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Conference to Combat Terror Financing Under Way in Paris

by Associated Press

   PARIS --

   Better information-sharing between countries, law enforcement agencies,
   financial services companies and the tech industry will help combat
   financing for the Islamic State group and al-Qaida, a senior
   international official said Thursday.

   Daniel Lewis, executive secretary of the intergovernmental Financial
   Action Task Force said he is hoping for concrete action from an
   international conference on terror financing that brings together
   ministers from more than 70 countries in Paris -- which still bears the
   scars of recent deadly terror attacks.
   "When we have information -- for example the U.N. list of individuals
   and entities financing terrorism -- we need to make sure measures like
   asset freezing are implemented fully and quickly,'' Lewis told the AP.
   Participants scheduled to take part in Thursday's international
   conference include countries that have accused each other of funding
   terrorism, notably in the Persian Gulf.

   The event was convened by French President Emmanuel Macron to
   coordinate efforts to reduce the terror threat in the long term. A
   string of attacks have killed 245 people in France since January 2015
   and dozens of others have been thwarted.
   France is pushing for international coordination and more transparency
   in financial transactions. But it recognizes how sensitive the issue
   is, and sees the conference as a first step to encourage political
   mobilization.
   The French organizers noted that IS military defeats on the ground
   don't prevent the group from pursuing its terrorist activities, along
   with al-Qaida -- especially in unstable regions of Afghanistan,
   Malaysia, the Philippines, Yemen, Egypt and sub-Saharan Africa.
   Terror groups don't only rely on the cash economy -- they're using
   increasingly using hard-to-track tools like prepaid cards, online
   wallets and crowdfunding operations, French officials say.
   The IS group also has invested in businesses and real estate to ensure
   its financing. Islamic State revenues alone were estimated at $2.5
   billion between 2014 and 2016, according to the French president's
   office.
   Most of the attacks in Western countries do not cost a lot of money,
   but terror groups "behave like big organizations... It costs a lot to
   recruit, train, equip people and spread propaganda," a French official
   said. He was speaking anonymously under the presidency's customary
   practice ahead of the meeting.
   The French counterterrorism prosecutor Francois Molins told FranceInfo
   radio that IS uses micro-financing technics to collect a great number
   of small amounts of money.
   Work with the financial intelligence unit helped identifying 416 people
   in France who have donated money to the IS group over the last two
   years, he said.
   Money went to "320 collectors mostly based in Turkey and Lebanon from
   whom jihadis in Iraq and Syria could receive funds," he added.
   Funding to extremist groups in the Middle East once flowed freely
   across the region's informal money-transfer shops and in donations made
   in mosques when traveling clerics issued special appeals during
   sermons.
   In recent years, the U.S. and other Western nations have encouraged
   Middle Eastern nations to close off those sources. However, allegations
   over extremist funding in part sparked a nearly yearlong boycott of
   Qatar by four Arab states. Qatar denies funding extremists, though it
   has faced Western criticism about being lax in enforcing rules, as has
   Saudi Arabia.
   U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, IMF chief Christine Lagarde,
   Saudi Foreign Minister Abdel Al Jubeir and Qatari Foreign Minister
   Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani were among dignitaries
   scheduled to take part in Thursday's meeting.
   Participants are expected to issue a final declaration that should
   encourage countries to improve their domestic practices to "effectively
   collect, exchange and analyze financial intelligence," the French
   presidency said.
   In closing the conference, Macron is expected to call for a collective,
   multilateral response as the only way to eradicate or at least reduce
   the global threat.