The Terror Finance Blog

Terrorist Solicitation on Facebook

By Ilan Weinglass

Today's interconnected world makes it easy to spread the word about events and causes.  Facebook, for example, allows any group to publicize events all over the world.  For example, a U.K.- based group named Action Palestine is promoting the cause "I WILL DO SOMETHING TO STOP THE SLAUGHTER IN GAZA" with its own Facebook page.  

Whatever one's political views on this cause, the cold fact is that Facebook is committing a serious violation of U.S. terror financing law by displaying this page.  The page contains a solicitation for Interpal, which is a designated terrorist entity pursuant to Executive Order 13224.  It is simply illegal to solicit for Interpal in the United States, although not illegal in Britain, where Interpal is registered.

In its August 22, 2003 designation of Interpal, the Treasury Department stated:

Interpal, headquartered in the UK, has been a conduit through which money flows to HAMAS from other charities... Reporting indicates that Interpal is the fundraising coordinator of HAMAS.  This role is of the type that includes supervising activities of charities, developing new charities in targeted areas, instructing how funds should be transferred from one charity to another, and even determining public relations policy.

I note that even being outside of the U.S. is not necessarily an excuse for supporting Interpal.  NatWest Bank, subsequently acquired by Royal Bank of Scotland, is currently a defendant is several very serious lawsuits for maintaining an account for Interpal subsequent to Treasury's August 22, 2003 designation.  There are many causes for jurisdiction, one of them being that any dollar transaction must be cleared through a U.S.-domiciled entity.  Further information may be found at http://www.charityfinance.co.uk/home/content.php?id=512.

Facebook faces serious criminal penalties if it continues to display this page in the United States.

The U.N. Silences Free Speech

By Rachel Ehrenfeld

Today the Arab lobby won a great victory against the infidels. It finally facilitated silencing of opposition to Islam at the UN. 

Now, more than ever, we need the Free Speech Protection Act.

The International Religious Freedom News repots:

The “defamation of religions” resolution passed the General Assembly today with a vote of 86 in favor, 53 against, and 42 abstentions.  

Although the passage of this resolution continues a 9-year tradition at the UN, it marks a significant backlash against a resolution that passed with an overwhelming 108 votes in favor, 51 against, and 25 abstentions last year at the General Assembly.

“With the passage of this resolution, the United Nations has once again failed to live up to its promise.  Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that ‘everyone has the right to freedom of thought conscience and religion.’  Article 19 expands on this freedom by guaranteeing “the right to freedom of opinion and expression.’  

The ‘defamation of religions’ resolution is a direct violation of this mandate, as peaceful religious speech – a manifestation of belief – will be silenced as a result of it,” said Angela C. Wu, International Law Director of The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty.

We are deeply disappointed that the UN has given cover to oppressive governments to persecute dissenters.  Governments have no place determining what is and is not blasphemy.  Although it is disappointing that religious freedom takes another step backwards today, we are extremely encouraged that the majority of countries in the world did not vote in favor of banning peaceful religious speech.” 

Soon, new lawsuits will be filed against Americans overseas, especially against reporters documenting Islamic "charities" terrorists' ties.

To protect the First Amendment, Congress should pass the Free Speech Protection Act as soon as it reconvenes.

Islamic banking - Is Treasury complicit?

Published in the Washington Times, Dec. 11, 2008
by Rachel Ehrenfeld and Samuel A. Abady

If "cash is king," then Middle East coffers are irresistibly enticing. During a recent tour of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, Deputy Treasury Secretary Robert Kimmitt applauded the "growing role" of Arab banks in the U.S. economy. Treasury is seeking buyers for its newly acquired bailout assets because more than $1 trillion in cash is urgently needed to rescue the largest U.S. banks.

However, cash from the Arabian Gulf comes with a vital string attached: Islamic banking, erroneously viewed as an ancient practice. In fact, Islamic banking is a newly invented institution: "Neither classical nor medieval Islamic civilization featured banks in the modern sense, let alone 'Islamic' banks," notes Timur Kuran, professor of economics and law at the University of Southern California.

According to the Dinar Standard, "assets managed by Islamic banks are in excess of $700 billion - predominantly concentrated in the Middle East."

Islamic banking took off in the 1970s, but was first concocted by Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna in the 1920s. The stated goal was to penetrate the Western finance system, corrupting it from within in hopes of creating a parallel system to re-establish a global Islamic empire governed by Islamic law (Shariah). Islamic rules of commerce (fiqh al-muamalat) forbid interest (riba) and investing in a prohibited (hara'am) enterprise. They also mandate tithes on wealth (zakat). However, the Koran fails to precisely define these concepts. Imams and ayatollahs differ, for example, on whether riba prohibits all interest or only usurious interest.

While the overhaul of American and Western banking regulations is urgent, Islamic banking cannot be the answer because Muslim clerics - not U.S. laws and regulators - make the rules. In 1969, the Saudis created the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), which is now leading the charge for global expansion of Islamic banking and has established new regulatory, accounting and auditing organizations to govern such banks. Notably, the OIC's charter is to "liberate Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa [mosque] from Zionist occupation."

Not surprisingly, zakat from Islamic banks often funds terrorist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood's Hamas. That organization's agenda was exposed during the Dallas trial of The Holy Land Foundation, a Hamas front group and an American Muslim charity just convicted of terrorism crimes. Evidence of the charity's true purpose included an 18-page "explanatory memorandum" outlining its "strategic goal … that all their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad (holy war) in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within."

Sharia financing forbids loans to entities labeled hara'am, such as industries that use alcohol, and to all Israeli businesses The Arab League Council established the boycott against Israel on December 2, 1945, (more than two years before creation of the Jewish state). The boycott prohibits all Arab states, companies and individuals from any financial or trade relations with Israel. Companies worldwide are blacklisted for doing business with Israel, as are companies doing business with boycotted firms. The OIC high commissioner for the boycott of Israel coordinates the efforts of its 57 member states from the Central Boycott Office in Damascus.

In response, the United States made it illegal for individuals or companies to cooperate with the Arab boycott. The law mandates reporting of boycott requests and imposes civil and criminal penalties against boycott participants. Arab boycott requests have risen sharply in tandem with the U.S. financial crisis and the rapid growth of Islamic banking. The Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security reported a 20 percent increase in Arab boycott requests overall from 2005 to 2006, and the Congressional Research Service reported 24 boycott requests to U.S. companies in fiscal 2007 from little Bahrain alone.

On April 5, 2006, Congress unanimously condemned Saudi Arabia for its continued enforcement of the boycott - which violated commitments the Saudis made to the World Trade Organization in 2005. Nonetheless, last August Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states threatened to boycott Nissan, which aired a commercial on Israeli television promoting a fuel-efficient car, and demanded the Japanese carmaker's apology. Not a word from Washington.

Instead, the Treasury Department, hungry for petrodollars, is holding seminars to promote Islamic banking and U.S. taxpayers are footing the bill. This practice must stop. Islamic banking corrupts our financial system, enables the illegal Arab economic boycott of Israel and entangles government with Islam in violation of the First Amendment's Establishment Clause.

Rachel Ehrenfeld is director of the American Center for Democracy. Samuel A. Abady is a civil rights lawyer.

Hugging Shari'a Finance at the Fed

How tough is Obama's new economic tough guy?

By Alyssa A. Lappen

FrontPageMagazine | Dec. 10, 2008

The first market day after President-elect Obama announced plans to appoint Federal Reserve Bank of New York president Timothy Geithner as Secretary of the U.S. Treasury, U.S. equities rose 6.5%. Pundits praised his experience handling crises and understanding of the troubled economy. But possibly, the market hoopla was premature, or even unwarranted. Some analysts seek his retirement.

As turmoil built, Geithner criticized Wall Street's self-regulatory system, negative incentives and market forces, sought tighter supervision and berated insufficient “derivative securities” regulation and “credit-default” swaps allowing investors to “insure” against loses---only to fail. The Treasury Department's former attaché to the International Monetary Fund had overseen U.S. responses to the 1990s Mexican, Indonesian and Korean bailouts. But at the Fed, Geithner did not use regulatory powers to check abuses, or advocate for more regulation, impartial supervision or new laws. He even concluded that markets were improving---and after Bear Stearns' collapse confessed, nobody “understands [the causes] yet.”

Worst of all, since Nov. 2003, Geithner let dangerous new Islamic and shari'a-based securities, markets and financial institutions gain business currency---despite the Fed's role in U.S. monetary policy, currency distribution, government securities markets, legal supervision, regulatory enforcement, bank and capital markets investigation, foreign accounts and a payments mechanism handling over $4 trillion daily in funds and securities transfers. Not to mention Fed officials' admitted lack of understanding.

On July 1, 2004, eight months after Geithner assumed command, the New York Fed hosted Asim Ghanfoor (sic), AG Group founder and managing director, to address its Seventh Annual Global Economic Forum on “ABCs of Islamic Financing” and Islam's increasing global financial role. A month later, Senators Charles Grassley and John Kyl identified Ghafoor as a representative of Boston's terror-funding Boston's Care International, the Global Relief Foundation (GRF) and the Al Harimain Islamic Foundation, which the U.S. Treasury specially designated a terrorist organization in September 2004 and again in June 2008. Given Ghafoor's connections, how could the Fed have featured him, much less warmly accepted Islamic finance?

In fairness, the New York Fed began authorizing obscure shari'a banking institutions, structured shari'a issues, and opaque Islamic securities trading long before Geithner arrived. “Islamic bankers have been quite ingenious in developing financial transactions that suit their needs,” New York Fed first vice president Ernest T. Patrikis told an Islamic Finance conference in May 1996. “We bank supervisors, too, can be ingenious and will want to work with any of you should you decide that you want to engage in Islamic banking” in the U.S.

The dangers of Islamic finance should have been apparent. From 1996 on, all 12 Federal Reserve banks received, and were charged to enforce many Treasury Department Office of Foreign Assets Control circulars designating Islamic groups and banks as terrorist-financing institutions, organizations and individuals. In 1998, OFAC warned the Fed against transactions with Osama bin Laden and his affiliates, in 1999 froze Taliban assets, in 2002 reminded banks to check customers against known terrorist lists and in 2003 warned against trading with any unnamed counter-party.

Meanwhile, had the Fed only noticed, there were warning signs elsewhere too. In 1999, Saudi scholar Mohammad Nejatullah Siddiqi proposed at Harvard that banning interest would “cure the ills of contemporary finance,” “create a safer, saner financial world,” incorporate the “institution of waqf [Islamic trust]” in economics and create “morally inspired” behavior. In 2001, Siddiqi openly labeled shari'a finance a revolution-driver---an “universal endeavor” to replace “excesses of capitalism.”

Alarm bells should have gone off at a New York Fed event on Nov. 21, 2002, furthermore, where shari'a banking proponent Wafiq Fannoun described Islam as “Peace through submission to Allah (God), however, “revelation-based [the Qur'an, Hadith] ... complete way of life” --- that is, a system of religious law proscribed by the U.S. Constitution from inclusion in secular legislation or regulatory systems. Equally at odds with Constitutional law and Western capitalism are other Islamic notions he described---namely that Allah is both creator and “owner” of all material things, and that “individuals” may not possess “natural resources important to society.” as “alternative financing for Muslims” and others recognizing individual ownership rights.

True, most of that happened before Geithner ran the New York Fed. But after he took the helm in November 2003, the bank missed several still more critical red flags on Islamic banking.

First came Basel II Capital Accord, supposedly designed to strengthen the “regulatory capital framework” for big international banks. Authorities increasingly expected to trust banks to internally assess their own credit and operational risks. However, in July 2004 Switzerland's Bank for International Settlements (BIS) reported, 53% of Middle Eastern bank supervisory staffs lacked the necessary training to meet Basel II's December 2007 deadline. Middle Eastern banks originated and still predominate in Islamic banking. Nevertheless, by 2007, they still needed historical data to fashion reliable risk models but instead counted on “heavy” collateral and “exceptional” economic conditions to eliminate risks.

Islamic institutions had manufactured “special purpose entities” (SPEs)---renamed, “special-purpose vehicles (SPVs)”--- such as coincidentally helped destroy Enron. These legal devices restructured “interest-bearing debt, collecting interest [as] rent or [a] price mark-up,” Rice University Islamic economics chairman Mahmoud el-Gamal warned in May 2007. “Interest-based” Islamic finance equaled “shari'a arbitrage,” concerned only “religious identity” and merely employed Western securitization methods to transform liquid, traceable cash flows from interest-bearing debt into illiquid, opaque assets.

Shari'a banking, though, had far fewer regulatory and accounting protections than sub-prime mortgages---and like “portfolio insurance” in 1987, mortgage-backed bonds in 1994, and sub-prime mortgages in 2008, could also cause huge market declines. Islamic banking purveyors admitted shari'a regulations could “override commercial decisions;” didn't “standardize” documentation; and used complex “inter-creditor agreements” and “off-balance sheet financing.”

Even hosting hosting Islamic financier Asim Ghafoor, a representative to three terror-funding organizations, on July 1, 2004 apparently gave no one inside Geithner's Fed reason to pause from its rush to further accommodate shari'a banking.

In March 2005, New York Fed general counsel Thomas C. Baxter Jr. asserted the Constitutional “wall of separation between church and state” Thomas Jefferson had described was “not absolute.” Chief Justice Warren Burger had in 1984 suggested that the Constitution “affirmatively mandates accommodation, not merely tolerance, of all religions,” Baxter told an Islamic financial industry “Legal Issues” seminar. “[S]ecular law should ... accommodate differing religious practices,” he indicated, apparently even if that meant specially excepting Islamic banking from secular laws and regulations.

In April 2005, New York Fed executive vice president William Rutledge admitted that the bank was “in no position to take a stance on shari'a interpretation.” He also claimed the bank would hold Islamic finance to “the same high licensing and supervision standards” as conventional banks.

Despite the New York Fed's role as a legal supervisor of Islamic banking, neither Rutledge nor Geithner noticed, however, that shari'a banking, a 20^th century “tradition” invented by the Muslim Brotherhood, can't be severed from Islamic law---statutes that Mohammed initiated, which caliphs, scholars and jurists developed over the last 1,400 years. They hold that shari'a grants Muslims (the ummah) supremacy over all others---along with all land and property to hold in trust for Allah. Thus as Fannoun effectively told the Fed in Nov. 2002, land or property, once conquered or acquired by Muslims (or for Allah), can't generally revert to their original owners. Shari'a commands Muslims to wage jihad warfare until they subdue all “infidels” under universal Muslim rule, as Ibn Khaldun avowed in the Muqaddimah (trans., Franz Rosenthal, Princeton Univ. Press, 9th printing, 1989, p. 183).

Confiscating possessions from non-believers exacts “revenge,” wrote jurist Abul Hasan al Mawardi (d. 1058). Qur'an 57:2 argued, “To Him belongs all dominions of the heavens and earth.” Qur'an 59:7 echoed, “That which Allah giveth as spoil [war booty] unto his Messenger…” Allah authorized 2nd Islamic Caliph, Umar Ibn Khattab, to confiscate property by force, fulfilling an Islamic trust, or ruling under Allah’s law. It was thereby just to take anything from nonbelievers, (The Laws of Islamic Governance, Taha Publishing, 1996, pp. 207-251) including all territories Islam ever controlled.

Apparently, Fed officials also neglected to investigate the alliances and beliefs of shari'a advisors and their affiliates in the Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions (AAOIFI) and Islamic Financial Services Board (IFSB) standards agencies.

The shari'a-based Islamic Development Bank established the AAOIFI in 1990 to set Islamic finance standards. Its trustees include executives of Kuwait Finance House, Saudi Arabia's Dallah al Baraka Group and al-Rajhi Banking & Investment Corporation---all implicated in al-Qa’ida and other terror-funding---and Sudanese (and until recently Iranian) officials, both U.S. Treasury-sanctioned countries.

Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mohamed Mahathir in 2002 christened IFSB “a universal Islamic banking system” and “a jihad worth pursuing….” Its board members include the terror-funding Iranian, Sudanese and Syrian central banks and Palestinian Monetary Authority.

Yusuf Qaradawi, an U.S.-designated foreign terrorist barred entry since 1999 for example, supports wife-beating, suicide bombings, murder of American military forces and female suicide “martyr operations.” A large shareholder of Al Taqwa Bank, Qaradawi also chairs the recently designated terrorist-funding Union of Good “charity,” Qatar National Bank, its al-Islami subsidiary, Qatar Islamic Bank, and Qatar International Islamic Bank---and follows AAOIFI standards he helped create.

Similarly, Dow Jones Islamic Market Indexes (DJIM) shari'a board uses “stringent and published” methods to determine “compliance of index-eligible companies.” But its industry screens, financial ratios and biographies omit advisors’ affiliations or beliefs. Dow Jones Citigroup Sukuk Index (DJCSI)’s shari'a board certifies Islamic asset-backed bonds if structures meet “AAOIFI standards” and shari'a principles, but don't mention AAOIFI history or governance.

Until July 2008, shari'a banks, the Dow Jones Islamic Index board and an North American Islamic Trust (NAIT) fund also employed a 20-year veteran of Pakistan’s Shari'a Supreme Court, former judge Taqi Usmani, who taught at the Taliban spawning ground, Jamia Darul Uloom Karachi, headed the AAOIFI religious board, endorsed suicide bombing, and in 2007 advised U.K. Muslims to impose shari'a when their numbers suffice.

Shari'a finance advisor Muslim Brother Yusuf Talal DeLorenzo advised Pakistan's tyrannical Zia ul-Haq from 1981 to 1984, and ran the Virginia Islamic Saudi Academy educational program cited in 2008 for using hateful Islamic texts. Trained at Karachi's terror-espousing Jamia Al Alomia Al Islamia, he served the Muslim Brotherhood International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) and from 1989, was secretary to the MB's Fiqh Council of North America.

Perhaps Treasury Secretary-designate Geithner seriously meant to keep Rutledge's promise to grant Islamic financiers no special favors. But allowing shari'a finance to exist at all is itself a special favor.

Moreover, on November 23, 2008 Geithner, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke agreed to add another $20 billion taxpayer-gilded bailout to Citibank's previous $25 billion bailout---and offer $306 billion in new loans to cover Citi's losses on soured real estate debts and securities.

Only three days earlier Citigroup uber-shareolder Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, a godfather of Islamic finance, had announced plans to up his stake in America's largest (failing and “underpriced”) bank from 4% to 5%. On March 20, 2006, the Saudi Kingdom Holding Co. CEO was “honored for humanitarian contribution to Islam” at a “glittering gala to celebrate excellence in Islamic Finance” that also featured terror-financier and Dallah al-Baraka founder and president Saleh Abdullah Kamel. ____________________________________________________________

Alyssa A. Lappen is a former Senior Fellow of the American Center for Democracy, former Senior Editor of Institutional Investor, Working Woman and Corporate Finance, and former Associate Editor of Forbes. Her website is www.alyssaalappen.org

Stop Terror Financiers' Lawfare

By Rachel Ehrenfeld  

Most Americans take their freedom for granted. Coming from the Middle East and working all over the world, I know better. Elsewhere, free speech and a free press are regarded as privileges, not a sacred right.
  

Take England for example: in January 2004 I was sued in London, by Saudi billionaire and terror-financier, Khalid bin Mahfouz, former banker to the Saudi royal family and owner of the largest bank in the Middle East. Mahfouz bristled at my book Funding Evil; How Terrorism is Financed - and How to Stop It which investigated heavily documented allegations of his terror financing.

Mahfouz sued me in England where libel law favors plaintiffs, and permits foreigners to sue other foreigners if allegedly defamatory words somehow reached British shores. The U.N. Human Rights Commission recently criticized Britain's libel laws for serving "to discourage critical media reporting on matters of serious public interest, adversely affecting the ability of scholars and journalists to publish their work, including through the phenomenon known as libel tourism." In my case, Mahfouz alleged that twenty-three copies of Funding Evil, published only in the U.S., were purchased in England via the Internet. The identity of those purchasers was never revealed.

Mahfouz is the quintessential "libel tourist" who cows his critics in English courts. His website boasts of having coerced more than forty retractions or judgments against those who linked him to terrorism. His London litigation became frenzied after the 9/11 attacks on America because families of the 9/11 victims sued him in New York as an al-Qaeda financier. None of his English legal actions have been tried on the merits. If found liable for financing 9/11, Mahfouz faces a damage award in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Thus, he is uses lawfare to silence his critics.

Why do Saudis like Mahfouz seek to enforce a de facto international code of silence? What is it that threatens them most? The Truth.

Radical Islam spread by the Saudis the world over is a totalitarian socio-political alternative to democracy and antidote to hated Western freedoms. Hence, when Mahfouz sued me, I realized something more was at stake than my book and the particulars involving him. Instead, freedom was at stake. Indeed, fighting libel tourism today is, in the words of Oliver Wendell Holmes, one of the "felt necessities of the time."

I refused to recognize the authority of the English court. Instead, I decided to fight Mahfouz here where free press rights are better protected, and pre-trial discovery of the adverse party's evidence is much broader than in England. The New York courts agreed that mine was an important First Amendment case, but ruled they did not have personal jurisdiction over Mahfouz.

In stepped New York Assemblyman Rory Lanceman (D) and Senate Majority Leader, Dean G. Skelos (R), who, in less than three months, convinced the New York Legislature to unanimously pass a new law providing such jurisdiction.

Last April, Gov. David A. Paterson signed "The Libel Terrorism Protection Act," dubbed by the media as "Rachel's Law," a groundbreaking, bi-partisan effort to protect authors and publishers in New York, the publishing capital of the United States, from foreigners who seek to undermine American free press rights from abroad. The Illinois legislature followed suit shortly thereafter and passed an almost identical law.

The New York law spurred a bi-partisan effort in Congress to pass a national version of "Rachel's Law" entitled the Free Speech Protection Act. That bill was introduced by Congressmen Peter King (R), and Anthony Weiner (D), and Senators Arlen Specter (R), Joseph Lieberman (I) and Charles Schumer (D). It is supported by a wide range of free speech and other organizations in the U.S.

Mahfouz surely never expected his attempts to undermine American freedoms from abroad would have provoked a firestorm of commentary and legislation. In the session just passed, Congress failed to pass the Free Speech Protection Act.

Therefore, when the Congress reconvenes, it should follow the trail blazed by New Yorkers and pass this important law to protect all Americans who seek to speak or write in the "uninhibited, robust and wide-open" manner the First Amendment was designed to guarantee.

The Issue of Virtual Hawalas

By Ilan Weinglass

An issue that has arisen lately is that of virtual terrorism, that is, the use by terror groups of virtual communities such as Second Life.  One feature of these communities is that one can send money to other members with very little oversight.  Stephen Landman has recently written a paper which describes the situtation and makes policy recommendations for dealing with it.  To date, this is not so large an issue but it will grow quickly and we need to address it before it becomes a problem.  It is a virtual truism that terrorists are far more adept than government agencies at exploiting new technologies, and using technology to find weaknesses in regulatory regimes.  

From Stephen Landman's conclusion:

The quickest way to ensure effective regulations are in place is for the Department of the Treasury to immediately identify virtual worlds as covered institutions for purposes of the BSA’s anti-terrorist financing regulations. From there, the most important step will be verifying the identity of residents during the registration process, and ensuring that each virtual transaction can be traced back to identifiable senders and recipients.

It is somewhat of a shock that the above is not currently the law.

The whole paper may be found here: Download Virtual Hawalas 

Jean Charles Brisard exonerated - Knighted by French President

I’m pleased to announce that my friend and the Terror Finance Blog member Jean Charles Brisard has been awarded the French National Order of Merit with the rank of Knight by a presidential decree signed by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, in recognition of his 20 years of outstanding civil service. 

This is an important recognition of Jean Charles' counter terrorism and terrorism financing work, including documentation of Saudia Arabia's financing of terrorism.

The award was established by General de Gaulle in 1963 to reward civilian or military distinguished merits.

Congratulations!

The Mumbai attacks: Early warnings pointing to Lashkar E Taiba

By Jean-Charles Brisard

Early claims from an unknown terrorist group, the Deccan Mujahideen, supposedly an offshoot of the Indian Mujahideen (itself an emanation of the Students Islamic Movement of India –SIMI-), have raised fresh speculations that the Mumbai attacks could have been carried out by Indian “home-grown” terrorists.

Despite the fact that the IM/SIMI group had carried out several attacks in the past on the Indian Territory (mostly bomb attacks), the modus operandi used by the Mumbai attackers was consistent with the Pakistani Al Qaeda affiliated group Lashkar E Taiba (LeT) reported tactics, especially the plot to infiltrate Mumbai by the sea to carry out terrorist attacks.

We can report that in early 2007, a little noticed similar plot has been foiled by the Indian police, leading to the arrest of several LeT members. In March 2007, two Pakistani militants of LeT confessed that they had infiltrated into the Indian Territory in a group of eight through sea route from Karachi to Mumbai. This was the first reported infiltration of Pakistani militants through sea-route. Two Indians were also arrested for providing assistance to the Let militants.

The same month, on March 8, 2007, A.K. Antony, the Indian minister of Defense publicly admitted before the Parliament that several intelligence reports warned that “terrorists of various organizations have received training for their infiltration through sea routes” and that such infiltrations were “likely”.

Initial details from the Indian investigation indicate that the attackers were heavily armed, that their tactics were “military tactics”. They were also provided with sophisticated communication devices, false IDs and several credit-cards from Citibank, HSBC, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, HDFC Bank and SBM (State Bank of Mauritius), in addition to cash money.

These sophisticated, well-planned, financed and coordinated attacks were all but expected. The Mumbai attacks demonstrate the growing organizational and financial means of the radical Islamic terrorist groups in the region.