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AQAP financed the Charlie Hebdo attackers – but who bankrolls AQAP?

Tuesday, January 13, 2015 19:36

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(Before It's News)

Thanks to blogger A. D. Kendall at Money Jihad, we know that AQAP (al Qaeda in Arabian Peninsula) funded and trained the Charlie Hebdo attackers.

But from whom did AQAP get that money in the first place?

A. D. Kendall: 2011: France may have paid AQAP $12m ransom

In March 2011, three French citizens working for the Lyon-based charity Triangle Génération Humanitaire traveled to Hadramawt, Yemen. Agricultural engineer Pierre Perrault, age 29 at the time; fellow engineer and wife Leah Romary, age 25; and water treatment specialist Amelie Morgaut, age 32, intended to assist local authorities with infrastructure improvement projects, which they did until late May of that year until they were abducted by terrorist-affiliated tribesmen.

Perrault, Romary and Morgaut remained in captivity for six months in the typical fashion of kidnappers in that region of the world, which involves transferring hostages among different groups and locations. But the strings were ultimately being pulled by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). In July, AQAP demanded $12 million from France for the aid workers’ release. French officials didn’t immediately comply, but began third party negotiations with AQAP through interlocutors of the sultan of Oman.

In November, the negotiations concluded. A “senior Yemeni tribal mediator”confirmed to the Associated Press that a ransom had been paid for the hostages’ release. The formal payment was made jointly by a Yemeni businessman living in Oman, Ahmed Ben Férid al-Souraimeh, and by the government of Oman, but Oman was most likely reimbursed by French intelligence behind the scenes.
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In our opinion, the take-home lesson is that non-Muslim countries should not send aid workers to Muslim-held countries or territories, where they will be exposed to the risk of kidnapping. Christian missionaries who go to Muslim-held regions know that they go there at their own risk, and if they make that choice, they must accept a substantial likelihood of martyrdom. No government should pay ransom to jihadis.

Here’s more of A. D. Kendall’s gumshoe work on AQAP funding: