Ransoms as a funding source for extremist organizations

Dr. Nermeen Mohamed Tawfiq

Securing a stable supply of financial revenues is something of paramount importance for all extremist groups, regardless of their ideology.

Without money, these groups cannot expand, achieve their objectives or draw in recruits, a process done primarily by money.

Ransoms are usually an important source of revenue for extremist organizations. They get ransoms after kidnapping people and negotiating the price they will get in return for their release.

The kidnapping of foreigners, especially in areas controlled by extremist organizations, is always an easy mission with certain results. By kidnapping foreign nationals, these organizations put the governments of their victims under intense public pressure. This is why foreign governments do everything possible to secure the release of their nationals from extremist organization captivity. One of the things these governments have to do is to pay the ransoms demanded by kidnappers.

Nonetheless, governments that finance terrorist organizations use kidnappings to deliver finance to these organizations kidnapping their citizens in the form of ransoms. Terrorist organizations carrying out kidnappings are sometimes also used by governments to exploit other governments. This can be explained as follows:

First, ransoms as a direct extremism financing tool

Kidnappings are a top funding tool for terrorist organizations. They are an intrinsic part of the ideologies of these organizations. They use them to secure the necessary finance for their continuity.

To justify kidnappings and sometimes killing, terrorist organizations propagate twisted interpretations of religious texts. One of the ideas they propagate in this regard is the distinction between what they call the “Land of Peace” and the “Land of War”. Foreigners, they claim, who belong to a country that fights Muslims have no right to safety in Muslims’ land.

The current al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri called in a 2012 audio on his followers around the world to kidnap westerners and exchange them with imprisoned al-Qaeda affiliates. “I call on every Muslim and every jihadist in the world to kidnap westerners in order to release Muslim prisoners in the prisons of the Crusaders, infidels and the enemies of Islam (1),” al-Zawahiri said in the audio.

As for foreign hostages, terrorist organizations justify their kidnapping by claiming that they are in war with Muslims because they are “apostates”. This makes these foreigners subscribe to the status of “war hostages”. This status gives terrorist organizations the right to kill these foreigners; release them for money; exchange them with other hostages, or release them for free (2).

Daesh and al-Qaeda depend on ransoms for money as follows:

Daesh

Daesh is the richest extremist organization in the world. The organization succeeded in securing an incessant supply of money that helped it form its independent financial empire. It collected millions of dollars since overrunning the eastern Iraqi city of Mosul. This was why former undersecretary of the US Department of the Treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence David Cohen described Daesh as the most economically powerful of all extremist organizations the US faced (3).

Daesh’s abundant financial resources manifested themselves clearly in the professional way the organization made and directed its promotional videos. These videos, experts say, cost the organization thousands of dollars to make.

In mid-February 2015, the United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution calling for ending Daesh’s and al-Nusra Front’s funding sources, especially the oil and antiquities trade and ransoms.

Daesh largely depends on kidnappings and ransoms to finance its terrorist activities. The organization collected millions of dollars from operations in this regard. Cohen estimated the amount of money Daesh collected from ransoms in 2014 (4) at $20 million. A UN expert estimated the amount of money Daesh collected from ransom operations after the occupation of Mosul at between $35 million and $45 million (5).

Daesh kidnapped foreigners in both Syria and Iraq in order to extort money from western governments. The world followed with horror Daesh as it slaughtered its own hostages after the periods specified for settling ransoms came to an end without the payment of these ransoms. One of the operations in this regard was the slaughter of two Japanese hostages. The organization demanded a $200 million ransom to release the Japanese nationals. In a video, it threatened to kill them if the Japanese government did not pay the ransom money within 72 hours. It then killed the two hostages after these 72 hours came to an end (6). Daesh released similar videos for the slaughter of American and British hostages.

Trafficking in women

Trafficking in women is another important source of finance for Daesh. The organization sold Yazidi women in Iraq as war hostages. Daesh said in an issue of its monthly magazine, Dabiq, that the sale of female war hostages was important for the eradication of vice in society. In the 4th issue of the magazine, Daesh bragged about taking non-Muslim women hostage. It also noted that its religious scholars had ruled that Yazidis were non-Muslims, which qualified their women to captivation and sale (7).

This shows that the organization had viewed women as mere slaves with whom they were allowed to do anything, including sexual exploitation or sale in the market.

Women who got married to Daesh members referred in interviews with the Russian news channel RT to a Telegram site called “Female Hostage Market” where the photos of kidnapped women are posted.

The prices of female hostages, the women told the Russian channel, start from $15,000. A virgin’s price can reach $30,000 (8), the women said.

The British site, Express Journal, quotes some witnesses as saying that Daesh members used to send the photos of their female hostages to each other by email and put them for sale in what looks like an auction.

In posting the photos of their female hostages, Daesh members always are keen on forcing them to wear makeup and nice clothes so that they can sell for the highest price, the witnesses said.

Bidding usually starts at $2,000 and reaches $10,000 (9).

United Nations Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Zainab Bangura, said Daesh published a special price list for women and children.

She said she saw the list during a visit to Iraq. The organization sells girls, she said, as it sells oil barrels. She added that most of the women sold were Yazidis. Bangura noted that some Daesh members buy the girls with the aim of selling them to their families for huge amounts of money.

Some Daesh members also buy the girls in order to sell them to wealthy Arabs for thousands of dollars (10).

The US Department of the Treasury warned against governments paying ransom money for Daesh to free hostages. It said this encourages the organization to kidnap even more people (11).

Al-Qaeda

Al-Qaeda largely depends on kidnappings as an important source of funding for its different branches. Some estimates put the amount of money al-Qaeda collected from kidnappings between 2007 and 2009 at millions of dollars.

In 2009, al-Qaeda in the Arab Maghreb kidnapped a group of European tourists in Mali for months before releasing them for a ransom of $5 million each.

The organization also killed a British tourist after the British government refused to release Abu Qatada al-Filistini, one of the most important Salafi jihadist theoreticians, in return for releasing the tourist.

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in 2009 also kidnapped nine foreigners, including seven German nationals, in the northern Yemeni province of Saada.

The Algerian government said, meanwhile, that the kidnapping of westerners in the African coast region brought terrorist organizations more than 150 million euros in revenues between 2009 and 2013. Kidnappings, it added, had turned into a source of financing for al-Qaeda and a thriving trade. The wave of kidnappings started in 2003 when Algerian terror leader Abdelrazik al-Bara kidnapped more than 30 European tourists in the Algerian desert (12).

This shows similarities between Daesh and al-Qaeda when it comes to dependence on kidnappings as a source of income or as a pressure card to secure the release of their members in western jails.

Second, ransoms as an indirect funding tool

Some states use ransoms to cloak their financing of terrorist organizations. The state of Qatar offered clear examples in this regard in the past few years. According to some security reports, Qatar played an important role from behind the curtains in financing terrorist organizations in Syria and Iraq. It repeatedly mediated the release and exchange of hostages and paid millions of dollars in deals with terrorist organizations and extremists.

Qatar is accused of paying between $700 million and $1 billion for terrorist organizations in ransoms under the pretext of releasing hostages.

The New York Times ran some articles about the money Qatar paid for terrorist organizations to secure the release of Qatari hostages. The newspaper also said that Qatar paid $770 million for a Hezbollah-affiliated group in Iraq to secure the release of Qatari hostages (13).

Qatar’s use of ransoms in the financing of extremists was clear in the flowing examples:

Release of Qatari hunters in Iraq

The aforementioned accusation for Qatar was evidenced in the release of some royal family members who were kidnapped in Iraq during a hunting trip. Doha paid a huge amount of money for the kidnappers.

“Qatar had financed terrorist organizations with close to a billion dollars,” United Arab Emirates State Minister for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash wrote on Twitter in comment on the incident.

Qatar, he added, paid between $700 million and $1 billion to a complex group of terrorist organizations, including Hezbollah, the Iraq Popular Mobilization Forces, and al-Nusra Front.

“Doha cannot deny this in the presence of all proofs (14),” Gargash wrote.

The UAE senior official cited a report by The New York Times and another by The Financial Times on what he described as the “legendary” Qatari ransom to the Popular Mobilization Forces, al-Nusra Front and other terrorist organizations (15).

According to The New York Times, Qatar tried to enter into Baghdad Airport $360 million that were placed in black bags. The money, the newspaper said, would have been used in financing terrorist groups affiliated to the Popular Mobilization Forces; the Lebanese Hezbollah movement; al-Nusra Front, and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards to secure the release of 26 eagle hunters who were members of the Qatari royal family.

The royal family members, the newspaper added, crossed into Saudi Arabia and passed by Kuwait on the way to Iraq which they reached in late November 2015.

By mid-December, the group of Qatari royals was kidnapped by Hezbollah Brigades (16), an affiliate of the Lebanese Hezbollah movement, and stayed in captivity for 16 months before their release in 2017 after Doha paid around $770 million to the militias kidnapping them, according to the report (17).

Perverted methods

The report cited the way part of the ransom was smuggled out of the airport. The money was smuggled out of the airport, the report said, through a Qatari national who arrived at the airport’s VIP Terminal on April 15, 2017. This person introduced himself to Iraqi airport authorities as a high-level Qatari envoy. He was accompanied by 14 other people. These people brought with them 17 identical small black bags.

The bags were too heavy that the Iraqis insisted to search them. Shocked at the request of the Iraqi authorities, the so-called high-level Qatari envoy demanded time. He consulted with the members of his delegation and then made some calls before approving the search of the bags.

The members of the Qatari delegation refused to answer questions about the contents of the bags. The Qataris then had to leave the bags. When the Iraqis opened them, they found $360 million inside them.

Qatar, the report said, did not only pay the ransom money, but also approved an Iranian plan for the forcible relocation of some residents in Syria (18).

The report quoted some security officials as saying that Qatar paid $1.35 billion in deals aimed at securing the release of hostages. Most of this money, the officials said, went to the leaders of pro-Iran militias and some members of al-Qaeda.

Qatar paid $700 million, they said, to Iranian militias and Hezbollah elements to free hostages. It also paid, they added, $300 million to extremist groups affiliated to al-Qaeda and Fateh al-Sham Front as well as $80 million to Ahrar al-Sham Group to free around 50 Shiite militants. The transfer of the hostages from their sites of captivity also cost $140 million (19), an amount of money Qatar also paid, the officials said.

Egypt cited this incident in asking the United Nations Security Council to start an inquiry into accusations against Qatar that it paid around $1 billion in ransoms to a terrorist group active in Iraq to secure the release of royal family members who were kidnapped in the Arab state. Egypt’s representative at the Security Council Ehab Mustafa said if these charges proved to be correct, they would have a negative effect on counterterrorism efforts on the ground (20).

The Qatari ransom opened the door for opening the file of the support Doha offers to terrorist groups. It delivers this support in a creative way, namely mediating the release of hostages and giving terrorist organizations money in return for releasing these hostages.

Qatar’s financing of groups in Syria under the pretext of freeing hostages

The aforementioned incident was not the only in which Qatar paid money for terrorist groups in the form of ransoms. In May 2016, Qatar paid $3.5 million in a ransom for the release of three Spanish journalists who had been kidnapped by al-Nusra Front in Aleppo since 2015. The Turkish news channel TRT said Qatari efforts led to the release of the journalists. Some Syrian media sources said, meanwhile, that the ransom money came from the Qatari treasury.

Spanish government sources attributed the release of the three journalists to assistance by some “allied and friendly states”. They said these states included Turkey and Qatar. Some media outlets said Qatar had had to pay $3.5 million to secure the release of the three Spanish journalists (21).

In March 2014, then-Qatari foreign minister Khalid al-Attiya declared the success of Qatari mediation for the release of 13 Christian Orthodox nuns who were kidnapped from the Greek Orthodox monastery of St Thecla in the northern Syrian city of Maaloula.

Qatari mediation efforts, al-Attiya said, also succeeded in securing the release of 153 Syrian women from Syrian regime prisons.

Security sources said, meanwhile, that the kidnappers got $15 million in return for releasing the nuns, an amount of money paid by Qatar (22). The same sources said that demands by the kidnappers for the release of 150 people were also fulfilled.

It is clear then that paying money to extremist groups is far from Qatar’s utmost objective. The Arab statlet also wants to hammer out political deals in which it asks terrorist groups to kidnap people and then mediate the release of these people. This was evident in the mediation Qatar made to secure the release of 16 Lebanese army troops who were kidnapped in 2014 by al-Nusra Front in Arsal, a town near the Lebanese-Syrian border. The deal was finalized only after the Lebanese government released 25 Nusra Front members from its own prisons. The prisoners included Saja Aldulaimy, a former wife of Daesh leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (23).

Qatar rescues al-Qaeda in Yemen

Qatar also played a role in financing al-Qaeda in Yemen by paying ransoms for the release of hostages. British Minister of State for the Middle East Alistair Burt said in September 2013 that al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula planned to destabilize Yemen. He added that huge amounts of money received by the organization in the form of ransoms for the release of foreign hostages helped it carry out its plans.

He revealed that al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula received $20 million in the form of ransoms between 2011 and 2012.

Burt said the organization would be even stronger in the future in case ransoms continued to be paid for it, which would help it stage more aggressions against Yemen and its neighbors (24).

Qatar also negotiated the release of Swiss teacher Sylvia Abrahat who was kidnapped by al-Qaeda from her home in the eastern Yemeni province of al-Hudaydah. Doha paid $15 million to secure the release of the Swiss teacher, an amount of money that went to the organization and also to some tribal elements linked to al-Qaeda in the northern part of Yemen. Abrahat was released in February 2013. This was how Qatar rescued al-Qaeda in Yemen which was suffering a tough financial crisis then (25).

According to some reports, Abdulrahman al-Nuaimi, who is part of the US terrorism list, had ordered the transfer of $600,000 to al-Qaeda (26).

Qatar and Boko Haram

The Nigerian militant group Boko Haram received a number of strong blows in the past few years at the hands of the Nigerian army. These blows weakened the organization and also caused it to lose control on several areas. Nonetheless, Boko Haram came to the surface again by kidnapping 110 girls. Qatar had apparently found it necessary to offer support to Boko Haram so that unrest can continue to rage on in Nigeria.

Qatar’s former emir, Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, and his prime minister, Hamad bin Jassim, paid a visit to Nigeria on March 1. Both men, some people believe, wanted to mediate between Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari and Boko Haram.

The visit came after Boko Haram kidnapped the 110 girls. It also came five years after both men totally disappeared from their country’s political stage.

The Nigerian president gave them a cold welcome. Instead of the Qatari flag, the Nigerian presidency put an unknown flag during the meeting.

The English news site “The Specter” had previously written about Qatar’s support to Boko Haram. In a 2014 article, site writer Simon Heffer wrote about Qatari mediation between Boko Haram and the Nigerian government. The mediation, he said, happened through a tribal chieftain from Cameroon, who had business links with Qatar.

Qatar had to find a way to deliver its money to Boko Haram. Mediation for the release of the kidnapped girls was this way in fact (27).

The following lessons can be concluded:

Ransoms are an important funding tool for extremist groups. This is why there is a need for countering the extremist discourse which is used by extremists to justify the kidnap and killing of hostages.

Foreigners form the bulk of the victims in kidnap operations. The fact is that the Islamic religion bans this. When they visit a country ruled by Muslims, foreigners have to be secure and it is Muslims’ responsibility to make them feel secure. This is what the Islamic religion preaches.

It is important also for governments not to easily succumb to pressure and exploitation by terrorist groups by paying money to them to secure the release of hostages. This encourages these groups to kidnap even more people.

In November 25, 2014, the US found a better way to secure the release of eight of its nationals who were kidnapped in Yemen. The US government sent a counterterrorism unit to Yemen to free the hostages from al-Qaeda captivity in the southern province of Hadhramaut. The members of the unit also killed all captors.

The G8 Group announced in June 2013 its rejection of ransoms as a principle. The member states of the group also called on the Security Council to commit member states to work for the safe release of hostages without offering any financial concessions to kidnappers.

The Paris Declaration, which was issued in October 2017, called for criminalizing the paying of ransoms to terrorist organizations. Gamal al-Awadi, the head of the Paris International Forum for Peace, said the world needed to act on Qatar’s support to terrorist groups through the payment of ransoms (28).

Mediation criminalization

There is an urgent need for the presence of a legal mechanism to curb kidnappings and the payment of ransoms. The late Sudanese academic, Babakr Abdullah al-Sheikh, underscored in one of his studies the importance of the presence of this mechanism. He called for criminalizing kidnapping operations and the handover of kidnappers by governments in the light of special agreements for the handover of kidnappers. Al-Sheikh also called in his study for criminalizing mediation for the release of hostages through the payment of ransoms. Some countries use operations in this regard, Abdullah said, to hammer out political deals like in the case of Turkey when it secured the release of 46 of its diplomats in Iraq in September 2014. Daesh kidnapped the diplomats from the Turkish consulate in Mosul. The diplomats spent 100 days in captivity. To secure their release, some sources said, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had promised not to join an international alliance against Daesh that was in the making then (29). Turkey joined the alliance later.

The absence of a resolution that bans mediation or imposes sanctions on states that carry out this mediation will encourage a lot of countries to go ahead with mediations that only serve the interests of terrorist organizations at the end.

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