GOVT 480 Terrorism

GOVT 480 Terrorism

In the past two decades, the world has seen a large rise in terrorist organizations and attacks. The ever present fear of nuclear, biological and chemical warfare continues to highlight the need for counter-terrorism operations and the regulation and destruction of weapons of mass destruction. Terrorists’ desires to gain the upper hand against those they perceive as threats, highlights the need for an international effort to understand how terrorists finance their activities and their strategies to acquire such weapons. Before the Cold War, terrorists had a much simpler task when it came to funding their terrorist and criminal activities. In the 1960’s, terrorists were funded by willing, rival superpowers, as well as, local allies. (Forest & Howard, 2013) Once Saddam Hussain became the dictator of Iraq, he had high oil prices and the revenue they generated to help support his terroristic activities. (Bahgat, 2003) According to Forest and Howard (2013), the CIA projects that al Qaeda had yearly expenditures of roughly 30 million dollars. Subsequently, due to international efforts, their fundraising, money-laundering activities and other financing activities were reduced by ninety percent. Counter-terrorism efforts have prevented terrorists from openly collecting taxes and forced them into more criminal ventures. (Forest & Howard, 2013) There are newer, more creative and non-traditional forms of financin