DAILY MAIL, LONDON July 18, 2005

MONDAY VIEW

Declare war on Economic Jihad

Matthew Kalman
The Daily Mail's correspondent in Israel

THEY call it Economic Jihad and it has to be stopped. Atrocities such as
the bomb attacks perpetrated in London 10 days ago do not happen in a
vacuum.
These outrages are the product of a culture so infused with hate that some
of its disciples would rather die, tearing down the society around them.
They go out and bomb the capital city of their own country, destroying lives
and families.

It all costs money - from the magazines, pamphlets and websites used to
spread the hatred, to the purchase of the explosives, hire cars and train
tickets used by the bombers.

The money provides the salaries of the radical Muslim clerics preaching
hatred and pays the electricity and cleaning bills for their mosques and
study centres.

The money also sends young men to Afghanistan and Lebanon to train in
terrorist techniques, and then on to Iraq where they join attacks against
British and US troops.

Those who do not want to fight write the cheques, funnelled through bogus
charitable groups which - under the guise of helping the poor and funding
education - are actually financing terrorism.

Economic Jihad is inspired by a verse in the Koran which says: 'Fight with
your possessions and your souls in the way of Allah.'

Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a radical Islamic theologian, ruled that instead
of building mosques or going on the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, Muslims should
donate their money to 'support Palestinians fighting occupation and other
struggles of Muslim populations, such as in Bosnia'.

Following the 7/7 bombings, Chancellor Gordon Brown promised to crack down
on terror financing and put an end to Economic Jihad in London.

The measures were agreed upon after the 9/11 attacks in the United States
and the Madrid attacks last year but some EU countries have simply failed to
implement them.
Brown told EU finance ministers last week: 'It's important to realise that
you're only as strong as your weakest link.

'Where there are countries that are not taking action to cut off the sources
of terrorist finance, we will clearly have continuing problems.' He also
urged EU officials to exercise tighter control of charities.

The UK has already frozen the assets - valued at around £56.5m - of more
than 100 organisations and 200 individuals.

But before Brown criticises our EU partners, he needs to look more
closely at the UK.

There are a range of bogus charities with links to terrorist groups
still operating in Britain.

One such organisation, Interpal, has been banned in the US, Australia
and Canada as a front for funding the Hamas terror group in Palestine, but
it continues to operate here.

A Palestinian General Intelligence report written in the late 1990s and
entitled Who Finances Hamas? estimated that the organisation's annual income
was $60m-$70m of which $12m came from Britain.

The Charity Commission decreed that Interpal's donations to Hamas were
intended for education and welfare projects, not terrorism. We now know to
our cost that the 'education and welfare' projects of extremist groups can
be used for Economic Jihad designed to buttress their military activities.

ONE of the trustees of the radical Finsbury Park Mosque is Mohammed
Qassem Sawalha, who was appointed earlier this year after the arrest of Abu
Hamza al-Masri on 16 charges including incitement to murder.

Sawalha was named in an August 2003 indictment in the US as a co-conspirator
and a Hamas activist who provided assistance to those indicted for
racketeering and conspiracy among other charges.

Another foreign terrorist group to benefit from British charitable funds is
Hezbollah, which runs a state-within-a-state in southern Lebanon.

It is best remembered for the killing of more than 200 US soldiers in Beirut
in 1983.

Among the charities supporting Hezbollah in Britain are the Lebanese Welfare
Committee, The Help Foundation and The Jamiyat al-Abrar (Association of the
Righteous).

It seems that Brown will have his hands full.