Muslim charities support of terror going covert

NY Times:

Once again, with another alleged terror plot that has a possible connection to a charity, the question is being asked here, with more urgency: To what extent do Muslim charities — on the surface noble and selfless — mask movements and money for terrorists and extremist groups?

The question has a long history, here and in the United States, but no precise answer. A quick bottom line, though, seems to be this:

Charitable groups, experts agree, continue to play a role in the financing and operations surrounding terrorist groups and plots. But with more scrutiny since the Sept. 11 attacks — demonization, the charities say — the role of charities seems to be changing: diminishing somewhat but also growing more subtle and harder to detect.

“Anyone who has bothered to study terrorist financing at the most shallow level knows the role that charities have played since 1985,” said Evan F. Kohlmann, an American expert on terrorism who acts as a consultant to American and British prosecutors. “Even if charities aren’t playing a primary role, it is almost certain that they are playing a secondary role.”

But beyond the first glance, the question grows in complexity, not least because of the vastly different approaches to Muslim charities in the United States and Britain. Since Sept. 11, American officials have banned many charities that still operate freely in Britain, reflecting a disagreement about where charity ends and extremism begins.

“The approach in America is very much to prevent the worst, whereas in Britain the approach is to encourage the best,” said Peter Neumann, director of the Center for Defense Studies at King’s College in London.

In short, he said, the British have tended to judge a charity on its track record in providing relief more than its possible ties to extremists.

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But most speculation has centered on a small charity, Crescent Relief, founded by the family of two suspects said to be at the center of the recent plot. One was arrested here and, according to news reports, released on Wednesday; the other was arrested in Pakistan. Another suspect was listed last fall in a British newspaper as the local contact for the charity as it collected money for Kashmir earthquake victims.

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“Who pays for tickets?” Mr. Kohlmann asked. “Who provides a good excuse, or a good reason, to travel from the U.K. to Pakistan? They also provide a cover story. They provide documents — and that is what they have always done in conflicts from Afghanistan to Bosnia-Herzegovina to the Caucasus to Iraq.”

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It appears taht the UK approach has not made them safer. The charity issue also points how much the terrorist benefit with their meme of being on a mission from God. This cynical use of religion along with an appeal to the religious bigotry of some Muslims is at the heart of the terrorist movement. The UK needs to get serious about ripping it out of their culture.