Counterterrorism Blog

Speaking today at a meeting sponsored by the IMF and World Bank of numerous finance ministers and treasury officials, a senior U.S. Treasury Department official criticized the international failure to stop terrorist financing. Daniel Glaser told the group of officials that the failure to implement the U.N. Security Council resolutions to stop al Qaeda and other terrorist financing "is probably the least understood and most poorly implemented component" of anti-money laundering and counter-financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) controls worldwide. worldwide. "These failures range not only from countries that do not have the capacity to block terrorist assets, but also to entire regions of the world that do not even attempt to implement this UN requirement (emphasis mine)...too many countries have taken little or no action to block the assets of other terrorist groups as specifically required by UNSCR 1373." This follows an op-ed on August 31 by the top U.S. Treasury official in this area, Under Secretary Stuart Levey (Acrobat file), in which he wrote, "Some governments, in Europe and elsewhere, have refrained from bringing terror supporters to the Security Council's attention, even when these individuals were known to be supporting al-Qaeda within their own borders. Additionally, too many countries limit compliance simply to adding designated names to a domestic "list" with no mechanisms to ensure that the sanctions are actually being enforced."

We've been highly critical of the continued failure of our "allies" to take real action (see these Doug Farah and Victor Comras posts as examples). It's good to see bold criticism by Bush Administration officials of our "allies" who talk a good game but won't "walk the walk." Hopefully that will be backed up by action, especially when we see clear examples of those same allies, such as the Saudis, when they allow its citizens to provide material support for terrorism live on their own TV.