More Designations on Zarqawi, and Zarate Testifies

By Douglas Farah

It seems the United States is slowly making progress in idenifying at least some of the financial supporters of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. On Tuesday the Treasury Department designated Muhsin al-Fadhi as a terrorist financier. Al-Fadhi fought in Chechnya and Afghanistan. U.S. officials said that, in order to solidify the support of potential backers for Zarqawi, al-Fadhi asked that tapes be made of attacks in the field. Al Fadhi also allegedly raised money in Kuwait for the al Qaeda attack on the MV Limburg on Oct. 6, 2002, where the oil tanker was damaged, one person killed and 50,000 barrels of crude oil released. The entire press release can be found here.

The designation comes four weeks after the public identification of Sulayman Khalid Darwish, a Syrian, as a terrorist financier. He was the first person to be designated for directly offering financial support to the Zarqawi network (Jama'at al Tawid al Jihad) in Iraq.

Unfortunately, identifying the people is only the first step--a big one, but one that carries little weight in actually shutting down networks. the designation allows for the freezing of U.S. assets, which al-Fadhi is unlikely to have. Putting him on the U.N. Consolidated List of designated individuals also only allows for assets to be frozen. However, little is actually done with that list, and most countries appear unaware it even exists. So, while it is nice to know we have a better handle on how resources are flowing, the information will have little impact unless it leads either to the cutting off of financial support for Zarqawi, or useful intelligence that will lead to a greater understanding of the financial structure of the al Qaeda network in Iraq. I hope it is one or the other.

In a hearing today before the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, Juan Zarate, Treasury's assistant secretary for Terrorist Financing, had this to say about diamonds: "The illicit diamond trade provides an instructive illustration of how terrorists could abuse the precious commodities industry to fund their efforts." For the full blog on this, and more on Viktor Bout, go here.

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