Your governments always say they dont pay, he told Mariani. When you go back, I want you to tell your people that your government does pay. They always pay. timesofindia.indiatimes/world/europe/Paying-ransoms-Europe-bankrolls-al-Qaida-terror/articleshow/39277800.cms For me, its obvious that al-Qaida is targeting them by nationality, said Jean-Paul Rouiller, the director of the Geneva Center for Training and Analysis of Terrorism, who helped set up Switzerlands counterterrorism program. Hostages are an investment, and you are not going to invest unless you are pretty sure of a payout. While dozens of Europeans have been released unharmed, few American or British nationals have gotten out alive. A lucky few ran away or were rescued by special forces. The rest were executed or are being held indefinitely. In its early years, al-Qaida received most of its money from deep-pocketed donors, but counterterrorism officials now believe the group finances the bulk of its recruitment, training and arms purchases from ransoms paid to free Europeans. Put more bluntly, Europe has become an inadvertent underwriter of al-Qaida. Kidnapping for ransom has become todays most significant source of terrorist financing, said David Cohen, the Treasury Departments under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, in a 2012 speech. Each transaction encourages another transaction. And business is booming: While in 2003 the kidnappers received around $200,000 per hostage, now they are netting up to $10 million, money that the second in command of al-Qaidas central leadership recently described as accounting for as much as half of his operating revenue. Kidnapping hostages is an easy spoil, wrote Nasser al-Wuhayshi, the leader of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, which I may describe as a profitable trade and a precious treasure. The stream of income generated is so significant that internal documents show that as long as five years ago, al-Qaidas central command in Pakistan was overseeing negotiations for hostages grabbed as far afield as Africa. Moreover, the accounts of survivors held thousands of miles apart show that the three main affiliates of the terrorist group — al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, in northern Africa; al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, in Yemen; and the Shabab, in Somalia — are coordinating their efforts and abiding by a common kidnapping protocol. To minimize the risk to their fighters, the terror affiliates have outsourced the seizing of hostages to criminal groups who work on commission. Negotiators take a reported 10 percent of the ransom, creating an incentive on both sides of the Mediterranean to increase the overall payout, according to former hostages and senior counterterrorism officials.
Posted on: Wed, 30 Jul 2014 07:41:04 +0000
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