Covert external funding of extremism plus
Three reports in three days that governments are to investigate external funding of extremism, whether in political groups, mosques or other activity. Almost as if an orchestrated series of reports:
1) Yesterday I posted on Has Iran covertly funded Podemos in Spain? on http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ad.php?t=15588 :
Quote:
Podemos, the leftist party that emerged as the major success story in last month’s indecisive Spanish general election, has been accused of receiving illicit funding from the Iranian government. The party, which campaigned on a platform of combatting corruption and slowing the pace of crippling austerity, is reported to be under investigation by a division of the Spanish police that has previously looked into graft allegations against other political parties.
Link:http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...-a6813006.html
2) Hat tip to Kaur who has reported on Russian support for right wing extremist / nationalist parties for sometime now (on http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ad.php?t=20641 ) and posted earlier today:
Quote:
American intelligence agencies are to conduct a major investigation into how the Kremlin is infiltrating political parties in Europe, it can be revealed.
James Clapper, the US Director of National Intelligence, has been instructed by the US Congress to conduct a major review into Russian clandestine funding of European parties over the last decade.
Link:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...ing-in-EU.html
3) From The Guardian (UK) with the headline & sub-title:
Quote:
Inquiry into foreign backers of UK extremists gets green light; Move could lead to potential standoff with key Gulf ally Saudi Arabia
Which also cites Germany:
Quote:
Last month Angela Merkel’s deputy, Sigmar Gabriel, told the
Bild am Sonntag newspaper that the Saudi regime posed a danger to public security through its support for Wahhabi mosques around the world. Wahhabism, a fundamentalist form of Islam practised in Saudi Arabia, has been identified by the European parliament as a
driver of global terrorism. Gabriel said: “We have to make clear to the Saudis that the time of looking away is over. Wahhabi mosques all over the world are
financed by Saudi Arabia.”
Link:http://www.theguardian.com/politics/...-uk-extremists
It is a moot point if any action will follow.
Murky money in Brexit campaign
A very curious, if not odd tale:
Quote:
The shadowy donor group that gave the Democratic Unionist Party £425,000 during the Brexit referendum campaign has links to the former Director General of the Saudi intelligence service – also the father of the current Saudi Ambassador to the UK – openDemocracy can reveal.
The donation to Arlene Foster’s party – which was used to fund key Leave campaign advertisements across the UK in the run up to the European referendum – was initially kept hidden because of Northern Ireland’s donor secrecy laws.
(Near the end) The DUP’s so-called revelation tells us nothing about the true origins of their vast campaign donation.
Link:https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/adam-ramsay-peter-geoghegan/secretive-dup-brexit-donor-links-to-saudi-intelligence-service?
Placed here as this thread has a variety of such posts. I do not regard the Brexit campaign as extreme, some do here.
