The terrorist attacks on the transportation system in London in July 2005 killed 52 innocent people but only cost about $15,000 to carry out. Even the 9/11 attacks — the largest-scale terrorist plot in history — cost less than $500,000, according to the 9/11 commission report. Unfortunately, cutting off all funding for terrorist organizations is next to impossible.
But the Obama administration would be wise to retain targeting of terrorists’ financing as a key part the US government’s counter-terrorism tool kit.
Although mounting a terrorist attack is relatively inexpensive, the cost of maintaining a terrorist infrastructure is high. Terrorist networks need cash to train, equip and pay operatives and their families, and to promote their causes. Recruiting, training, traveling, bribing corrupt officials and other such activities also cost money. Limiting their ability to raise funds, therefore, limits their ability to function.
Before 9/11, Al-Qaeda’s annual budget was an estimated $30 million, according to the CIA — hardly an insubstantial sum. And documents seized by the US military indicate that the group Al-Qaeda in Iraq, or AQI, has also been expensive to run. For example, one of its branches spent about $175,000 over four months in 2007 — with only about half going to weapons.
Perhaps an even better indicator of the importance of money to these networks is how much attention finances command from the terrorist groups themselves. Sheikh Sa’id, the head of Al-Qaeda’s finance committee in 2001, was “notoriously tightfisted,” according to a 9/11 commission report. AQI brought the same approach to handling financial matters as its better known namesake — putting management controls in place to ensure that money was being spent carefully. Operatives were required to provide signed forms, acknowledging funds they received and justifying their expenditure. Efforts to disrupt terrorist groups’ finances can have a real effect. In 2005, Osama Bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman Al-Zawahri, wrote to Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, asking the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq if he could spare “approximately one hundred thousand” because “many of the lines have been cut off.”
Perhaps even more important than cutting off funding to terrorist groups may be the benefits of financial intelligence — better known as “following the money.” Definitively linking people with numbered accounts or specific money changers is a powerful pre-emptive tool, often leading authorities to conduits between terrorist organizations and individual cells. British authorities foiled a plot in the summer of 2006 to blow up airplanes over the Atlantic, thanks in large part to critical intelligence about the money trail. Financial intelligence also played an important role in the investigation leading to the capture of Hambali, Jemaah Islamiyah’s operations chief — the mastermind of the 2002 Bali bombings. And although following the money will not stop all attacks, it can frustrate some terrorist activity. In 1995, captured World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Ahmed Yousef was flown over the twin towers on his way to a New York jail. When an FBI agent pointed out that the towers were still standing, Yousef replied, “They wouldn’t be if I had enough money and explosives.”
Focusing on terrorist financing has other benefits as well. The prospect of being designated as a terrorist might deter some from financing terrorist activity. Major donors — who may be heavily involved in legitimate business activities — may think twice before putting their personal fortunes and their reputations at risk.
Ultimately, combating terrorist financing will not, in and of itself, defeat terrorism. But when employed with other counterterrorism tools as part of a broader strategy, it represents a powerful weapon in tackling the terrorist threat facing the nation today.
