France detects 320 donors to ISIS in Turkey, Libya

CAIRO – 28 April 2018: A French prosecutor indentified hundreds of donors and fundraisers in France, Turkey and Libya who gave money to terrorist groups, most notably ISIS, as dozens of ministers across the world met in Paris on Wednesday to discuss how to cut off funds given to terrorists.

France's top anti-terror prosecutor, Francois Molins, said Thursday that security services had indentified 416 French-national donors and 320 fundraisers in Turkey and Libya who collected and transferred money to terrorists and extremists.

The remarks came as a two-day conference on combating the financing of terror groups kicked off on Wednesday at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris, where 80 ministers and more than 500 experts attended.

Europe, especially France, has been a recent target for terrorist groups. Dozens of terrorist attacks occurred in the capital of Paris and other cities in the past four years, leaving hundreds dead or injured.

Moreover, the terrorist attacks cost the country a lot of money, as Molins noted that the Charlie Hebdo magazine and Jewish supermarket attacks in January 2015 would have cost €25,000 ($30,000), France 24 reported on Thursday.

“More deadly assaults by teams of ISIS in Paris in November of that year, including against the Bataclan concert hall, would have cost an estimated €80,000,” he said.

French local media reports disclosed that ISIS’s income was estimated at about $1 billion a year between 2014 and 2016. Most of this income comes from oil exports and ISIS’s taxation imposed on civilians in the dominated areas of Syria, with some amounts from foreign donors.

On Dec. 9, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced the end of a three-year war by Iraqi forces to drive ISIS out of the country. "Our enemy wanted to kill our civilization, but we have won through our unity and our determination. We have triumphed in little time," he said.

In 2015, more than 145 people were killed in France, according to the parliamentary commission set up to assess the failure of the French security order.

The role of France in fighting terrorism and engaging in military and armed conflicts is undoubted. Its secular liberalism boosted its economy and enriched its culture and civilization, but it may be a reason for attracting terrorists and extremists.

Extremists see the United States as a source of moral decadence and economic exploitation, but France is seen as an atheist power that tries to impose its secular ideologies on the Islamic world, according to testimonies by ISIS defectors.

The targeting of France by terrorists began before the capture of Mosul, Iraq and even before the declaration of the Islamic caliphate by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in 2014.

The first big militant attack in France in recent years came in 2012, targeting soldiers and the Jewish community. The next major attack was against the offices of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical magazine that had published controversial cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), deemed insulting by many Muslims. Then came November’s ISIS attacks against a concert hall, bars and a football stadium, as well as the attack on Bastille Day in 2016 that at least 84 people.

In 2017, about six terrorist attacks took place in France. Most of them did not leave many victims, which may reflect progress in the country’s security performance over the past year.