the cause was, the destruction of Moammar Qaddafi’s dictatorship by a spontaneous uprising and a Western intervention has just wreaked havoc in Africa’s northern half. This map attempts to show all that came after Qaddafi’s fall; that it is so overwhelmingly complex is precisely the point. The place to center your gaze is the patterned orange overlay across Libya, Algeria, Mali, and Niger: this shows where the Tuaregs, a semi-nomadic ethnic minority group, lives. Qaddafi used Libya’s oil wealth to train, arm, and fund large numbers of Tuaregs to fight the armed uprising in 2011. When he fell, the Tuaregs took the guns back out with them to Algeria and Mali, where they took control of territory. In Mali, they led a full-fledged rebellion that, for a time, seized the country’s northern half. Al-Qaeda moved into the vacuum they left, conquering entire towns in Mali and seizing fossil fuel facilities in Algeria. Criminal enterprises have flourished in this semi-arid belt of land known as the Sahel. So have vast migration routes, of Africans looking to find work and a better life in Europe. At the same time, armed conflict is getting worse in Nigeria and Sudan, both major oil producers. Qaddafi’s fall was far from the sole cause of all of this, but it brought just the right combination of disorder, guns, and militias to make everything a lot worse.


Points of Light

  1. Mapped by Internet connections (top) and by tweets (bottom)

    Mapped by Internet connections (top) and by tweets (bottom)

    Top map: Gregor Aisch; bottom map: Eric Fischer

    Mapped by Internet connections (top) and by tweets (bottom)

    These maps are two ways of looking at a similar thing: the digitalization of the Middle East. The map on top is actually a population map: the dots represent clusters of people, but the dots are colored to show how many IP addresses there are, which basically means how many internet connections. The blue areas have lots of people but few connections: these are the poorer areas, such as Yemen, Pakistan, and Syria. White and red show where there are lots of connections: rich countries like Israel and the United Arab Emirates, but also parts of Egypt and Iran and Turkey, the populations of which are increasingly wired, to tremendous political consequence. The map on the bottom shows tweets: lots of dots mean lots of tweets from that area. They’re colored by language. Notice where these two maps are different: Iran has lots of internet connections but almost no tweets; like Facebook, Twitter has been banned since the 2009 anti-government protests. Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, lights right up: its modestly sized population is remarkably wired. The significance of that became clear, for example, with the 2012 and 2013 social media-led campaigns by Saudi women to drive en masse, in protest of the country’s ban on female drivers. The consequences of internet access and lack of access will surely continue to be important, and perhaps hard to predict, for the region.

  2. The Middle East at night from space

    The Middle East at night from space

    I’m concluding with this map to look at the region without political borders, without demographic demarcations of religion or ethnicity, without markers of conflict or oil. Looking at the region at night, from space, lets those distinctions fall away, to see it purely by its geography and illuminated by the people who call it home. The lights trace the rivers that have been so important to the Middle East’s history, and the world’s: the Nile in Egypt, the Tigris and Euphrates that run through Iraq and Syria, the Indus in Pakistan. They also show the large, and in many cases growing, communities along the shores of the Persian Gulf, the eastern Mediterranean, and the southern end of the Caspian. It’s a beautiful view of a really beautiful part of the world.

The Breakdown Prediction of Europe

Fighting wars in the Middle East with politically correct rules of engagement leads to no victory, but rather a long agonizing conflicts where millions are displaced, governments are failing and human suffering has no limitations.

The migrant condition is predicted to continue for at least five years. Europe is slated to suffer economically as a result and respective countries will lose their identity and management control.

These conditions fester yet do not include the building hostilities in Eastern Europe which is facing an insurgency by Russia where real old fashioned ground wars are forecasted. After 16 years of fighting the terrorist model of conflicts the conventional type of warfare is forgotten in training and muscle memory and could be a real conundrum for the Baltic region.

Meanwhile, what is Europe’s long term plan? Answer, there is no plan. ****

Europe migrant crisis: EU faces ‘populist uprising’

Migrants detained by Libyan authorities in Tripoli while trying to cross to Europe - 16 May

Reuters: Europe has seen a surge in the number of migrants trying to reach the continent 

BBC: Europe faces a “populist uprising” if it is unable to show people it can control the migrant crisis, former MI6 head Sir Richard Dearlove has said.

He was speaking on the BBC’s World on the Move day on migration issues.

Sir Richard also warned against offering visa-free travel to Turkish nationals, describing the move as like storing gasoline near a fire.

Earlier, UN special envoy Angelina Jolie Pitt warned the humanitarian system for refugees was breaking down.

She spoke of a “fear of migration” and a “race to the bottom” as countries competed to be the toughest to protect themselves.

A range of speakers, including the UNHCR’s special envoy Angelina Jolie Pitt, and former British secret intelligence chief Sir Richard Dearlove, have been setting out the most important new ideas shaping our thinking on economic development, security and humanitarian assistance.

Sir Richard said the numbers of immigrants coming into Europe over the next five years could run into millions.

The crisis could reshape the continent’s geopolitical landscape, he said.

“If Europe cannot act together to persuade a significant majority of its citizens that it can gain control of its migratory crisis then the EU will find itself at the mercy of a populist uprising, which is already stirring,” he added.

He described the UK referendum on leaving the EU as “the first roll of the dice in a bigger geopolitical game”.

Migrants arrive in Sicily on Italian coastguard vessel - 13 May

Reuters: There are concerns that Europe is unable to control the flow of migrants 

Sir Richard warned against a deal with Turkey to allow visa-free travel to the EU to its citizens in exchange for controlling migration to the EU.

He said it was “perverse, like storing gasoline next to the fire we’re trying to extinguish”.

Talks between the Turkey and the EU over the deal have currently stalled over the former’s refusal to amend its anti-terror laws.

The former head of MI6, which gathers intelligence abroad for the UK government, said €1.8bn (£1.4bn) allocated by the EU to address the root causes of migration in Africa made “much more sense” than a deal with Turkey but was not nearly enough.

The only answer was a “massive response” of this kind combined with a “much more aggressive operation along the North African coast”, he added.

But Sir Richard cautioned against shutting the door on migration altogether.

“In the real world there are no miraculous James Bond-style solutions,” he said. “Human tides are irresistible unless the gravitational pull that causes them is removed.”

Speaking earlier in the day, Ms Jolie Pitt said that more than 60 million people – one in 122 – were displaced globally – more than at any time in the past 70 years.

“This tells us something deeply worrying about the peace and security of the world,” she said, adding: “The average time a person will be displaced is now nearly 20 years.”

Ms Jolie Pitt said the “number of conflicts and scale of displacement had grown so large” the system to protect and return refugees was not working.

Save the Children is calling for greater international commitment to ensure child refugees remain in school.

The charity’s new report, A New Deal for Refugees, says only one in four refugee children is now enrolled in secondary school.

It is calling on governments and aid agencies to adopt a new policy framework that will ensure no refugee child remains out of school for more than a month.

It is an ambitious target but there is growing concern that this migration crisis is producing a lost generation of children which means conditions for even greater insecurity and poverty.

Migrants detected entering the EU, 2014-2015

Refugee map

A note on terminology: The BBC uses the term migrant to refer to all people on the move who have yet to complete the legal process of claiming asylum. This group includes people fleeing war-torn countries such as Syria, who are likely to be granted refugee status, as well as people who are seeking jobs and better lives, who governments are likely to rule are economic migrants.

(General) Susan Rice, Declares War Policy on ISIS

Cant make this up……

Consider again this interview with the three previous Secretaries of Defense under Barack Obama…..

Rice Details U.S. Whole-of-Government Approach to Defeating ISIL

By Jim Garamone DoD News, Defense Media Activity

Susan E. Rice told the cadets and faculty that defeating ISIL is “at the very top of President Obama’s agenda.”

While the terror group is not an existential threat to the United States, she said, it is a danger to Americans and U.S. allies around the globe. Rice pointed to the ISIL attacks in Brussels, Paris, Istanbul, San Bernardino, Jakarta, Nigeria and others. She also highlighted ISIL in Syria and Iraq and the danger it poses to millions of people under its rule.

Dangerous Hybrid

What makes the group dangerous is that “it is essentially a hybrid,” the national security advisor said. ISIL is a terror organization that exploited the chaos of civil war in Syria to attack and occupy large swaths of Syria and Iraq. “At the same time, they have harnessed the power of social media to recruit fighters and inspire lone-wolf attacks,” Rice said.

ISIL is an enormous danger to civilians in the region and is an incredibly destabilizing force in the Middle East, she said, but members of the group are not 10 feet tall.

“This is not World War III or the much-hyped clash of civilizations,” Rice said. “On the contrary, we alienate our Muslim friends and allies — and dishonor the countless Muslim victims of ISIL’s brutality — when people recklessly and wrongly cast ISIL as somehow representative of one of the world’s largest religions.”

ISIL is simply “a twisted network of murderers and maniacs, and they must be rooted out, hunted down and destroyed,” she said, and all aspects of the U.S. government are part of the process to stop them.

Comprehensive Strategy

“For the past year and a half, the president has been leading a comprehensive strategy to destroy ISIL and its ideology of hate,” Rice said. “And, I do mean comprehensive. When we’re sitting around the situation room table, we’re using all aspects of our power — military, diplomacy, intelligence, counterterrorism, economic, development, homeland security, law enforcement. Ours is truly a whole-of-government campaign.”

 During remarks at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo., Ambassador Susan E. Rice, national security advisor, explains the comprehensive effort the United States is using to destroy the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, April 14, 2016.

And it is a global effort, the national security advisor emphasized. “We’ve assembled a broad coalition of 66 partners — from Nigeria and the Arab League to Australia and Singapore,” Rice said.

The anti-ISIL campaign represents an evolution in America’s broader strategy of confronting and defeating terrorism, she said, noting that since 9/11, the United States has learned that not every conflict requires large numbers of ground troops. “Our fight against ISIL is not like Afghanistan or the Iraq War,” she said.

In Syria and Iraq, coalition forces are helping to train indigenous forces, she said. “And, this increasingly dynamic campaign is ideally suited for airpower and the Air Force, utilized smartly in support of our partners on the ground,” Rice added.

The counter-ISIL strategy has four facets, she said. First, it calls for attacking ISIL’s core in Syria and Iraq. Second, the coalition is targeting ISIL’s branches. Third, the coalition is working to disrupt ISIL’s global network. Fourth, the United States is working around the clock to protect the homeland.

Substantial Progress

“It is a complex effort,” the national security advisor said. “It will not be accomplished fully in just a few weeks or months, or even a few years. But day by day, mile by mile, strike by strike, we are making substantial progress. And … we’re going to keep up the momentum.”

Rice detailed the coalition’s plans to continue the pressure on ISIL, beginning with continuing to hammer at the terrorist organization in Iraq and Syria — the so-called core ISIL. Coalition forces have conducted more than 11,500 strikes against core ISIL since starting operations in 2014, she said.

“Due, in large part, to our unprecedented visibility of the battlefield, the coalition air campaign is having a real impact,” Rice said. “Every few days, we’re taking out another key ISIL leader, hampering ISIL’s ability to plan attacks or launch new offensives.”

The strikes also are squeezing ISIL’s finances, which flow from their control of vast oil resources, their extortion and taxation of local populations and their looting and illicit sale of our cultural heritage, she said.

On the Ground

On the ground, the coalition will continue to support local forces in Iraq as they roll back ISIL, the national security advisor said. “So far, they have retaken more than 40 percent of the populated territory that ISIL once held,” she said.

 

“This fight will continue to require the courage and perseverance of the Iraqi people,” Rice continued. “It will also require the sustained financial support of the international community. It is not enough to win this fight; we must also win the eventual peace.”

Ending the civil war in Syria will go a long way to destroying ISIL, she said. An interagency team of diplomats, military and intelligence officers, working alongside Russia and other international partners facilitated a cessation of hostilities in the country, Rice noted. “This cessation has largely held, but in recent days, we’ve seen a significant uptick in fighting,” she said. “We’re increasingly concerned that the regime’s persistent violations of the cessation — and al-Nusrah’s hostile actions — will undermine efforts to quiet the conflict.”

Assad Must Go

Syrian President Bashar Assad may continue trying to disrupt and delay the good-faith efforts of the international community and the Syrian people to broker a political transition, the national security advisor said. “But he cannot escape the reality that the only solution to this conflict — the only way this ends — is through a political process that brings all Syrians together under a transitional government, a new constitution and credible elections that result in a new government without Assad,” Rice said.

An Air Force F-15 Strike Eagle approaches a KC-135 Stratotanker for refueling over Iraq in support of Operation Inherent Resolve, the effort to counter the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in Iraq and Syria. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Corey Hook

An Air Force F-15 Strike Eagle approaches a KC-135 Stratotanker for refueling over Iraq in support of Operation Inherent Resolve, the effort to counter the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in Iraq and Syria. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Corey Hook 340th EARS Refuel Strike Eagles

An Air Force F-15 Strike Eagle approaches a KC-135 Stratotanker for refueling over Iraq in support of Operation Inherent Resolve, the effort to counter the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in Iraq and Syria. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Corey Hook

But core ISIL is only part of the problem, she noted. ISIL will flourish in fragile states and lawless regions, Rice said, citing ISIL ally Boko Haram in Nigeria and ISIL’s branches in Libya, on the Arabian Peninsula, in West Africa, in Afghanistan and Pakistan. ISIL has sent envoys “to provide their affiliates with money, fighters — even media training,” Rice said.

In Libya, ISIL threatens not only North African stability, but also sub-Saharan Africa and Europe as well, the national security advisor said.

In Afghanistan and Pakistan, ISIL has established a branch calling itself ISIL in the Khorasan — largely composed of former Afghan and Pakistani Taliban members. “They’ve gained territory in the east and launched attacks in major cities like Jalalabad, though a combination of U.S., Afghan, and Taliban pressure has limited ISIL’s gains,” she said. “As part of the U.S. counterterrorism mission in Afghanistan, President Obama has authorized the Department of Defense to target ISIL in the Khorasan.”

ISIL Affiliates in Yemen

In Yemen, ISIL affiliates have taken advantage of ongoing instability to attack mosques and nursing homes. In Saudi Arabia, ISIL has targeted security forces and civilians. “To address these offshoots, we are deepening our security cooperation with countries in the region,” Rice said. “When President Obama attends the U.S.-Gulf Cooperation Council Summit in Riyadh [Saudi Arabia] next week, ISIL will be at the top of our agenda.”

Peshmerga soldiers rehearse urban tactical movement at a training base near Irbil, Iraq, Jan. 26, 2016. Peshmerga soldiers attend a six-week infantry basic course that will help improve their tactical knowledge to aid in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. There are six Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve training locations: four building partner capacity sites and two building specialized training sites. Army photo by Spc. Jessica Hurst

Peshmerga soldiers rehearse urban tactical movement at a training base near Irbil, Iraq, Jan. 26, 2016. Peshmerga soldiers attend a six-week infantry basic course that will help improve their tactical knowledge to aid in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. There are six Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve training locations: four building partner capacity sites and two building specialized training sites. Army photo by Spc. Jessica Hurst Peshmerga soldiers practice tactical movements and clearing a buildings

Peshmerga soldiers rehearse urban tactical movement at a training base near Irbil, Iraq, Jan. 26, 2016. Peshmerga soldiers attend a six-week infantry basic course that will help improve their tactical knowledge to aid in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. There are six Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve training locations: four building partner capacity sites and two building specialized training sites. Army photo by Spc. Jessica Hurst

The United States is working with countries such as Mali, Somalia, Bangladesh, Indonesia and the Philippines, which are countries targeted by the terror group, Rice said. “With smart, sustained investments,” she added, “we have a chance to prevent ISIL from taking root in these disparate corners by assisting our partners in ways as varied as improving local law enforcement, promoting development and countering ISIL’s nefarious narrative.”

ISIL’s narrative is at the heart of dismantling ISIL’s global network, Rice said. The attacks in Paris highlighted the threat of ISIL fighters returning home, she noted. The United States sent “foreign-fighter surge teams” to work with allies as they implement long-term structural reforms to improve intelligence sharing and prevent future attacks, she said.

Homeland Defense

U.S. officials in the homeland are also working to strengthen aviation security and screening, and working with Interpol to share thousands of profiles of suspected fighters, Rice said. “Roughly 45 countries have established mechanisms to identify and flag terrorist travel to Iraq and Syria, and dozens of countries have arrested fighters or aspiring fighters,” she added. “Together with our partners, we’re slowing the flow of foreign terrorist fighters into and out of Iraq and Syria — including sealing almost all the border with Turkey.”

It remains a problem. Since 2011, nearly 40,000 foreign fighters have traveled to Syria from more than 120 countries. “We will continue to do everything in our power to prevent them from returning and launching attacks in our countries,” Rice said.

The United Nations has passed a resolution targeting ISIL’s abuse of the international financial system. The raid last year against Abu Sayyaf, ISIL’s finance chief, yielded a wealth of information on ISIL’s financial vulnerabilities: 7 terabytes of flash drives, CDs, papers and other data, she said. “That’s more than we got out of the bin Laden raid. And, we’re going to continue using that information and other tools to turn off the ISIL funding tap,” Rice said.

Hearts and Minds

The battle against ISIL is a battle for hearts and minds, Rice said. She quoted the president saying, “Ideologies are not defeated with guns; they’re defeated by better ideas.”

The United States is working to expose ISIL’s twisted interpretation of Islam and underscore that ISIL not only is not defending Muslims, but also is killing many innocent Muslims, Rice said. But the United States cannot deliver this message, she said. It has to come from Muslims.

U.S. officials are supporting partners across the globe, including in Saudi Arabia and Malaysia, to get this message across, the national security advisor said. She praised the State Department’s new Global Engagement Center for amplifying anti-ISIL voices internationally, from religious leaders to ISIL defectors.

“Week by week, these voices are eroding ISIL’s appeal,” Rice said. “A new poll shows that nearly 80 percent of young Muslims — from Saudi Arabia to Egypt to Tunisia — are now strongly opposed to ISIL.”

Addressing Conditions

But the president doesn’t want to defeat ISIL only to have another group pop up and take its place, Rice said. “To defeat ISIL’s ideology for good, however, we must acknowledge the conditions that help draw people to ISIL’s destructive message in the first place,” she said. “Around the world, countries and communities — including the United States — must continue working to offer a better, more compelling vision. We must demonstrate, as President Obama has said, that the future belongs to those who build, not those who destroy. Where ISIL offers horror, countries around the world must offer hope.”

President Barack Obama talks with Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State John Kerry, National Security Advisor to the Vice President Colin Kahl and National Security Advisor Susan E. Rice outside the West Wing of the White House, July 15, 2015. White House photo by Pete Souza

President Barack Obama talks with Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State John Kerry, National Security Advisor to the Vice President Colin Kahl and National Security Advisor Susan E. Rice outside the West Wing of the White House, July 15, 2015. White House photo by Pete Souza White House Conversation

President Barack Obama talks with Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State John Kerry, National Security Advisor to the Vice President Colin Kahl and National Security Advisor Susan E. Rice outside the West Wing of the White House, July 15, 2015. White House photo by Pete Souza

Finally, Rice said, it comes down to protecting the homeland. “We’ve hardened our defenses — strengthening borders, airports, ports and other critical infrastructure,” she said. “We’re better prepared against potential bioterrorism and cyberattacks.”

U.S. borders will remain strong, and counterterrorism experts will remain hyper-vigilant, the national security advisor said. “The enduring source of America’s strength, however, comes from upholding our core values — the same enduring values embodied in each one of you at this academy,” Rice said. “It is when people feel persecuted or disempowered that extremism can take hold, so our commitment to the dignity and equality of every human being must remain ironclad.

“In the face of ISIL’s barbarism,” she continued, “America must remain resilient and defiant in our freedom, our openness, and our incredible diversity.”