The Unnoticed Success in Counter-Terrorism Financing

By Douglas Farah

As David Cohen, assistant secretary of Treasury for Terror Finance recently noted, the United States and its allies have enjoyed some under appreciated success in cutting off the finances of al Qaeda and other radical Islamist groups, a goal that once seemed far out of reach.

As Cohen noted in a recent speech, "In the first six months of this year, al Qaida's leaders made four public appeals for money, including one in June of this year, when an al Qaida leader announced that a lack of funding was hurting the group's recruitment and training. We assess that al Qaida is in its weakest financial condition in several years, and that, as a result, its influence is waning."

This is interesting not only for what it says, but for what it implies. Core al Qaeda does not need vast amounts of money to operate. The amounts are significant, but not what they were al Qaeda core could help finance and direct franchise operations. This means that not even the relatively small sums needed are getting to al Qaeda's leadership.

This has been one of the most interesting success stories about what has gone right in the inter-agency process, and forward thinking that is often absent. Given that I have frequently commented on the short-coming in these two areas -- inter-agency cooperation and lack of adaptability and innovation in the intelligence, military and law enforcement communities, it is only fair to note this success.

Much of the current success began in Iraq, and the Special Operations programs there of collecting tactical financial intelligence on the ground during operations. This not only led to the unraveling of numerous financial networks that fed Al Qaeda in Iraq, it also shed new light on the funding sources and the major donors to the al Qaeda network.

The change in SOF strategy and conduct was deliberate and driven by forces on the ground, who integrated their findings into the inter-agency working group that includes Treasury and other entities with financial specialization. As intelligence accumulates and is exploited, it yields more intelligence and more success. This has been the case in going after core al Qaeda's revenue stream.

Fortunately Cohen was honest enough acknowledge the rest of the picture: The Taliban, with its access to drug money, is not weakened, and is in fact in a far greater position of strength than al Qaeda. My full blog is here.