Terror groups stealing tsunami donations, expert warns

Islamic militants in Indonesia are taking advantage of the devastation caused by the December 26 earthquake and tsunami by stealing relief funds and extending their networks, an expert on terrorism said today.

The disaster “gave unprecedented opportunities for these groups to expand their areas of influence,” said Rohan Gunaratna, a terrorism researcher at Singapore’s Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies.

“Charities are a primary source of income for these groups,” Gunaratna said in Singapore at a conference on fighting terrorism funding. “That’s why there needs to be more accountability in where the donations go.”

The area worst affected by the earthquake and tsunami was Aceh province in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation. More than 130,000 were killed and entire villages were demolished in the province.

Gunaratna said the radical Islamic groups Mujahidin Kompak and Majelis Mujahidin Indonesia, or MMI, were moving into Aceh, taking advantage of the chaos and destruction caused by the quake and tsunami.

Gunaratna said the groups had intercepted reconstruction funding through links with charities.

He did not give further details on how much the radical groups were alleged to have taken, or offer any evidence.

The MMI was founded by militant cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, who is serving a 30-month jail sentence for conspiracy in the bombings that killed 202 people, many of them foreign tourists, on the Indonesian island of Bali.

The Brussels-based International Crisis Group has said Mujahidin Kompak plans to wage religious war in Indonesia.

Indonesian authorities have arrested scores of al Qaida-linked militants suspected of being involved in the Bali bombings, in last year’s attack on the Australian Embassy in Jakarta or in the 2003 attack on the city’s Marriott Hotel. But some critics still accuse the country of being soft on terrorists.

“Indonesia must suffer more from terrorism in order for the people and their leaders to realise that terror is serious business and you can’t flirt with terrorists,” said Gunaratna, author of the book “Inside al-Qaida: Global Network of Terror.”

Yesterday, Singapore Solicitor-General Chan Seng Onn said that since 2000 the city-state has seized €42m from money-laundering operations which analysts have said could possibly be used to fund terror operations.

The country’s central bank will tighten regulations on financial institutions in an effort to fight money laundering and terror financing, he said.