Means v/s Ends

Caution: This write-up is not intended to find ways to root terrorism or suggest any ways either. This is a sincere attempt to analyze the working of a terrorist organization, and see what best can be derived from it to improve the generic state of legitimacy amongst organizations. 








Terrorism has always been discussed at various levels in any country, depending on the incidences that have happened and affected its operations.



This is the meaning which you find in Wiktionary –

terrorism (usually uncountable; plural terrorisms)

1. The deliberate commission of an act of violence to create an emotional response through the suffering of the victims in the furtherance of a political or social agenda.
   
2. Violence against civilians to achieve military or political objectives.
   
3. A psychological strategy of war for gaining political or religious ends by deliberately creating a climate of fear among the population of a state.
   

But let's see terrorism as a product of a group of people called terrorists. The working of these organizations is no joke, and the brinkmanship involved in managing these organizations is the challenge.




Through this blog-post, I intent to find answers to the 3 below questions –

1. What are the funding requirements and how is it made possible?
2. What are the spending areas?
3. What are the revenue streams?

First, the funding requirements can be classified into 2 areas –

1. Funding specific terrorist operations

   These costs include costs of precursor materials like vehicles, improvised bomb-making components, maps, surveillance, material etc.

2. Organizational costs to develop and maintain the infrastructure and to promote ideology.

   Terrorists organizations involved in geographical conflicts have a constant need of funds to support the organization and their activities in territories they control or act in. These may include things like –

• Salaries/subsistence.
  This includes individual operative's day-to-day expenses and perhaps of their dependants.
• Communication Systems
  This forms the heart of the organization. A cell would be generally present to facilitate communication with its members and perhaps the parent network.
• Travel, Training & Logistics
  Training of operatives continues to be an important investment, both in terms of ideological indoctrination and practical skills. The travel expenses include the procurement of false documentation. These travel expenses includes those which are spent on operatives to receive training or other forms of indoctrination prior to the operational phase of a plot.
• Shared funding
  When two or more organizations share a common ideology and goals, it may be called upon or feel compelled to share few resources like network capacities, etc.

These diverse funding requirements indicate that although individual terrorist's attacks can yield great damage at low financial cost, a significant infrastructure is required to sustain international terrorist networks and promote their goals over time. According to National Commission on Terrorist Attacks on the US, Al Qaeda is believed to have spent some USD 30 million per year prior to the September 11 attacks on funding operations, maintaining its training and military apparatus, contributing to the Taliban n high level officials, and sporadically contributing to the related terrorist organization.


So how do does organizations manage to get these funds? Let's be clear that these people are not dumb heads to get only from easily traceable resources. These organizations get funded through legitimate sources including charities, businesses, and through self-funding by terrorists and their associates. The concept, where legal funds, for example money stemming from collection by charities or governmental subsidies and social benefits, are diverted for purposes of radicalization, recruitment or terrorism is called "black-washing".


Charities are one of the key sources of funding. This is because, they enjoy public trust, have access to considerable sources of funds, and their activities are often cash-intensive. Furthermore, some charities have a global presence that provides a framework for national and international operations and financial transactions. Finally, charities are subject to significantly lighter regulatory requirements than financial institutions or publicly-held corporate entities, depending on the country and legal form of the charity and reflecting their principally non-financial role. Terrorist organizations use sham organizations to pose as legitimate charities to disguise terrorist financing activity and provide apparently legitimate explanations for links with terrorist groups.


Apart from these, there are the mundane ways of getting money through criminal activities like extortion, drug-trafficking and activities like cheque/ credit card frauds, etc.
The next thing which has been haunting me for a considerable time is how does the funds move in the organization. The literature developed on terrorist finance developed since 2001 has emphasized the great adaptability and opportunism that terrorists deploy in meeting their funding requirements. The most impressive part of the document is the answer to the question – "How do terrorists raise and move funds? "is "Anyway they can".


There were many cases which the document highlights that raising, moving and using of funds for terrorism can be especially challenging and almost indistinguishable from the financial activity associated with everyday life. The biggest challenge is that the connections between funds and terrorism can be extremely difficult to determine in the country of origin, when the terrorist-related activity itself takes place elsewhere. The movement of money can be judiciously classified as –

• Use of financial system.

  The speed and ease with which funds can be moved effectively within the international financial system allow terrorists to move funds effectively and often without detection between and within jurisdictions. Combined with other mechanisms such as offshore corporate entities, formal financial institutions can provide terrorists with the cover they need to conduct transactions and launder proceeds of crime when such activity goes undetected.

• Physical movement of money.

  This is one way is one way terrorists can move funds without encountering the AML/CFT safeguards established in financial institutions. The movement of cash across borders is prevalent in countries where the electronic banking system remains embryonic, or is little used in populace.

• Alternative Remittance Systems.

  Use of ARS is basically due to convenience and access. The role of ARS in terrorist financing may be primarily an "end-user" gateway; i.e. ways through which new or stored funds are passed to operational cells.

Now that we know why organizations need money, how organizations get money, spend money and finally how does the money flow in the global environment, let's see what can we derive.



A quick recap of funding requirements -



The funding requirements of modern terrorist groups are not just associated with conducting terrorists' attacks, but also with developing and maintaining a terrorist organization and its ideology are significant. Funds are required to promote a militant ideology (vision), pay operatives (onsite employees) and their families, arrange for their travel (travel request), train new members (fresher's induction program), forge documents, pay bribes(this happens in every corporate), acquire weapons (new development tools – ERP, SAAS, etc.), and stage attacks (projects running live).


If you observe things that are written in parenthesis, one would realize how working of a terrorist organization has similar to that of any other MNC. Infact the efficacy in which the terrorist organizations work has something for every other MNC to learn.


Many people have opined that Means and Ends are equally important. But the question which I pose here is – How we learn to effectively learn the usage of the means (how terrorist operate and perform) to achieve noble ends (what would a legitimate business work towards)?


I think the biggest learning for any legitimate business to from terrorist organizations is – "Come what may" attitude of terrorists. I also see the value behind the money which each terrorist outfit spends on the indoctrination. Do our institutions spend proportionately to spread their vision and values? Not Really!! Putting boards telling the vision n mission wouldn't suffice. Where is the osmosis?


Finally I would like to mention that, in course of finding the information to learn about the working of a terrorist organization, I got to come across several cases, but one thing struck the chord – Usage of orphanage money to kill people – this case study was a very disheartening one and it was an just one of several cases. If we can draw few points like dedication, "come what may" attitude from them – why can't they learn from us about more noble means..? (Well better said than done).