DW investigation reveals details of UAE’s link to ISIS funding
An Deutsche Welle (DW) investigation revealed new details about the secrets of the UAE’s connection to the financing of the terrorist organization ISIS, which enabled it to turn into a “decentralized network.”
In the investigation, the head of German intelligence warned against the growing power of the Islamic State (ISIS) despite the collapse of its caliphate. Experts in security and terrorism affairs stressed that the organization had turned into a robust network.
The investigation revealed that ISIS had developed new methods of making money. It adopted organized crime tactics such as imposing illegal taxes on oil transportation routes, trade routes, hotels and real estate and even charging royalties on car dealers who launder money in the UAE and other countries.
These tactics “have made it very difficult for European intelligence services and the rest of the world to monitor,” said Eric Stollenwerk, a researcher on terrorism and the Sahel at GIGA.
Stolenwerk agrees that ISIS is still powerful in Syria and Iraq. “Moreover, it has strong ties with other regions of the world such as the Saharan region of Africa, especially the Sahel,” he adds.
The head of the German Foreign Intelligence Agency (BND) gave a rare press interview to warn that terrorism still poses a real threat to world order even twenty years after the 9/11 attacks in the United States.
In an interview with the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, Bruno Kahl said that although there were no major terrorist attacks in Europe and the United States like the bloody attacks that rocked Western countries two decades ago, “Islamist terrorism has developed and cost many lives, as the number of terrorists and the danger they pose has increased.”
It is noteworthy that many great accomplishments had been achieved in the fight against ISIS in the past few years, especially the killing of the organization’s leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in 2019 and the fall of the alleged ISIS “caliphate” in Syria and Iraq.
According to the head of the German foreign intelligence, ISIS has since turned into a “decentralized network” like Al-Qaeda, with its “sub-organizations spreading”.
Mirna Al-Masry, a researcher specializing in terrorism and extremism at the German Institute for Global and Regional Studies (GIGA) based in Hamburg, believes that this is not unprecedented.
“There were indications in 2019 that ISIS had significantly strengthened its ranks after losing its areas of influence,” she said. But on the other hand, new circumstances over the past year have exacerbated the situation, and that explains why Bruno Cale is talking about it now.”
For example, the outbreak of the Corona pandemic in the Middle East has weakened the Iraqi government. In addition to that, the pandemic has led to a growing sense of frustration among many, as refugee camps in northern Syria have turned into good recruitment centres for ISIS to attract recruits. Al-Masry says, “the longer the Corona pandemic continues, the more this will help ISIS.”
Al-Masry adds that ISIS has learned how to change its strategies. For example, its leadership is divided into specific functional groups in the region that take responsibility for decision-making.
Recent reports indicated that ISIS militants have entirely withdrawn from urban areas in Syria. Still, they could move freely in open spaces by avoiding government forces, especially near the city of Hajin, near the Syrian city of Deir Ez-Zor.
Not only did the German foreign intelligence agency warn of the danger of the growing power of ISIS, but also the internal intelligence, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), warned of the same thing.
In a report published last month, the BfV stated that the terrorist threat is as high now as it was a few years ago.
In the report, the Office noted that there had been limited attacks by Islamist militants in Germany last year, most notably the stabbing in Dresden in October, when a person believed to be an Islamist militant stabbed two gay men, killing one of them.
