Even as the West seeks to engage Iran in negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear program, Iran continues to arm rogue regimes and terrorist groups in blatant violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1747. Such aggressive behavior on the part of Iran in support of terrorist groups and rogue regimes highlights a critical shortcoming of current international sanctions on Iran. In the latest case, last week, the Israeli Navy intercepted the Francop, a vessel carrying five hundred tons of weapons, including thousands of mortar shells and long range rockets believed to be bound for Hezbollah in Lebanon. Israeli officials released photographs of Katyusha rockets seized last week by UNIFIL forces in Lebanon that are the same make as those seized on board the Francop. According to U.S. officials, the arms shipment was “clearly manifested from Iran to Syria” in violation of a March 2007 UN arms embargo and provides “unambiguous evidence of the destabilizing proliferation of arms in the region.”

It is high time to back up the tough talk with action. The good news is that there are ways to effectively disrupt Iran’s international weapons smuggling. The question is whether the Francop episode will provide the political impetus for the international community to take action. Previous cases of Iranian arms smuggling prompted no such action.

Indeed, the Francop is just the most recent Iranian violation of UNSCR 1747’s ban on Iranian weapons trafficking. In January, the U.S. Navy stopped another vessel, the Monchegorsk, while it was transiting the Red Sea en route to Syria with components for mortars and thousands of cases of powder, propellant, and shell casings for 125mm and 130mm guns. The Monchegorsk was chartered by Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL) which, just four months earlier, the Treasury Department blacklisted for its proliferation activities, noting that IRISL “facilitates the transport of cargo for UN designated proliferators” and also “falsifies documents and uses deceptive schemes to shroud its involvement in illicit commerce.”

In recent years, a number of similar incidents exposed Iranian efforts to transport military materiel and arms by sea, land, and air to allies and surrogates. During the second Palestinian Intifada, Iran helped facilitate arms shipments to Gaza through Hezbollah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine to Gaza (by means of floating waterproof containers) by using two civilian vessels, the Santorini, seized by Israel in May 2001, and the Calypso 2. In January 2002, Iran attempted to deliver fifty tons of weapons to the Palestinian Authority aboard the Karine A, whose shipment was seized by the Israeli Navy in the Red Sea.

During the 2006 Hezbollah-Israel war, Israeli intelligence charged that Iran was resupplying the Shiite movement via Turkey. Such claims gained credibility in May 2007, when a train derailed by PKK terrorists in southeastern Turkey was found to be carrying undeclared Iranian rockets and small arms destined for Syria—possibly for transshipment to Hezbollah.

Existing UN and EU legal guidelines provide the authority to take action against Iran weapons smuggling, but on their own are insufficient. In February and April 2007, the EU imposed a number of sanctions on Iran in order to implement UN Security Council decisions, including a ban on Iranian transfers of military materiel, arms, and missile technology. Similarly, Resolution 1747, adopted in March 2007, prohibited the transfer of “any arms or related materiel” by Iran, and urged UN member states not to facilitate such efforts. In addition, Resolution 1803, passed in March 2008, calls upon all states, “in accordance with their national legal authorities and legislation and consistent with international law,” to inspect IRISL cargoes to and from Iran transiting their airports and seaports,” provided there are reasonable grounds to believe that the aircraft or vessel is transporting [prohibited] goods.”

Getting countries to act on these authorities, however, has been sketchy at best. As these cases indicate, serious gaps exist in the available policy tools to deal with Iranian arms transfers to its allies and surrogates. To close these gaps, the United States should work with its allies on multiple levels.

For example, the EU could expand its current policy banning the sale or transfer of arms to Iran to include a ban on the purchase or transfer of arms from Iran. Indeed, only the latter actually address the export of arms. Individual countries and regional organizations both—especially in South America and South and East Asia—should adopt legislation pertaining to Iranian arms and technology transfers, to enable them to fulfill their UN and EU obligations.

Government engagement with the private sector, drawing attention to the risk of doing business with IRISL, its subsidiaries, and other banned entities, could also have a significant impact. As the U.S. Treasury noted when it designated IRISL: “Countries and firms, including customers, business partners, and maritime insurers doing business with IRISL, may be unwittingly helping the shipping line facilitate Iran’s proliferation activities.” Since then, Dutch Customs automatically label merchandise shipped by IRISL or Iran Air at the highest risk category and inspect the cargo. Last month, the United Kingdom also sanctioned IRISL, banning British firms from doing business with the Iranian shipping line.

Given Iran’s history of deceptive financial and trade activity, extra scrutiny should be given to any ship that has recently paid a call to an Iranian port. Countries should be encouraged to require ports and/or authorities to collect detailed, accurate, and complete data regarding all cargo being shipped to or through their countries (especially from risk-prone jurisdictions like Iran), to conduct rigorous risk assessments, and to proceed with actual inspections as necessary. According to press reports, the Francop docked in Egypt before it was boarded some 180 kilometers of the coast of Cyprus.

Recent events show that even as the Obama administration seeks to engage Tehran, the Islamic Republic has continued to work to undermine Western interests and to support anti-Western elements around the world, as demonstrated by its ongoing efforts to resupply Hamas and Hezbollah and assist insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan. Disrupting Iran’s ability to arm allies and surrogates hostile to the interests of the United States and its allies would enhance Washington’s leverage in possible negotiations with Tehran, contain Iran should such diplomatic efforts fail, and prevent Iran from contributing to the proliferation of nuclear weapons in the Middle East and beyond.

The Washington Post reports that some in the administration see the Lebanese Hezbollah as a possible model for transformation of the Taliban. Describing the Taliban as a movement “deeply rooted” in Afghanistan, much like Hezbollah is in Lebanon, proponents of a Hezbollah model for the Taliban see a scenario in which the Taliban participates in Afghan politics, occasionally flexes its military muscles to benefit its political positions at home, but does not directly threat the United States even if it remains a source of regional instability.

According to the Post, while the idea has been discussed informally “outside the Situation Room meetings,” it has not yet been presented to President Obama. That’s a good thing because the notion is deeply flawed, and its implementation would have dire consequences for Afghanistan, the region more broadly, and U.S. counterterrorism efforts all.

Hezbollah in Lebanon is a destabilizing force, as is the Taliban in Afghanistan. Not only does Hezbollah maintain an independent militia in explicit violation of United Nations resolutions, it uses this private army to create semi-independent enclaves throughout the south of Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley where Lebanese Armed Forces are not allowed. In these spaces, Hezbollah maintains training camps, engages in weapons smuggling and drug trafficking, and maintains tens of thousands of rockets aimed at its neighbor to the south, Israel. Hezbollah collects intelligence on people traveling through Beirut international airport, and has built its own communications infrastructure beyond the reach of the national government.

In Afghanistan, an independent Taliban militia that controls territory of its own; maintains bases and training camps; facilitates weapons smuggling; and engages in every aspect of the narcotics production pipeline from poppy cultivation and processing to taxing delivery and smuggling abroad, would certainly seek to maintain its control over its own territory. Indeed, an increasing number of major Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) arrests over the past few months have targeted drug kingpins closely tied to the Taliban, like Haji Juma Kahn and Baz Mohammad.

Neither will Hezbollah today nor a similarly modeled Taliban tomorrow tolerate government challenges to its private army or other sources of power. In the words of then-Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence Donald Kerr, such groups are out for themselves, and will turn on their fellow Lebanese or Afghan citizens, respectively, when under pressure. “Events in Lebanon since May 7 [2008] demonstrate that Hezbollah—with the full support of Syria and Iran—will in fact turn its weapons against the Lebanese people for political purposes,” Kerr explained. “Hezbollah sought to justify its attacks against fellow Lebanese as an attempt to defend the resistance against attacks by the government.” Scores of Afghan civilians have been killed in Taliban suicide bombings, including the most recent attack outside the Indian embassy which claimed the lives of 17 Afghans, including 15 civilians and two Afghan police officers. It is all the more difficult to imagine a scenario in which the Taliban play a stabilizing political role in Afghanistan in light of the fact that, unlike Hezbollah, the Taliban adhere to a strict salafi-jihadi doctrine which is anathema to secular politics and requires the strict implementation of shariah law.

Commenting on the philosophical distinctions some in the administration make between the Taliban and Al Qaeda, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs distinguished between the Taliban as an Islamist element in Afghanistan and “an entity that, through a global, transnational jihadist network, would seek to strike the U.S. homeland,” like Al Qaeda. But in the assessment of people like Bruce Reidel, an Al Qaeda and Taliban expert who oversaw the administration’s policy review regarding Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Taliban’s ties to Al Qaeda run deep. “It’s a fundamental misreading of the nature of these organizations to think they are anything other than partners,” said Reidel. “Al Qaeda is embedded in the Taliban insurgency, and it’s highly unlikely that you’re going to be able to separate them.”

Here too, Hezbollah—a group involved not only in politics in Lebanon but in terrorist activity worldwide—is the wrong model. Even as the Hezbollah-led March 8 coalition campaigned ahead of Lebanon’s June 7 elections this summer, the group was forced to contend with the unexpected exposure of its covert terrorist activities both at home and abroad. At home, Hezbollah stands accused of playing a role in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. Abroad, law enforcement officials have taken action against Hezbollah support networks operating across the globe, including in Egypt, Yemen, Sierra Leone, Cote d’Ivoire, Azerbaijan, Belgium, and Colombia. Just this past week, a court in Azerbaijan found two Hezbollah operatives guilty of plotting attacks on the Israeli and U.S. embassies in Baku, among other plots, and sentenced them each to 15 years in prison.

The Taliban is primarily involved in attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan, though it has been tied to at least one plot in the United States and another in Europe. In the United States, a group of eleven jihadists in Northern Virginia were found to have connections with Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and Lashkar-i-Taiba. In Europe, the Pakistani Taliban—distinct from but closely allied with the Afghan Taliban—claimed responsibility for a failed plot to bomb subway trains in Barcelona in 2008. And while historically the Taliban was an adversary of Iran’s, the United States believes since at least 2006 Iran has arranged frequent shipments of small arms, RPGs, explosives and other weapons to the Taliban. The Qods Force also provides the Taliban in Afghanistan with weapons, funding, logistics and military training, according to the U.S. government.

As National Counterterrorism Center director Michael Leiter made clear in his congressional testimony last week, Hezbollah is a very poor model for a future Taliban. According to Leiter, the U.S. intelligence community holds the following to be true:

While not aligned with al-Qa’ida, we assess that Lebanese Hizballah remains capable of conducting terrorist attacks on U.S. and Western interests, particularly in the Middle East. It continues to train and sponsor terrorist groups in Iraq that threaten the lives of U.S. and Coalition forces, and supports Palestinian terrorist groups’ efforts to attack Israel and jeopardize the Middle East Peace Process. Although its primary focus is Israel, the group holds the United States responsible for Israeli policies in the region and would likely consider attacks on U.S. interests, to include the Homeland, if it perceived a direct threat from the United States to itself or Iran. Hizballah’s Secretary General, in justifying the group’s use of violence against fellow Lebanese citizens last year, characterized any threat to Hizballah’s armed status and its independent communications network as redlines.

Modeling the Taliban after Hezbollah is a recipe for failure. It would doom efforts to promote democracy in Afghanistan and engender long-term instability in both Afghanistan and Pakistan along the traditional Pashtun tribal belt that straddles the country’s shared border. It would embolden one of Iran’s newer allies in the region and empower a salafi-jihadi organization with close and ongoing ties to Al Qaeda to firmly establish control over parts of the country from which it would continue to produce massive quantities of drugs that ultimately make their way to the West. Looking to Hezbollah as the model for a future Taliban displays both ignorance of Hezbollah and naïveté regarding the Taliban. No matter how you slice it, that’s a dangerous combination.

MESH Admin: There is an Arabic translation of this post.

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Hamas, which recently created a production company and released its first major film production glorifying the life of a master terrorist (view the Arabic trailer at the end of this post), has scored its first major public relations coup. In a new article on the website of Foreign Affairs, Michael Bröning (director of the East Jerusalem office of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung) cites the group’s recent downplaying of the relevance of its own charter as a telltale sign that Hamas is turning around or even “growing up.” To be sure, the rhetoric of Hamas leaders has visibly changed in public statements. But in focusing on these statements alone, Bröning misses the real point: Hamas’s words have changed, but their actions have not.

Hamas cannot be judged on the basis of its choice of vocabulary alone. Neither the relevance of each and every part of the Hamas charter (which Hamas leaders have expressly refused to revoke or update) nor the public statements of its leaders deserve as much weight as what the group actually does in judging whether or not it has truly evolved. The approach of solely examining what the group says, rather than what the group does—the approach upon which Bröning has relied—dangerously disregards Hamas’s actions on the ground.

True, in recent interviews, Hamas leader Khaled Meshal has offered to cooperate with U.S. efforts to promote a peaceful resolution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, indicated a willingness to implement an immediate and reciprocal ceasefire with Israel, and stated that the militant group would accept and respect a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip based on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital. But the conciliatory tone of this hardline Hamas leader, who personally has been tied to acts of terrorism and is himself a U.S.-designated terrorist, is belied by the group’s continued violent actions and radicalization on the ground, as well as the rise to prominence of violent extremist leaders within the group’s local Shura (consultative) councils. Hamas’s activities of late appear to be diametrically opposed to the thrust of Meshal’s statements.

Continued terrorist activities: Despite talk of a ceasefire and pursuit of a peaceful resolution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, Hamas’s military wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, continues to engage in terrorist activities. Shooting attacks are still common along the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip, including the firing of rocket-propelled grenades and mortar shells of the kind that rained on Israel just the other day. In late July, two Qassam Brigades operatives were killed in a “work accident” while placing explosives along the border fence near the al-Buraij refugee camp in central Gaza. A few days later, Israeli defense officials revealed that Hamas has been digging tunnels—often used by the group to smuggle weapons and conduct kidnapping operations—next to UN facilities, including one near a UN school in Bait Hanun that had recently collapsed. The placement of the tunnels near UN facilities was purportedly intended as a preventive measure against an Israeli attempt to destroy the tunnels.

Meanwhile, over the past several months, Palestinian security forces in the West Bank have seized at least $8.5 million in cash from arrested Hamas members who plotted to kill Fatah-affiliated government officials. Palestinian officials reported that some of the accused had “recently purchased homes adjacent to government and military installations, mainly in the city of Nablus” for the purpose of observing the movements of government and security officials. Security forces also seized uniforms of several Palestinian security forces from the accused Hamas members.

Radicalizing Palestinian society: For Hamas, mutating the predominantly ethno-political Palestinian national struggle into a fundamentally religious conflict is critical to the group’s ideology and its continued ability to inspire Palestinians to reject compromise or peaceful solutions to the conflict. Recently, Hamas embarked on a large public relations campaign using culture and the arts to glorify violence and demonize Israel. In a telling example, Hamas produced a feature-length film in 2009 that celebrated the life of Emad Akel, a leading Hamas terrorist who was killed by Israeli troops in 1993. Written by hardline Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar, Emad Akel was first screened in July 2009 at the Islamic University in Gaza City and described by Hamas interior minister in Gaza Fathi Hamad as the first production of “Hamaswood instead of Hollywood.”

In addition, despite Meshal’s statements, Hamas’s continues its campaign of radicalization targeting Palestinian youth. This summer, more than 120,000 Palestinian children attended Hamas-run summer camps that focused not only on Islamic teachings, but also on “semi-military training with toy guns.” Hamas campers recently staged a play reenacting the Gilad Shalit abduction before an audience that included Hamas officials such as Usama Mazini and Sheikh Ahmad Bahar.

Militants elected to leadership positions: Hamas’s ongoing radical activities are particularly apparent in its willingness to place its most militant members in positions of power. This year, Hamas’s local Shura councils held elections to determine who would move into leadership positions. Three local councils under the aegis of the Majlis al-Shura, the group’s overarching political and decisionmaking body in Damascus, represent Gaza, the West Bank, and Hamas members in Israeli prisons. This last council completed a five-month-long election process in July 2009 that resulted in the appointment of Yahya al-Sinwar, described as the founder of a Hamas security agency who is serving a life sentence, as president of the prison Shura council. Many other Hamas operatives involved in terrorist activities were placed as council members, including:

• Abbas al-Sayyed, the mastermind of the March 2002 Park Hotel suicide bombing that killed 29 people and left 155 seriously wounded.
• Salah al-Arouri, a founder of the Qassam Brigades in the West Bank, who served as both a recruiter and commander for Hamas terrorist cells.
• Abd al-Khaliq al-Natsheh, Hamas’s spokesman in Hebron, where he reportedly was the interlocutor between Hamas members who wanted to carry out suicide attacks and the leaders of Hamas terror cells within the Qassam Brigades.

In the August 2008 elections for Gaza’s Shura council, for example, Hamas hardliners dominated as well.

As Hamas’s activities on the ground make clear, the group’s tactical flexibility cannot be mistaken for strategic change. Even in his recent interviews, Meshal was clear that Hamas has not rejected terrorism, but has put it on hold due to current circumstances. “Not targeting civilians,” Meshal explained, “is part of an evaluation of the movement to serve the people’s interests. Firing these rockets is a method and not the goal.” In the context of discussing the sharp drop in Hamas rockets fired at Israeli civilian population centers, Meshal added, “The right to resist the occupation is a legitimate right, but practicing this right is decided by the leadership within the movement.”

Even as Hamas advances a public-relations blitz for tactical gains, the group continues to advance its strategic goals through ongoing terrorist activities, robust radicalization, and the election of militant hardliners to leadership positions. Hamas’s policies are evidenced not only by its words, but also by its deeds and actions. Michael Bröning had the right idea when he advised policymakers to “study recent Hamas policies and the movement’s performance on the ground.” If only he’d taken his own advice.

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(If you do not see the embedded trailer, click here.)

MESH Admin: There is an Arabic translation of  this post.

Earlier this month, the United Kingdom announced that it is reopening dialogue with the political wing of Hezbollah. Unlike the United States, the United Kingdom has only banned Hezbollah’s terrorist (External Security Organization) and military wings. The ban on the terrorist wing came in 2000, while the ban on the military wing only came in June 2008 in response to Hezbollah’s “providing active support to militants in Iraq who are responsible for attacks both on coalition forces and on Iraqi civilians, including providing training in the use of deadly roadside bombs,” for plots to kidnap British security workers in Iraq, and for its support for terrorist activity in the Palestinian Territories.

Meanwhile, the European Union has not yet designated any part of Hezbollah—military, political or otherwise—although it did label Imad Mughniyeh, the late Hezbollah chief of external operations, and several other Hezbollah members involved in specific acts of terrorism.

But despite the differences between U.S. and European perceptions of and policies toward Hezbollah, there is one critical area where all parties’ mutual interests converge, namely law enforcement. Regardless of divergent political considerations or definitions of terrorism, combating crime and enforcing sovereign laws are straightforward issues. More than any other Islamist group, Hezbollah has a long record of engaging in criminal activity to support its activities. The United States and its European counterparts have a particularly strong shared interest in combating the group’s increasing role in illicit drug trafficking.

Just this past week Admiral James G. Stavridis, the Commander of U.S. Southern Command who has now been nominated to head NATO troops as Supreme Allied Commander Europe, testified before the House Armed Services Committee about the threat to the United States from the nexus between illicit drug trafficking—”including routes, profits, and corruptive influence”—and “Islamic radical terrorism.” While Hezbollah is involved in a wide variety of criminal activity, ranging from cigarette smuggling to selling counterfeit products, the connection between drugs and terror is particularly strong. According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), 19 of the 43 U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations are definitely linked to the global drug trade, and up to 60 percent of terror organizations are suspected of having some ties with the illegal narcotics trade.

Hezbollah is no exception to this statistic, and in recent years has augmented its role in the production and trafficking of narcotics. Hezbollah has utilized the vast Lebanese Shi’a expatriate population, mainly located in South America and Africa, to its advantage. According to Michael Braun, former assistant administrator and chief of operations at the DEA, “Both Hamas and Hezbollah are active in this [Tri-Border] region [see map at right], where it is possible to make a profit of $1 million from the sale of fourteen or fifteen kilos of drugs, an amount that could be transported in a single suitcase.”

For example, Admiral Stavridis’s testified that in August 2008, the U.S. Southern Command and the DEA, in coordination with host nations, targeted a Hezbollah drug trafficking ring in the Tri-Border region of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay. In August 2008, the United States, in cooperation with Colombian investigators, identified and dismantled an international cocaine smuggling and money laundering ring based out of Colombia. This operation, which was made up of a Colombian drug cartel and Lebanese members of Hezbollah, used portions of its profits—allegedly hundreds of millions of dollars per year—to finance Hezbollah.

Such revelations should not surprise. Back in December 2006 the U.S. Treasury listed Sobhi Fayad as a Specially Designated Terrorist. Why? Because, Treasury informed, “Fayad has been a senior TBA [Tri-Border Area] Hezbollah official who served as a liaison between the Iranian embassy and the Hezbollah community in the TBA. He has also been a professional Hezbollah operative who has traveled to Lebanon and Iran to meet with Hezbollah leaders. Fayad received military training in Lebanon and Iran and was involved in illicit activities involving drugs and counterfeit U.S. dollars.”

Africa is additionally becoming an area of concern regarding terrorist groups engaged in drug trafficking. According to Admiral Stavridis, drug traffickers have expanded their presence in West Africa as a “springboard to Europe.” Hezbollah has long maintained a strong presence in Africa, and has utilized Africa as a strategic point to from which to raise and transfer funds and to engage in criminal enterprises, such as diamond smuggling.

The nexus between drug trafficking and terrorist activities—specifically those of Hezbollah—represent an immediate law enforcement challenge for the United States and its European allies. While the Europeans may not view Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, they are certainly eager to prevent Hezbollah from running criminal enterprises within their borders. Countries are particularly determined to prevent the importation of illegal narcotics across their borders, whether by organized criminal networks, terrorists groups, or the hybrid narco-terrorist networks that DEA officials describe as “meaner and uglier than anything law enforcement or militaries have ever faced.”

So while there is no common understanding between the United States and the United Kingdom on whether or how to engage Hezbollah or even how to classify Hezbollah and its various component parts, there is no “gray area” as to whether drug trafficking is illegal. The United Kingdom and other European nations are no less eager than the United States to combat the flow of drugs into their countries and to prevent Hezbollah from operating criminal enterprises within their territory.

The British decision to openly engage Hezbollah politically is misinformed, to be sure. But do not be surprised if the Brits talk to Hezbollah “political” leaders on the one hand while arresting some of their cohorts involved in illicit narcotics on the other. Officials may openly describe these actions as targeting criminals, not Hezbollah, but the effect will be much the same.

In the wake of the Gaza war, finding ways to provide much needed humanitarian support to the residents of Gaza—without inadvertently empowering Hamas—is of paramount concern. Unfortunately, problems remain with two of the primary vehicles the U.S. government intends to use to provide newly pledged aid, namely the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

Today, the U.S. government announced that President Barack Obama has authorized the use of $20.3 million from the U.S. Emergency Refugee and Migration Assistance (ERMA) Fund “to address critical post-conflict humanitarian needs in Gaza.” According to the State Department press release, of the $20.3 million in new ERMA funds, $13.5 million will go to UNRWA, $6 million to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), and $800,000 to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Beyond the contributions to UNRWA, ICRC and OCHA, State’s press release noted, USAID “has provided more than $3.7 million for emergency assistance to Gaza.”

These may in fact represent the most appropriate of the available options to get humanitarian aid to the residents of Gaza, but in the cases of both UNRWA and USAID recent history highlights areas of particular concern.

UNRWA. The State Department noted that today’s new contribution to UNRWA augments the $85 million the United States contributed in December 2008 toward UNRWA’s 2009 appeals. UNRWA, State noted, “is the largest provider of humanitarian aid in Gaza, providing 70 percent of the population with emergency food assistance, essential healthcare, and primary education. We are working to develop a longer-term reconstruction/development effort with international partners.”

While State hopes to use UNRWA as part of the post-Gaza war solution, a new study by James G. Lindsay, an Aufzien Fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy and the former legal advisor and general counsel to UNRWA, details how the agency remains a big part of the problem. A twenty-year veteran of the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division, Lindsay spent seven years with UNRWA and nine with the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) in Sinai. He is uniquely qualified to comment on UNRWA from the inside.

Fixing UNRWA: Repairing the UN’s Troubled System of Aid to Palestinian Refugees is a must-read and covers a broad range of issues. Of immediate concern, however, especially to those striving to find a way to address the acute humanitarian needs of Gazans without strengthening or inadvertently funding Hamas, is the question of UNRWA’s patent failure to live up to its legal responsibilities under the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 to “take all possible measures” to prevent U.S. contributions from going to “furnish assistance to any refugee who is receiving military training as a member of the so-called Palestine Liberation Army or any other guerilla type organization or who has engaged in any act of terrorism.”

The most immediate concern, related to today’s pledge and Hamas’s continued control of Gaza, is the fact that UNRWA does not sufficiently vet its employees in the West Bank and Gaza (in contrast to UNRWA staffing in Jordan and Syria, where both countries employ vetting processes for prospective area staff members applying to work within their borders). The problems are many, including this one, as noted by Lindsay:

UNRWA’s 29,000 area staff members are overwhelmingly composed of agency registered Palestinian refugees—an oft-criticized arrangement. There are several obvious downsides to UNRWA using staff members drawn from the beneficiary population. At worst, such staff may be more concerned about beneficiaries’ objectives than UNRWA’s. They can also be manipulated more easily than staff who are not beneficiaries, whether by argument or threat, to distort the agency’s objectives.

These are not hypothetical concerns. Back in October 2004, then-Commissioner-General of UNRWA Peter Hansen unapologetically admitted to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) that the UN employs members of Hamas. “Oh, I am sure that there are Hamas members on the UNRWA payroll,” Hansen stated, “and I don’t see that as a crime.” According to Hansen, “Hamas as a political organization does not mean that every member is a militant, and we do not do political vetting and exclude people from one persuasion as against another.” In his comments to CBC, Hansen also insisted that UNWRA staff members, “whatever their political persuasion,” are required to “behave in accordance with UN standards and norms for neutrality.”

But as I wrote at the time, this does not always appears to be the case:

Building on Peter Hansen’s statement that the behavior of all UNRWA employees must conform with “UN standards and norms for neutrality,” the United States should work with the UN to develop, apply, and monitor a set of professional standards to ensure that UN offices, equipment, and personnel are not exploited for terrorist purposes. A logical starting point would be to ask employees to sign an antiterror pledge such as the “Certificate Regarding Terrorist Financing” already required by all recipients of U.S. Agency for International Development funding. As a member of the Quartet, the UN has a special obligation to uphold the commitment outlined in the Roadmap to dismantle terrorist capabilities and infrastructure. In an effort to insulate good works from terrorist infiltration and exploitation, Washington should stand ready to help the UN live up to this obligation by funding an “Office of Professional Standards” for the UNRWA and similar agencies.

USAID. According to the USAID website, the agency “plays a vital role in promoting U.S. national security, foreign policy, and the War on Terrorism.” Toward these goals—and considering that several agency-approved aid recipients have been linked to terrorist groups in recent years—USAID’s proposed partner-vetting system (PVS) was a welcome and overdue development. Unfortunately, it remains unimplemented.

An aid organization by nature and design, USAID is focused more on dispersing aid than on vetting the partner and sub-partner organizations through which that aid is distributed on the ground. As a result, its otherwise laudable record is tainted by a series of awards to entities with established ties to terrorist groups, including Hamas-controlled zakat (charity) committees and the Islamic University of Gaza (IUG).

For example, documents made public in the prosecution of the Holy Land Foundation and several of its leaders—ultimately convicted on all counts related to their providing material support for Hamas—reveal that as recently as December 2002, USAID “cleared” several charity committees to receive funding despite information publicly tying them to Hamas. These included the main committees in the West Bank towns of Jenin, Qalqilya, Hebron, Tulkarem, and Nablus, as well as the al-Tadhoman committee, also in Nablus. But a year earlier, in a November 2001 memorandum sent to the Treasury Department, the FBI had cited detailed information documenting Hamas links among the first five of these committees. Documents seized from Palestinian offices by Israeli forces in March 2002 and made public shortly thereafter revealed further links.

In March 2007, then-USAID administrator Randall Tobias was called before Congress to explain why the agency had provided more than $140,000 to the Hamas-controlled Islamic University of Gaza. In response, he described the “very thorough vetting process that takes place.” But despite State Department assertions that the USAID vetting process is thorough, several deficiencies explain how funding mistakes still occur.

In its most significant shortcoming, USAID often ran trace requests on individuals and organizations without sufficient identifier information such as date and place of birth (DPOB) or government-issued identification numbers. According to a 2006 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, “until June 2006, the [Tel Aviv] mission did not routinely collect detailed identifying information on individuals, such as [DPOB], or verify that information.” At the embassy in Tel Aviv, several interoffice memoranda documenting trace requests concluded that “no derogatory information was uncovered” despite acknowledging—in bold font—that “these trace requests are less than comprehensive.” The memoranda (made public in the Holy Land case) added that “without additional information on individuals (DPOB, ID number, full name) our reviews will be less than complete.” Despite this disclaimer, the individuals and organizations in question were approved to receive USAID awards.

A random probability sampling conducted by GAO revealed that 94 percent of all memoranda “characterized the vetting based on only the four-part name as less than comprehensive.” USAID did not even establish procedures to verify the accuracy of individual’s names, such as requiring some official identification document.

Moreover, in March 2006, the USAID mission in Tel Aviv eliminated a requirement to periodically reevaluate aid recipients after initial clearance. Terrorist associations often develop gradually, however, and this procedural change made it impossible for USAID to identify late-emerging links on its own. According to the 2006 GAO report, officials in the Tel Aviv mission claimed that “new information in 2005 showed possible links to terrorists, including Hamas, for six organizations that previously had been cleared.” Indeed, it should come as no surprise that terrorist elements might deliberately seek to penetrate previously cleared organizations.

In addition, USAID’s dollar-threshold policy leaves some recipients subject to no vetting at all. From 2001 to 2003, the threshold was $25,000—grantees awarded anything less than that sum were not vetted. In July 2003, the Tel Aviv mission raised the threshold to $100,000, in part because it feared that vetting requirements hampered its ability to deliver urgently needed humanitarian aid. As a result, according to the GAO report, no vetting was conducted on foreign organizations and individuals tied to thirty-four contracts totaling some $2.1 million between August 2003 and February 2006. The threshold was changed back to $25,000 in March 2006.

The GAO report also revealed that foreign service nationals—local, non-American embassy employees—had access to unsecured vetting data and, in at least one case, developed the database for recording and tracking vetting results. The database had several flaws, including important fields left blank or filled with inappropriate information.

As I wrote in August 2007, the proposed partner-vetting system is necessary to remedy flaws such as those found in Tel Aviv. It would require applicants for USAID funding to submit identifying information on principal officers and other employees. As recent failures make clear, effective screening is impossible without sufficient identifier information. But even with sufficient information, meaningful traces must be run not only against the full range of publicly available information—clearly not done with the IUG and Hamas charity committees—but also against classified intelligence and law enforcement databases. Improved information sharing between USAID and security agencies will be critical for this to succeed. U.S. law, including Executive Order 13224 and existing statutory requirements for USAID vetting, demands the implementation of a reliable system.

Aid organizations may protest the extra administrative burden, but the critical need to provide humanitarian aid in conflict zones must be balanced with the inherent risk that terrorist groups will try to benefit from that aid. A truly robust system of vetting USAID partners is vital to promoting U.S. foreign policy and facilitating continued U.S. aid in places such as the West Bank and Gaza. The proposed PVS deserves public and private sector support and should be fully implemented as quickly as possible.

Unfortunately, while USAID first published the proposed rule for the PVS in July 2007, and a final rule was just published in the Federal Register on January 2, 2009, the proposed vetting system is still being vigorously opposed within USAID and other parts of the U.S. interagency. President Obama, however, will have the opportunity to rectify USAID’s vetting shortcomings. As the final notice in the Federal Register notes, “The decision as to whether to implement PVS will be made by the incoming Obama Administration.” The final rule is scheduled to go into effect February 2, 2009.

Both UNRWA and USAID do important work, and in the current environment are especially important players. That they both need significant improvement should be reason for increased focus and attention, not despair. There is no better place to start than with the implementation of the new USAID Partner Vetting System and the many detailed policy prescriptions offered in James Lindsay’s excellent study on UNRWA.

Even under geographic siege and financial sanction, Hamas was still able to smuggle some 80 tons of explosives, roadside bombs and longer-range rockets into Gaza over the course of the past ceasefire. Were it not for that success, Hamas would not have been able to continue firing rockets at southern Israeli communities, let alone effectively control Gaza. Denied access to regular trade routes and international banking, Hamas developed alternative mechanisms such as an extensive network of smuggling tunnels, taxes and custom fees, and increases reliance on charitable front organizations.

But Hamas is not the only terrorist group proactively looking for ways to evade international sanction. Today, the Treasury Department designated the Waad Project (logo pictured) as a terrorist entity, describing it as a Hezbollah-run construction firm. According to information released by the Treasury Department, the Waad Project built underground weapons storage facilities and other military infrastructure for Hezbollah in Lebanon. Its website directed viewers to telephone numbers for those wishing to donate aid to Hezbollah, Jihad al-Bina, and the Martyrs Association, the latter two both previously designated as terrorist entities for providing material support to Hezbollah. The Waad Project has tried to hide its affiliation with Hezbollah, employing deceptive means to seek funding projects from international development organizations, according to Treasury.

This should not surprise. As my colleague Michael Jacobson and I wrote in our recent study “The Money Trail,” terrorist front groups often respond to the exposure of their activities by attempting to distance themselves from the alleged illegal activity and engage in otherwise legitimate endeavors to paint themselves in a more benign light. Against international efforts to combat terrorism, in which much of the information used to designate individuals and organizations as terrorist entities remains classified, such legitimization campaigns take on even greater importance and utility.

Hezbollah, for example, employed deceptive means to seek funding for projects from international development organizations for its construction arm, Jihad al-Bina. According to the Treasury Department, “In cases when intended solicitation targets were thought to object to the group’s relationship with Hezbollah and the Iranian government, the organization employed deceptive practices, applying in the name of proxies not publicly linked to Hezbollah.” Similarly, in September 2006 the Treasury Department designated two Hezbollah-controlled financial institutions as terrorist entities, Bayt al-Mal and the Yousser Company for Finance and Investment. Bayt al-Mal served as a bank, creditor, and investment arm for Hezbollah, according to Treasury, and used the Yousser Company to secure loans and finance business deals for the group’s companies. And in November 2006, the Italian press reported that a ship said to be carrying refrigerators to Lebanon was impounded in Cyprus after it was found to contain eighteen trucks with mobile anti-aircraft radars and other vehicle-mounted monitoring equipment.

Given that its proxies Hezbollah and Hamas engage in deceptive financial practices to fund their illicit activities, it should not surprise that Iran itself engages in similar deception to conceal the nature of its sponsorship of terrorist groups. Iran has used Bank Saderat as a preferred means of transferring funds to terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah, Hamas, PIJ, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine–General Command. The Treasury Department revealed one case in which Iran sent $50 million to a Hezbollah-controlled organization between 2001 and 2006.

In terms of the current fighting in Gaza, dealing with Iran’s parallel support of Hamas—be it through smuggling tunnels, “charitable” front organizations, or otherwise—will have to be a central focus of any international ceasefire plan.

U.S. and international efforts to combat terrorist financing are a little understood—and often under-appreciated—aspect of the global counterterrorism campaign. With this in mind, soon after rejoining The Washington Institute after serving in the Treasury Department’s Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, Michael Jacobson and I decided that it would be worthwhile to conduct a comprehensive study of this issue. At the Treasury Department Mike had served as senior advisor to the Assistant Secretary for intelligence and analysis; I was Deputy Assistant Secretary for intelligence and analysis.

On our return to academia, we spent well over a year researching and then writing this study. It is based on open source information, including media reports, reports by U.S. and foreign governments and international organizations, congressional testimony, and perhaps most important, our field research and interviews. During the course of our research, we interviewed some seventy-five people, ranging from U.S. and foreign government officials to officials in key international organizations such as the United Nations, International Monetary Fund, and the Financial Action Task Force, as well as academics and financial experts in the private sector. While many of the interviews took place in Washington and New York, we also spent considerable time abroad, including multiple trips to Europe and the Middle East. During one extended research trip to the Persian Gulf, we met with government officials, bankers, and industry and academic experts.

The study not only explains the threat of terrorist financing and the efforts of governments and international organizations to address it, but also assesses the effectiveness of these efforts. We offer, in addition, our thoughts as to what steps the United States could take to improve international efforts in this area. With the Obama administration clearly committed to an “all elements of national power” strategy to deal with threats to U.S. national security, effective non-kinetic tools such as this one are likely to receive more, not less, attention. We hope that this study helps inform the public debate on this important topic, which has not always received the attention it deserves. Better understanding both the threat and our response is critical to determining what role combating terrorist financing should play in our overall counterterrorism efforts and what changes should be made to our current approach to make it still more effective.

Among the issues addressed in this study are:

• Are efforts to combat terror financing an efficient or effective use of our limited resources?
• How significant a role should efforts to combat terror finance play as part of the global counterterrorism campaign?
• How have terrorist shifted their terrorist financing techniques in response to international efforts to combat it and how rapidly is the threat of terror financing evolving?
• What steps have U.S. and international partners taken to combat terrorist financing and what challenges remain?
• How effective have U.S. and international efforts to combat terror financing been? Are there specific signs of success in an area in which progress is often difficult to measure?
• What is the status of terror financing for different groups—like Al Qaeda, Hezbollah and Hamas—that operate in different environments?

Finally, we offer the incoming administration a set or practical recommendations to bolster the international regime in this critically important area.

Overall, the United States and its international partners have enjoyed considerable success in the CFT arena. In December 2005, the 9/11 Commission’s Public Discourse Project (PDP) issued its final report grading U.S. government compliance with the 9/11 Commission’s recommendations. The project gave the government an “A–”—the report’s highest mark—for its “vigorous efforts to combat terrorist financing.” A variety of anecdotes support the PDP’s assessment, suggesting that the CFT efforts are making a difference, not only in constricting the environment for terrorist financing, but also by serving as a valuable intelligence tool for the government. In other words, freezing terrorist funds has proven to be an effective means of disrupting terrorist activity, while following the money has enabled investigators to uncover previously unknown links between terrorist operatives and even thwart attacks.

Combating terrorist financing, we conclude, must remain an important component of every country’s counterterrorism strategy, and maintaining international focus and cooperation on this issue is essential. While the challenges are great, the potential benefits are significant. Similarly, failure to build a truly international regime to counter terrorist financing guarantees that the successes seen in this arena to date will be short-lived. And there should be no doubt that if terrorist groups are able to raise, move, store, and gain access to funds with relative ease, the threat they pose to the United States and its allies will increase dramatically.

The full study is available here as a free download (pdf).

“The participation of armed groups in elections is problematic. But the lesson is not that there should not be elections. Rather, there should be standards, like the ones to which the international community has held Hamas after the fact: you can be a terrorist group or you can be a political party, but you cannot be both. As difficult as this problem is, it cannot be the case that people are denied the right to vote just because the outcome might be unpleasant to us. Although we cannot know whether politics will ultimately deradicalize violent groups, we do know that excluding them from the political process grants them power without responsibility. This is yet another challenge that the leaders and the peoples of the broader Middle East must resolve as the region turns to democratic processes and institutions to resolve differences peacefully and without repression.”

Condoleezza Rice, “Rethinking the National Interest: American Realism for a New World,” Foreign Affairs, July/August 2008.

From Robert Satloff

Secretary Rice is a powerful intellect with an impressive grasp of a broad range of issues, but on the question of providing access to the democratic process for armed groups that refuse to renounce their violent goals and their violence means, she has a blind spot. In this passage, for example, she mischaracterizes the situation with respect to the Palestinian election of January 2006 and the U.S. decision to press for Hamas’ inclusion.

The facts of the situation were as follows:

• The West Bank and Gaza have been, since 1967, under Israel’s military occupation. While one can debate certain aspects of that occupation, including settlement policy, one cannot debate the fact that Israel is under no requirement to permit political activity of terrorist groups committed to its destruction.

• The Palestinian Authority and all its relevant institutions, including the Palestinian Legislative Council, were established by virtue of agreement between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization. Their existence and their legitimacy derive solely from those agreements.

• Annex II, article III, paragraph 2 of the Israeli-Palestinian Agreement of 1995 states the following: “The nomination of any candidates, parties or coalitions will be refused, and such nomination or registration once made will be canceled, if such candidates, parties or coalitions: commit or advocate racism; or pursue the implementation of their aims by unlawful or non-democratic means.”

• Whatever ancillary social welfare activities Hamas may undertake, its raison d’etre is the destruction of Israel and the principal means it has chosen to achieve that objective is terrorism.

Given the above, it is a mischaracterization of the situation to suggest that excluding Hamas from the election would have meant that, as Secretary Rice argues, “people are denied the right to vote just because the outcome might be unpleasant to us.” That was never the issue. The issue was that the Bush Administration pressed Israel and the Palestinian Authority to disregard their agreed legal framework for holding elections and to permit Hamas’ participation. Indeed, there were rules—and we flouted them.

Scholars, experts and policymakers are engaged in a legitimate debate over whether Islamist parties—i.e., parties whose main objective is the imposition of Shariah law—can evolve into democratic parties. By that I mean not just parties “willing to play by democratic rules” but parties that embrace democracy, which by its very nature means that men and women, not divinity, determine the law of the land. This is the debate surrounding the PJD in Morocco, the AK Party in Turkey and other Islamist parties. A subset of that debate is whether the same evolutionary process applies to Islamist terrorist groups, such as Hamas.

However, that debate, I repeat, was never the issue in the Bush Administration’s decision to compel Hamas’ inclusion in the Palestinian elections of January 2006. At issue was whether the Administration recognized the supremacy of (to recall Al Gore’s famous words) the “controlling legal authority”—the Oslo Accords—or to urge its local partners to disregard the law. It chose the latter. To suggest otherwise is revisionist history.

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From Matthew Levitt

In 1993 I was a graduate student focusing on the Middle East, international security studies, and negotiation theory and conflict resolution. In many ways, events of the day—that is, the just-signed Oslo Accords—forced upon me what became a decade-and-a-half-long study of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. This particular peace process, however, was simply the most relevant and immediate case study available to me as I set out to develop a theory of conflict management applied to ongoing negotiations over protracted social conflicts. So, with the support of a graduate fellowship from the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, I set out for Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and Washington (the last being the most dangerous, by far), and conducted over seventy interviews of Israeli, Palestinian and American negotiators, decision-makers and intelligence and security officials.

My working hypothesis—no great leap of genius—was that spoilers will always seek to undermine peace processes through acts of violence. But is there anything that can be done to insulate ongoing negotiations from the impact of these security crises and preserve peace talks in the face of terror attacks? Of course, this assumes the parties are truly committed to pursuing peace and are ultimately willing to make sometimes painful concessions and then sell them at home to their constituencies. That may or may not be the case in any given peace process, including past and present efforts to secure a negotiated settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But let’s just say, for argument’s sake, that Israeli and Palestinian leaders truly dedicate themselves to making peace, and the biggest obstacles they face are radical extremist groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad or Kach and Kahana Chai. Sure, it’s a leap of faith, but the journey led to some interesting findings. And, as the international community tries to reinvigorate Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking, these questions are of critical importance.

And yet, they remained unanswered even though they are not new, as the crises examined in Negotiating Under Fire make clear. A year into the Oslo Peace Process, in February 1994, Israeli and Palestinian negotiators were making slow but steady progress when Baruch Goldstein entered a Hebron shrine and massacred 29 Muslims at prayer. On October 9 of that year, just weeks after the signing of an accord transferring a litany of powers and responsibilities to the nascent Palestinian Authority, Hamas terrorists kidnapped and later assassinated Nachshon Wachsman, a young Israel corporal and dual Israel-U.S. citizen. And in February and March 1996, following the smooth handover of major Palestinian cities to Palestinian control, Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists conducted a string of suicide bus bombings killing 63 and wounding 238 over a nine-day period.

The Oslo peace process continued in fits and starts until September 2000, when it collapsed in the wake of the failed Camp David Summit of that month. This ushered in six years of violence unprecedented even in the Israeli-Palestinian context. In January 2006, Palestinian politics was turned on its head when the militant Islamist group Hamas defeated the long-dominant Fatah party in national elections and assumed majority control of the governing Palestinian Authority. For the vast majority of Israelis, the Hamas victory, coming just months after Israel’s complete withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, reinforced the already dominant view that unilateral moves, like building a fence in and along the West Bank, are the only answer to the perceived absence of a credible Palestinian peace partners. This position was still further reinforced after the Hamas takeover of Gaza in June 2007.

The impact of acute security crises on ongoing negotiations represents one of the most significant yet under-researched facets of modern conflict resolution theory. Ironically, it also stands out as the factor most likely to derail inherently sensitive negotiations. These events unleash waves of public opposition to the very idea of sitting down to negotiate with those perceived as responsible for the crisis. How can decision-makers cope with such incredible challenges? How are they to answer these challenges so that their constituents acknowledge their continued authority and legitimacy as negotiators? How can decision-makers remain credible partners in the eyes of their negotiating partners in the wake of such events?

Focusing on three types of legitimacy—decision-makers’ authority as negotiators for their constituencies, the legitimacy of their policy of pursuing negotiations, and their credibility in the eyes of the other party—provides an analytical framework to study the changes in the negotiating environment that result from acute security crises in ongoing negotiations. Understanding how decision-makers perceive such attacks, and the means by which they undermine the legitimacy of peace negotiations, provides the foundation for a practical set of recommendations to preemptively insulate peace talks from acts of terror that are bound to occur, and a theory of crisis management on how to contain them when they do.

Unlike my last book on Hamas, Negotiating Under Fire discusses terrorist attacks but is not about terrorism. And despite the downward trajectory of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, this is an optimistic study. That’s because the book is not really about that particular conflict. As an academic discourse on resolving protracted social conflicts, it gives reason to hope. It all comes down to decision-makers’ willingness and ability to make difficult decisions and sell them at home—albeit easier said than done.

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Fifteen years from now, when classified documents produced today begin to be declassified, we will surely look back with some discomfort and see just how far off some of our judgments were when written in 2008. Such is the nature of intelligence assessments. What would be worse, however, would be for us to look back fifteen years hence and find ourselves stuck in much the same place we are today.

This reflection is prompted by reading a recently declassified August 1993 report, “The Wandering Mujahidin: Armed and Dangerous,” written by the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR). Its subject was the possible spillover effect of Afghan Mujahidin fighters and support networks moving on to fight in other jihad conflicts, alongside other militant Islamic groups worldwide. Much of the report could be applied to the themes Daniel Byman raises in a recent post on this blog, about Al Qaeda in Iraq.

For example, writing in 2008 Byman notes that “fighters who went to Iraq learned a new set of capabilities that are now dispersed to the far corners of the earth.” Compare that to the 1993 report, which found that “the support network that funneled money, supplies, and manpower to supplement the Afghan Mujahidin is now contributing experienced fighters to militant Islamic groups worldwide.” When these veteran fighters dispersed, the report presciently predicted, “their knowledge of communications equipment and experiences in logistics planning will enhance the organizational and offensive capabilities of the militant groups to which they are returning.”

Writing in 2008, Byman very rightly noted that “many of the foreign fighters in Iraq will go home, and even small numbers of fighters may radicalize and change the orientation of existing local groups, as happened with Fatah al-Islam in Lebanon.” A section of the 1993 report, entitled “When the Boys Come Home,” noted that these veteran volunteer fighters “are welcomed as victorious Muslim fighters of a successful jihad against a superpower” and “have won the respect of many Muslims—Arab and non-Arab—who venerate the jihad.”

At that time, these Mujahidin returned to Yemen, Egypt, Sudan, Algeria, Libya and beyond, where they trained local militants and further radicalized local groups. Libya, the 1993 report notes, was once one of the largest backers of Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar (since then designated a terrorist by the United States and the UN) but “now fears the returning veterans and has lashed out publicly against them.” Indeed, several of these Libyan veterans formed the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) and became senior members of core Al Qaeda. In 2006, the U.S. government would note that “The Libyan Islamic Fighting Group threatens global safety and stability through the use of violence and its ideological alliance with al Qaida and other brutal terrorist organizations.”

The 1993 report describes several trends that remain issues of serious concern today, including some of the same streams of financial support that continue to finance today’s militant Islamist groups. To the present-day reader, who will digest this 1993 report with an eye towards the conflict in Iraq, perhaps the most disturbing analytical judgement (which could have been pulled out of a current National Intelligence Estimate), is this:

The war-era network of state sponsors and private patrons which continues to support the mujahidin has no rigid structure and no clearly defined command center, but receives guidance from several popular Islamic leaders and financial support from charitable Islamic organizations and wealthy individuals. Key figures who have emerged as the mentors of the mujahidin provide one another with the contacts and conduits needed to keep the militant groups they support in business.

The network circa 1993 was not an exact parallel to today’s combination of Al Qaeda operatives (a smaller but no less committed cadre) and like-minded followers of a virtually-networked, leaderless jihad. But the 1993 warning of an unstructured network of jihadists moving on from their current area of operations to other battlefronts could have been written this morning.

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