Merchant of Death
Money, Guns, Planes, and the Man Who Makes War Possible

Blood from Stones

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The Africa Pipeline Expands, The Brotherhood Returns to Sudan
My intelligence contacts are charting an alarming growth of global Islamic jihad groups creating camps in northern West Africa, particularly Mali and Chad. This is coupled with an unusual resurgence of visits of leaders of the international Muslim Brotherhood to Khartoum, Sudan on a regular basis.

The total number of people in the Mali camps are believed to be in the few hundreds, but are drawn from Nigeria, Chad, Niger, Mali, Togo, Cameroon and elsewhere. The GSPC seems to be making a concerted effort at recruitment, and after training periods of several weeks, the recruits are dispersed, some to Iraq and some to other areas. Morocco, Algeria and Nigeria seem to be the primary targets for attack in the near to mid term.

It appears the camps that were operating in Sudan may have been shifted south, further out of the small international spotlight that occassionally shines on Sudan. That is not to say Sudan has gone passive in the global jihaidist wars. Contingents of senior leaders of the international Muslim Brotherhood have recently been making frequent trips to Khartoum. It is not entirely clear what the purpose of those meetings are. It comes at a time when the Brotherhood, long the financial lifeline of the jihadist movements, is setting up a whole new structure across Europe and Africa, rebuilding and expanding the structure that served them so well for so many years before 9-11, and has been under some pressure since then.

Not that the Brotherhood is in any danger of disappearing. Its vast offshore structure in Panama, the Bahamas, Liechstenstein and elsewhere has only been nicked occassionally by the increasingly ineffectual efforts the UN, US and EU to understand and cut off the flow of the constantly-shifting flow of resources that benefits the global jihadist movement.

But there appear to be new efforts to set up entirely new structures that could be activated on very short notice if the need arose.

Hamas' victory in the Palestinian elections will pose an interesting policy dilema regarding the Brotherhood. Hamas is a direct offshoot of the Brotherhood, and the Brotherhood has long provided banking and other financial services to the violent group. Can what little pressure there is on the Brotherhood be sustained as Hamas gains electoral legitimacy? Not a question that will be easily answered.

POSTED BY DOUGLAS FARAH
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