2
2–Salaries amounted to $10,085–45 percent of the money. I had told you in my
fax...that we’ve been receiving only half salaries for five months. What is your
reaction or response to this?
3–Loans amounted to $2,190. Why did you give out loans? Didn’t I give clear
orders to Muhammad Saleh to...refer any loan requests to me? We have already
had long discussions on this topic...
4–Why have guesthouse expenses amounted to $1,573 when only Yunis is there,
and he can be accommodated without the need for a guesthouse?
–Ayman Al Zawahiri, e-mail to Yemeni cell, February 11, 1999
2
Standard accounts of terrorist financial and logistical systems stress the efficiency with
which terrorist financial networks distribute funds while operating through a variety of covert
channels. We are told that “…al Qaeda is notably and deliberately decentralized,
compartmentalized, flexible, and diverse in its methods and targets....al Qaeda’s financial
network is characterized by layers and redundancies. It raises money from a variety of sources
and moves money in a variety of manners."
3
Reports from the multinational Financial Action
Task Force on Money Laundering,
4
the Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering,
5
and others
provide a similar narrative.
6
Because of the covert nature of their work, these networks must operate with fewer
checks and balances than most financial organizations.
7
Indeed, the cellular structure of terrorist
networks so often cited in the literature necessarily implies that leaders will be poorly informed
about the actions of their subordinates.
8
If we assume that all members of the network are
uniformly committed to the cause and that they all agree on how best to advance the group’s
political goals, then there is no inconsistency here. However, if leaders, middlemen, and
operational cadres have divergent preferences over spending, then the information asymmetries
created by the secretive nature of terrorist networks lead to myriad opportunities for spending
money differently than leaders would like.
Convention