DNA Edit: Cash-rich jihad

A two-day international conference in Paris, enlisting the participation of 500 experts from 70 countries, has a profound objective: No money for terror.

French President Emmanuel Macron, who is spearheading this initiative, is all too aware of how his country has suffered from terrorist activities. India, which has sent a high-level delegation to the meeting, too, has been bleeding profusely from Pakistan-sponsored extremism for decades now.

The statement released by Macron’s office estimated Islamic State’s revenues to the tune of $2.5 billion between 2014 and 2016. No wonder, the jihadi army could put up such a robust opposition to the world’s top military powers.

The ISIS’s financial muscle had been crucial to its firepower. Had its money trail been cut off, the war in Iraq and Syria would have ended long ago, and, with it, the untold sufferings of civilians who had paid with their lives and limbs.

The French organisers are pushing for international coordination and more transparency in financial transactions, as terror groups use increasingly sophisticated methods to transfer money. Terrorism has long been a global scourge with no country being safe.

Europe had least expected that wars fought thousands of miles away from its shores would actually come to its doorstep. Now that it has arrived, the West and the Arab world have joined hands in an uncharacteristic display of solidarity.

More than a decade ago, the Council on Foreign Relations had released a report at the peak of the US war against the Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, enumerating the challenges to stop terror financing. It had rued the fact that “terrorist groups have become increasingly adept at eluding detection through use of cash, sophisticated laundering operations, or legitimate front companies”.

Terrorists have almost always been a couple of steps ahead of superpowers. That has been the key to their survival.