Washington, Jan 28 (IANS) Pakistan-based Islamic terrorist organisations are diversifying their fundraising tactics and finding ways to evade global oversight. These groups exploit humanitarian activities, mosques, rescue operations and wars to raise funds worldwide — including in the US, while spreading “militant Islamic messages” and bolstering terrorist activities, a report said on Wednesday.
“Pakistan has a checkered past when it comes to money laundering and terrorist financing. It has misled the international community on several occasions. It has failed to take corrective institutional actions which would suppress both terror financing and money laundering,” Turkish journalist Uzay Bulut wrote for American media outlet ‘PJ Media’.
Bulut noted that the terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) is fundraising under the guise of Gaza relief aid.
“Hammad Azhar, son of Masood Azhar, is leading JeM’s efforts to raise money for terror activities via Gaza Aid. He asks women in Gaza to make videos praising him for his charity works. His social media alias is Qaisar Ahmad, and he asks everyone to donate to his Easypaisa bank account under the name of Khalid Ahmed, a separate alias. He receives donations from Pakistan and Gulf countries,” the journalist wrote.
“Another new funding method JeM uses is mosque construction. JeM has reportedly launched a massive fundraising drive in Pakistan under the guise of building over 300 mosques,” the report mentioned.
Citing media reports, Bulut said, “The terror outfit started the online fundraising campaign through digital wallets to collect 3.91 billion Pakistani Rupees, that is $14 million US dollars, for constructing 313 new markaz (central) buildings”.
According to the report, another terrorist group, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), has switched to direct digital wallets to collect funds instead of bank accounts, in an effort to bypass scrutiny from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a global money laundering and terrorist financing watchdog.
Ultimately, the ideology driving these terror groups seeks the establishment of a global caliphate consisting of Islamic states, with the aim of expanding dominance over all non-Muslim nations, including the imposition of Sharia law.
“The world has seen many times what happens when Islamic supremacists and jihadists take control of a country – from the Muslim Brotherhood-ruled Egypt to Iran, Syria, Turkey, Afghanistan and Pakistan, amongst others,” the report noted
It questioned how alert the West is “to these terror groups and their new deceitful funding methods”, and more alarmingly, how driven the West is “to fight against those Islamist groups whose religiously motivated ambitions have not changed, and who have even gained significant success since the seventh century”.
–IANS
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