The economics of terrorism

Source: The Hindu

THE UNPRECEDENTED terrorist attacks by air in New York and Washington have opened a new phase in the history of mankind and President Bush has already declared it as the “first war of the 21st century.” For many in India, it is a grim reminder of the 1993 serial blasts in Mumbai though not comparable on any tragic scale to what happened in New York and Washington. The real significance of Black Tuesday (September 11) is that it is almost sure to shock the U.S. into treating terrorism as its overriding security concern.

The U.S. might take a vow to wipe off terrorism from this planet but even a casual look at the economics of such criminal activities makes it an impossible task. Though most countries might make a mistake of believing it as a plain or politically/ideologically motivated criminal activity the actual truth comes to the surface only when we take a closer look at the economics. It is certainly not a war between nations, religions or classes or even civilisations, as Prof. Samuel Huntington would like us to believe.

It is fundamentally a broad conflict that puts the moderate against the extremist. The job of fighting terrorism cannot be separated from the task of preventing, containing and ending conflicts. All too often the places that generate terrorism as well as drug-trafficking, health epidemics, refugees, outflows and environmental disasters are shattered societies where hunger, greed, repression and poverty have fed violence, despair and extremism.

A close nexus

“Organised crime” will be a defining issue of the 21st century as the cold war was that of the 20th century and colonialism that of the 19th century. Transnational crime will proliferate because crime groups are the major beneficiaries of globalisation. The global drug industry alone now accounts for 2 per cent of the world economy and it is constantly rising.

According to a 1999 World Bank report, the smuggling trade between Taliban-controlled Afghanistan and Pakistan was worth more than $2.5 billions in 1997. If smuggling from other neighbouring nations is included in this network, the turnover could easily cross $5 billions most of it is in narcotics and its related ingredients like various chemicals which go for refining heroin.

There is a close nexus between Taliban and Pakistan in drug- trafficking. According to the U.N. Drug Control Programme, Afghanistan produced 4,600 metric tons of opium in 1999 — three times more opium than what is produced elsewhere in the world. This opium is processed in refining factories in Pakistan before being sent to Lagos en route to Europe and America. It is this drug money, running into several millions of dollars, that fuels terrorism, funds networks across the world and makes possible missions like the WTC air attack.

But drugs may not be the largest part of the global mafia’s business. Mafia related stock-frauds use offshore corporations through various hideouts in the international system to manipulate the stock market.

There are around 50 “states” in the world, e.g. Bahamas, the Pacific island of Nauru, Yugoslavia and the Republic of Montenegro, that exist largely by selling their national sovereignty to those who wish to buy it in order to make their business deals inconspicuous. The “state” of Dominia advertises itself on the World Wide Web — its passport can be bought in a package with a name change, under the slogan “Perfect for someone who would like to leave his past behind”. There is no secret as to what these states do; but since they have the formal attributes of independent states, they cannot simply be closed down.

Estimates of profits

Internationalisation of criminal activities induces organised crime in different countries to establish strategic alliances to cooperate, rather than fight, on each other’s turf, through subcontracting arrangements and joint ventures, whose business practice closely follows the organisational logic of what Manuel Castells, of the fame of The Rise of Network Society, has characterised as “the network enterprise”, the characteristic of the Information Age. Furthermore, the bulk of the proceedings of these activities are by definition globalised through their laundering via global financial markets.

Estimates of profits and financial flows originate in the criminal economy very wildly and are not fully reliable. Yet they are indicative of the phenomenon. The 1994 United Nations Conference on Global Organised Crime estimated that global trade in drugs amounted to about $500 billions a year; that is, it was larger than the global trade in oil. Overall profits from all kinds of illegal activities were put as high as US$1 trillion a year in 1993, which was about the same size as the U.S. federal budget at that time. Sterling considers plausible the figure of $500 billions as the likely global turnover of “narco-dollars.” In 1999, the IMF ventured a very broad estimate of global money laundering in a range between 500 billion and 1.5 trillion dollars a year (or 5 per cent of global GDP).

Need for new agency

The recent global experience of catastrophic terrorism at World Trade Center in New York necessitates the formation of a new institution in India to gather intelligence and deal with all terrorism-related issues. It may be called a National Terrorism Intelligence Bureau, which can collect and analyse information so that it may give a timely warning of suspected catastrophic terrorist activities much ahead of time. The Bureau could have access to data of all law-enforcement agencies and it should be the apex organisation. The Bureau may have following broad functions:

First, to monitor and timely warn the government bodies concerned, and law-enforcement agencies regarding terrorist threats; second, to receive and store all lawfully collected relevant information from any government agency including law- enforcement, phone tapping and judicial information; third, to protect established civil liberty of citizens; fourth, to produce integrated reports that could be disseminated to any agency needing them: finally to suggest ways for counter-terrorism intelligence, including bilateral efforts of individual agency. In short, the Bureau would combine the active intelligence gathering approach of the national security agencies, which are not legally constrained in their foreign investigations, with the domestic authority and investigative resources of law enforcement agencies.

Breeding ground

In devising strategies to fight the terrorists and terrorism, it would surely be useful to minutely observe and understand the forces that drive them. Poverty (illiteracy) amid plenty is one of the greatest challenges and the breeding grounds for terrorism. According to the World Development Report 2000-2001, “at the start of new century, poverty remains a global problem of huge proportions. Of the world’s 6 billion people, 2.8 billion live on less than $2 a day, and 1.2 billion on less than $1 a day. Six infants of every 100 do not see their first birthday, and 8 do not survive to their fifth. Of those who do reach school age, 9 boys in 100, and 14 girls, do not go to primary school.” Similarly, technical hegemony is creating a new map of the world. A small part of the globe, accounting for some 15 per cent of the earth’s population, provides nearly all of the world’s technology innovations. A second part, involving perhaps half of the world’s population, is able to adopt these technologies in production and consumption. The remaining part, covering around a third of the world’s population, is technologically disconnected, neither innovating at home nor adopting foreign technologies. Thus, a concerted attack on poverty and technology diffusion on a large scale will go a long way to contain terrorism and it will dry up the ideological base which sustain the terrorists and terrorism. Lecturing poor countries about weak governance, while providing precious little money for technological advance, public health and other needs, is mere rhetoric which will not work.

Quarrels over ideology have ended. The prosperity of the richest countries is at an all-time high, and so is their capacity to look beyond their own immediate needs. At the same time, the crisis of the poorest countries is acute, and the shortcomings of the current strategy of globalisation painfully evident. Much of the poorer world is in turmoil, caught in a vicious circle of disease, poverty and political instability. Large-scale financial and scientific help from the rich nations is an investment worth- making, not only for humanitarian reasons, but also because even remote countries in turmoil become outposts of disorder for the rest of the world, as has been happening in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Sudan.

During the cold war, the U.S. and its allies invested trillions of dollars to stop the spread of communism. Now, a similar amount should be spent for wiping out terrorism from the globe and the generous aid could facilitate the poor, backward countries in integrating into a global economic network.

Needless to say that at present America’s foreign aid is just 0.1 per cent of its GDP, a derisory shadow of what it used to be. In 1969 the Pearson Commission recommended that donor countries give 0.7 per cent of their gross national product in official development assistance (ODA). The total gap in international development cooperation is close to $100 billions a year, precisely the amount that would be available if the appropriate ODA, according to the 0.7 per cent target, were met. The challenge is to persuade the industrial countries that aid expenditure to build a more secure world is a vital investment and certainly more efficacious than military expenditures.

Following America’s lead, most of the large and developed economies have allowed their own foreign-assistance programmes to shrink since the end of the cold war. Even when the United States reaped a peace dividend of more than 2 per cent of GDP by reducing its defence spending after 1990, it cut, rather than increased, foreign-assistance spending as a share of its national income. The need of the hour is that American administration should pledge to raise foreign assistance to at least 0.3 per cent of the GDP. This would not only bring the world’s richest country back in line with the average aid proportion of other donor nations, but would make available an extra $20 billions a year to invest in economic development. Such a turnaround in America’s role could harness much larger contributions from the European Union, Japan, and other potential donors (both public and private). This increase in foreign assistance by donors would have a positive impact in a serious attempt to contain terrorism as well as break the nexus of illegal economic activities and terrorism at global scale and will foster social capital, civil society and development.

DEVENDRA MISHRA

How hawala money is used to fund terror Vicky Nanjappa in Bengaluru

March 06, 2009 15:41 IST

The Financial Intelligence Unit last month marked 200 transactions in India — running into Rs 2,000 crore — as terror-financed. Now, it has commenced its probe to trace the origin of the funds.

It is a known fact that terrorist outfits use counterfeit notes to finance terror operations. This is just one of the means adopted by terror outfits and Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence to raise Rs 1,800 crore a year to finance terror. However, in the case being probed by the FIU, there is a considerable amount of money deposited in the banks, meaning they are not counterfeit.

The money which is pumped into terror operations is generated through various sources: smuggling of opium, real estate, fake notes and extortion bids.

Interestingly, the main source of revenue remains the ISI. A study conducted on terror financing indicates that the Pakistan government allocates money officially to the Secret Service Funds. This amount is given for collection of intelligence, spy services and secret operations. However a large part of these funds are diverted for terror related operations by the ISI.

Fugitive gangster Dawood Ibrahim [Images], too, has a very important role to play in financing terror. Intelligence Bureau officials say that money that is deposited in banks is generated through hawala transactions and Dawood is one of the main sources of such transactions.

Dawood, according to an official, was in charge of routing in funds for terrorist activities carried out by Students Islamic Movement of India.

Dawood’s main source to pump in these funds was an aeronautical engineer who currently is holed up in Saudi Arabia. Dawood with the help of this man, called as Basheer, had set up a ‘Muslim Defence Fund’ for such transactions.

The big question is how these outfits managed to stash these funds in Indian banks. The confession of Ashfaq Ahmed, a Lashkar-e-Tayiba [Images] operative, throws more light on the same.

He states that his bosses in Pakistan transact money through people settled in Riyadh. He says that most of the funds are transferred to India and are picked up by a hawala transactor. Investigating agencies say that the main places where funds land up are Chandini Chowk in Delhi [Images] and several parts of Mumbai [Images].

The hawala transactor in turn converts the money and then deposits it in the bank. Terror outfits largely rely on fruit vendors, businessmen dealing with electronic goods and those dealing with foreign exchange to conduct hawala transactions.

Once orders to carry out a terror strike is given, the person who has deposited the money is given orders to withdraw it.

Police sources say that records show that hawala transactors have a code name for cirriencies that the use regularly. The US dollar is known as hara, the UK pound as popleen, Dutch Gliders as God, Deutsche Marks as DM and the Franc as FF.

A bank official in Bengaluru [Images] says that the RBI has issued guidelines to tackle the menace of fake currency. However, it is very difficult to keep a tab on hawala money.

“We cannot ask the customer the source of the money and neither do we have the infrastructure or expertise to track the source of the money. It is more of a police job and it is they who have to keep a tab on the money that is being transacted through hawala operators,” he says.

Quest For Peace In Troubled Times

4 killed as serial blasts rip through Agartala, HuJI hand suspected

Manas Paul | TNN

Source:TOI

Agartala: Four back-to-back terror strikes in Agartala, the capital of Tripura, which shares a 856-km porous border with Bangladesh, on Wednesday evening left at least four people dead and 76 others injured, several critically, according to hospital sources. The state police confirmed only one death but said the toll was likely to rise.

The first explosion took place around 7.30 pm at Radhanagar bus stand. Minutes later, there was another blast at Maharajganj Bazar in the heart of the city. The two are about 2km apart. Two live bombs were found at Motor Stand and Colonel Choumohany near the palace compound.
As the injured were being taken to Agartala Government Medical College hospital, another blast rocked GB Bazar, which is on the route of the ambulances taking the injured to the hospital. The fourth blast at 8.15 pm was near Kathiababa Ashram on the outskirts of the state capital. There was a heavy rush of puja shoppers at Radhanagar bus stand, Maharajganj Bazar and GB market, all in the heart of the city.

While Tripura has long been a conduit for smuggling and terror merchandise, most violence in the state had been related to insurgencies of tribal groups. But the blasts on Wednesday, security officials said, were likely to be the work of the Bangladesh-based Harkat ul-Jihad-e-Islami (HuJI), a terror group which has been frequently blamed for terror attacks in UP and Hyderabad.

Investigators are still probing the possible connection between HuJI and Indian Mujahideen, the SIMI splinter group, which has claimed responsibility for serial blasts in Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Delhi in recent weeks.

As in Ahmedabad, Jaipur and Delhi, the news of the blasts triggered citywide panic. All telecommunication links were jammed, with people calling to check if their family and friends were safe.

Quoting witnesses, police sources said two persons riding a motorcycle were seen moving suspiciously at Radhanagar bus stand. The blast took place there two to three minutes after they left the place. Tripura police chief Pranay Sahay rushed to the sites to monitor the evacuation but refused to go on record on possible suspects.

THE SAME DEADLY PATTERN

First blast at 7.30pm at bus stand. A few minutes later, 2nd blast at Maharajganj Bazar, teeming with Puja shoppers. Two more live bombs found, one in tiffin box. Both neutralised

Third blast at GB Bazar which falls on the route of ambulances taking injured to Govt Medical College. Fourth blast at 8.15pm on Agartala’s outskirts. Panic hits state capital

No group has claimed responsibility yet. Security experts suspect the hand of Bangladesh-based HuJI. Tribal insurgent groups not known for serial blasts, they say TRIPURA SERIAL BLASTS ‘Timers used to explode bombs’

Agartala: In recent weeks, there have been reports of Islamic militants using Tripura to enter India from Bangladesh. Reports also said that on September 25, central intelligence agencies had warned north-eastern states of an impending terror attack and Border Security Force officials in Agartala confirmed having received the input. Meanwhile, Army sources from Kolkata suspect that Islamic fundamentalists in Bangladesh used National Liberation Front of Tripura (Biswamohan) in carrying out the serial explosions .

From what the Army has gleaned from its own sources, its officials say the bombs were sophisticated devices. ‘‘Timers had been used in the bombs to carry out the explosions, the way the series of four blasts took place in intervals of five to seven minutes,’’ an official said. There were pellets inside the bombs to enhance the effects. ‘‘Many of the injured have pellets embedded deep inside their bodies. That’s why it is feared that the death toll may go up.’’

Another army source said one of the unexploded bombs found at the Motor Stand had been kept in a tiffin box. As a safety measure, the police exploded it before the arrival of forensic experts. The forensic would now go into the details of the nature of the explosives.