Michael Freeman, ed. Financing terrorism: Case studies

Abstract

Michael Freeman, ed. Financing terrorism: Case studies Farnham: Ashgate, 2012. 266 pp $89.96 (cloth) ISBN: 978-1-4094-4261-5By the turn of the millennium the not-yet 10-year-old international anti-money laundering regime already appeared moribund. It was the War on Terror that reinvigorated this regime with a newfound zeal to counter terrorism financing. The Financial Action Task Force the regime's central inter-governmental actor to fight money laundering was asked to target terrorism financing. Several states proposed new legislation, or amended existing legislation, to make terrorism financing illegal. A broad literature emerged on international and national policies to counter illicit finance. Though we have a fair sense of how criminal organizations launder funds, less is known about how terrorist organizations finance their activities. Financing Terrorism, edited by Michael Freeman, attempts to address this gap.Financing Terrorism is not a theory-driven book; contributors present detailed accounts of terrorist organizations from around the world, their principal modes of operation, and their financing activities. The book's objective is to be practical on the assumption that better policy should come from a more complete understanding of how specific organizations operate. The book largely assumes that terrorist organizations need sustained and reliable funding to pursue their political objectives, continue operations, and in many cases, buy popular legitimacy. Contributors consider four key funding sources: state sponsorship, illegal activities, legal activities, and popular support (often provided knowingly or unknowingly through charitable donations). The book presents terrorist organizations region by region: the Middle East (Iraqi insurgent groups, Hezbollah), Asia (Partiya Karkeren Kurdistan, Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Taliban, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, and Filipino terrorist groups), Europe (Loyalists in Northern Ireland, and Islamist groups in Albania), and the Americas (FARC and National Liberation Army, Colombia). Contributing authors come from academia as well as from military establishments in the US and elsewhere; all appear to possess excellent knowledge of the groups under consideration. Taken as a whole, the book provides a comprehensive overview of how various terrorist organizations finance and support their activities.Financing Terrorism's main conclusion, which is more implicit than explicit, is that while combating terrorism financing is important to diminishing a terrorist group's capacity to inflict harm, it is only one instrument among many with which to target organizations. From a Canadian perspective, the chapter on the Tamil Tigers written by Christopher L. Corley is most enlightening. The Tigers' apparent demise, as Corley argues right from the start, had more to do with the offensive launched by the Sri Lankan military in 2008 2009 than with any measure to block the organization's financing operations. The listing of the Tigers as a terrorist organization by foreign governments, including Canada's in 2006, made fundraising more difficult for the Tigers, especially from the diaspora. …