G-7 Said to Plan Stronger Measures against Terror Financing

Bloomberg

20 May 2016

The world’s major industrialized nations are set to agree on Saturday to adopt a series of practical measures to improve the international fight against terrorist financing.

U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne and French Finance Minister Michel Sapin are leading the push to agree on four key measures at the Group of Seven finance ministers meeting in Sendai, in northern Japan, according to an official at a G-7 member who declined to be named because the talks are private.

These include enhancing G-7 information exchange and cooperation, assessing appropriate changes to international standards on counter-terrorist finance, ensuring the best use of existing financial sanctions and reinforcing the work of the Financial Action Task Force, according to the official.

The agreement, backing up a similar push by the larger Group of 20, comes after the disappearance of an EgyptAir plane with 66 people on board sparked concern that a deliberate act may have knocked the plane from the sky.

… Authorities have been targeting groups such as the Islamic State, who analysts say have been smuggling the proceeds of oil sales across borders to fund their terror campaign in Iraq and Syria and to support a network of affiliates, said Rohan Gunaratna, who runs the International Center for Political Violence and Terrorism Research at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University.

“As finance is the life blood of terrorist groups, the focus on tracking the financial flows and creating the mechanisms for dismantling the financial infrastructure of both Islamic State and their associates is vital,” he said.

Categories: