* Identifying and Disrupting Funding and Support Networks Globally. The complexity of disrupting insurgency financing is clear, but can essentially be divided into two components: While internal financing clearly provides significant support for the Iraqi insurgency, the Treasury Department, and my testimony, focuses primarily on efforts to combat external insurgency financing.Ĭ. Furthermore, Iranian-backed proxy groups transfer funds and materiel provided directly by Iran into Iraq. FRE still inside Iraq, as well as indigenous tribes and local militias, also rely on local charities and mosques, local sympathizers, legitimate businesses, donations from middle-class Iraqi businessmen, and grassroots donors for support. * Criminal activities, such as kidnapping for ransom, possible narcotics trafficking, robbery, theft, extortion, smuggling, and counterfeiting (goods and currency).įormer Regime Elements fund their insurgency activities by using assets pilfered by the former Iraqi regime and secret accounts in other countries. * Funds provided by charities, Iraqi expatriates, and other deep pocket donors, primarily in the Gulf, but also in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iran, and Europe For example, the Zarqawi Network and other jihadist groups use a variety of classic al Qaida-type terrorist financing mechanisms, including: Insurgents draw on both external financing and on internal Iraqi sources of funds and materiel. The financing networks of the Iraqi insurgency are complex and diverse. * Indigenous tribal groups and local militias whose tribal loyalties, nationalist goals, or Islamist ideologies have caused them to engage in acts of violence against Coalition forces and the civilian population.ĭespite their different motivations, it appears that these groups are capable of tactical cooperation when it suits their purposes. This group includes senior officials of the former Saddam regime (particularly former Iraqi Ba'ath Party officials and members of the Iraqi military and security services), their family members, and agents and * Former Regime Elements (FRE)/Ba'athists. * Sunni jihadists, such as al Qaida-endorsed Abu Mus Al-Zarqawi and the Zarqawi network (aka Tanzim Qa`idat Al-Jihad Fi Bilad Al-Rafidayn or Al-Qaida of the Jihad in the Land of the Two Rivers), and the Ansar Al-Sunnah/Ansar Al-Islam network The Iraqi insurgency encompasses several distinct, but often overlapping groups: It is for this reason that combating insurgency financing has become a top priority of the Departments of the Treasury and Defense, and of the entire U.S. Following the money upstream and downstream can help us identify, locate, and disrupt the insurgents themselves, as well as their financial networks. Disrupting the flow of these funds provides an important means of combating the entire insurgency effort. Significant financing is required to secure the loyalty of network members and pay for salaries, coordination and organization, propaganda, housing, food, shelter, medical care, and transportation of foreign insurgency fighters into and throughout Iraq. However, it takes much more money to support the overarching insurgency/jihadist effort. For instance, suicide bombers and those who plant improvised explosive devices (IEDs) reportedly are paid only a few hundred dollars each. It has been said that single acts of violence may not require extensive financial resources. The groups responsible for conducting the Iraqi insurgency, like other terrorist organizations, require organization and logistical support. This is obviously a critical and worrisome matter, and I share with you, and with my counterparts at the Department of Defense, a sense of urgency in doing our utmost to disrupt the flow of funds to those seeking to attack our troops, coalition partners, and innocent civilians in Iraq. Chairwoman Kelly, Chairman Saxton, Ranking Members Guiterrez and Meehan, and distinguished Subcommittee members, thank you for inviting me to testify today before both subcommittees on the important issue of Iraqi insurgency financing, and the efforts of the Department of the Treasury, in conjunction with our interagency colleagues, to combat it.
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