With Oxfam in crisis after it was revealed staff in Haiti used prostitutes, CNN has uncovered evidence that Western aid money is being used to directly fund terrorist groups.
Former members of the group and Somali intelligence agents have described how it is making thousands of dollars a day, amounting to millions of dollars a year, through extortion at road blocks and taxes on merchants trying to transport food and supplies to displaced people.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
According to one former al-Shabaab ‘tax collector’ who now works for the security services, the terror group would take around $3 per bag of rice delivered by aid agencies.
Western aid agencies have a troubled history in the region. In the 1990s, some paid warlords to gain access to hundreds of thousands of people who had been deliberately starved.
This strategy only made matters worse, as warlords worked to keep the famine going in order to keep aid money flowing. The practice was only halted after intense international pressure forced Western nations to intervene militarily.
Yet, 25 years on from the infamous Black Hawk Down incident, which cost the lives of 18 US servicemen and led to the eventual withdrawal of the US humanitarian mission, “the systems of corruption and manipulation of aid in Somalia remain, and have now been co-opted to finance a terrorist movement that controls about a third of the country and may become a magnet for Isis jihadists on the run from their former caliphate in Syria and Iraq”, reports CNN.
It is also far from an isolated incident. Earlier this year, the US announced it was withholding $225m (£166m) in aid from Pakistan over allegations the county was using the money to fund state-sponsored terrorism.
Nikki Haley, the US Ambassador to the United Nations, said there were “clear reasons” for stopping the payment, adding that Pakistan had “played a double game for years”.
The British government has also been accused of indirectly funding terrorist groups. A BBC Panorama investigation last December found taxpayers’ cash was being diverted to extremists in Syria.
-
The dazzling coral gardens of Raja AmpatThe Week Recommends Region of Indonesia is home to perhaps the planet’s most photogenic archipelago.
-
Trump’s White House ballroom: a threat to the republic?Talking Point Trump be far from the first US president to leave his mark on the Executive Mansion, but to critics his remodel is yet more overreach
-
‘Never more precarious’: the UN turns 80The Explainer It’s an unhappy birthday for the United Nations, which enters its ninth decade in crisis
-
France’s ‘red hands’ trial highlights alleged Russian disruption operationsUNDER THE RADAR Attacks on religious and cultural institutions around France have authorities worried about Moscow’s effort to sow chaos in one of Europe’s political centers
-
Sanae Takaichi: Japan’s Iron Lady set to be the country’s first woman prime ministerIn the Spotlight Takaichi is a member of Japan’s conservative, nationalist Liberal Democratic Party
-
Russia is ‘helping China’ prepare for an invasion of TaiwanIn the Spotlight Russia is reportedly allowing China access to military training
-
Interpol arrests hundreds in Africa-wide sextortion crackdownIN THE SPOTLIGHT A series of stings disrupts major cybercrime operations as law enforcement estimates millions in losses from schemes designed to prey on lonely users
-
China is silently expanding its influence in American citiesUnder the Radar New York City and San Francisco, among others, have reportedly been targeted
-
How China uses 'dark fleets' to circumvent trade sanctionsThe Explainer The fleets are used to smuggle goods like oil and fish
-
One year after mass protests, why are Kenyans taking to the streets again?today's big question More than 60 protesters died during demonstrations in 2024
-
What happens if tensions between India and Pakistan boil over?TODAY'S BIG QUESTION As the two nuclear-armed neighbors rattle their sabers in the wake of a terrorist attack on the contested Kashmir region, experts worry that the worst might be yet to come
