Terrorist financing networks threaten Europe’s security

Nahla Abdel Moneim

Terrorist financing networks operating from Europe represent a threat to the security and stability of the region, as their effects are not limited to the continuation of violence in areas where extremism is geographically concentrated, but they also attract new elements that subsequently form a crowded file of returnees.

Terrorist financing networks play a suspicious role in financial corruption in European Union countries, as they give way to money laundering and illegal trade and threaten the economic market by exploiting modern technological tools to transfer suspicious money to extremist networks in various conflict hotpots.

Terrorist financing networks

The disclosure of terrorist financing networks has escalated recently, revealing their multiplicity and ramification, as well as their strategy of concentrating in major countries in Europe. In April 2021, the German authorities announced the arrest of an Iraqi immigrant on charges of transferring thousands of dollars to ISIS in Syria and Lebanon.

The authorities noted that the migrant, Ayman, had transferred about $12,000 of suspicious money to ISIS elements during the period from June to September 2020. The security services confirm that these funds were used to support ISIS camps in Syria to secure the needs of women and urge them to remain in the ranks of the terrorist organization, while the money sent to Lebanon aimed to liberate detained elements and return them to fighting.

The investigations added that Ayman is an Iraqi immigrant who arrived in the country in 2016 during the waves of immigration that swept through Europe from the Middle East as a result of the fall of Iraq and Syria to the grip of ISIS. He was arrested in January 2021 at the border between Germany and Switzerland while trying to escape to join the ranks of the terrorist organization.

The information pointed out that Ayman had wanted to join ISIS shortly after his arrival in Germany. He tried to persuade ISIS leaders to allow him to move to Syria and fight among their ranks, but they chose to employ him in the task of collecting and financing terrorism by sending dollars from Germany, so he lived in Berlin for a period of time to deliver money.

Transferring money from Germany

The continuous waves of immigration from the Middle East to Europe allows ISIS to exploit these waves to infiltrate terrorist elements into Europe to carry out various tasks, most notably creating new sources of funding for the organization.

These elements are likely to play a more dangerous role in recruiting European youth to join the organization and adopt its extremist ideas, especially with these areas embracing religious and cultural centers in support of fundamentalist ideology, which appears in the Brotherhood entities that represent the main source of literature for modern terrorist groups. Germany, in particular, suffers from the spread of Hizb ut-Tahrir on its soil despite a previous ban on its activities, and the party founded by Taqi al-Din al-Nabhani adopts the same Brotherhood ideas, which represents a danger in forming malicious intellectual outposts inside the midst of a package of constitutional freedoms and rights laws that are exploited by these groups.

On April 27, France accused seven people on charges of forming a network to finance terrorism in Syria, and the ages of those arrested range from 28 to 48 years old. In 2020, France announced a major network that would employ its members to finance terrorism in Syria and Iraq, particularly camp funding, during an expanded security campaign adopted by Paris to dry up terror sources on its soil.