Charity funding terror: Sri Lanka

Aaron Lynett/National Post Raj Guna-nathan, President and Coordinator of the Tamils Rehabilitation Organisation - Canada, poses in his office on the upper floor of the Liberty Square Shopping Plaza at Eglinton and Kennedy Rd. Aaron Lynett/National Post Raj Guna-nathan, President and Coordinator of the Tamils Rehabilitation Organisation - Canada, poses in his office on the upper floor of the Liberty Square Shopping Plaza at Eglinton and Kennedy Rd.

TORONTO -- Liberty Square Shopping Plaza has a South Asian convenience store and a branch of the Toronto Public Library, but the tenant that has brought this busy strip mall international notoriety is upstairs above a jewellery store.

The Tamils Rehabilitation Organization works out of a cramped second-floor office with a big Canadian flag over the window. And while its official mission is humanitarian, governments in three countries suspect it serves a shadier purpose.

RCMP counterterrorism investigators and Canada Revenue Agency charity regulators accuse the group of having ties to the Sri Lankan separatist guerrillas called the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, better known as the Tamil Tigers.

"We believe that there are reasonable grounds for concern that TRO (Canada) operates for purposes that conflict with Canadian public policy," the head of Canada's charities directorate wrote in a letter to the group. "More specifically, there appears to be reason to conclude that TRO (Canada) may be functioning as part of a support network for the terrorist organization Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam."

In the United States, meanwhile, the Treasury Department last year froze the assets of the Tamils Rehabilitation Organization office in Toronto, calling it part of an international network that "passed off its operations as charitable when in fact it was raising money for a designated terrorist group responsible for heinous acts."

On Wednesday, Sri Lanka seized the organization's bank accounts in that country on the grounds the $800,000 balance, collected partly from "TRO branches in several foreign locations" was "mainly used to finance terrorist activities."

The Conservatives have not yet taken action and the group continues to operate in Canada but one of the decisions facing the new Public Safety Minister, Peter Van Loan, will be whether to designate the TRO a terrorist "entity" under the Anti-Terrorism Act, which would force it to close.

Federal officials declined to say whether they were preparing to add the TRO to Canada's official list of terrorist groups. "It would be inappropriate for me to comment on which entities are under consideration for potential listing; the assessment process for new listings is ongoing," said Stéphane Thérien, a spokesman for Public Safety Canada.

Raj Gunanathan, the President of TRO Canada, said he fears that could happen, but he has long faced these kinds of allegations. They began as soon as the group set up shop in Toronto more than a dozen years ago. Since then, Canadian Security Intelligence Service officers have repeatedly visited his office.

"They used to come at least once a year," Mr. Gunanathan said in an interview. He said he told the intelligence officers to "please come and join our board, or send someone to join our board of directors, and then you will have no doubt about what we are doing."

The Tamils Rehabilitation Organization is open about what it does: it raises money in Canada and sends it to rebel-held territories of Sri Lanka. The money goes to the TRO headquarters, which is trusted to use it to administer humanitarian aid.

The TRO headquarters in Sri Lanka, however, is controlled by the Tamil Tigers, a banned terrorist organization under Canadian law. While that might put the TRO on the wrong side of Canada's terrorism financing rules, Mr. Gunanathan argues there is no other way to provide humanitarian relief to the hundreds of thousands displaced by the civil war.

"Are we going to allow them to starve and die? We have to somehow provide them with the means of life. We have to feed those people," said the former Sri Lankan education official, who came to Canada in the 1980s after working as a teacher in Nigeria.

The Tamils Rehabilitation Organization grew out of the civil war that erupted in Sri Lanka in 1983, when the Tamil Tigers began an armed campaign for independence for the country's ethnic Tamil minority. As Tamil refugees fled to southern India to escape the fighting and ethnic riots, the TRO was formed to assist them. Later, the aid group moved into rebel-held areas of Sri Lanka to provide aid to war-affected civilians.

Offices soon appeared around the world, in cities with large ethnic Tamil communities such as Toronto. The group became a registered Ontario non-profit society in 1995. That same year it applied to the federal government for charity status.

The charity application was denied but the group applied a second time in 1997. Once again, the government refused, citing the "apparent close relationship" between the humanitarian group and the Tamil rebels.

Following the South Asian tsunami of 2004, Mr. Gunanathan submitted yet another application for charity status. On June 1, 2006, the Canada Revenue Agency replied with a 17-page rejection letter.

Signed by Canada's Director of Charities, Elizabeth Tromp, the letter said that "TRO (Canada) appears to operate within the overall structure of the LTTE."

Ms. Tromp's main concern appeared to be that the TRO office in Canada sends the money it collects to the TRO headquarters in rebel-held Sri Lanka. "The consensus of numerous and diverse sources we have reviewed indicates that the TRO raises funds in support of the LTTE," Ms. Tromp wrote in her letter.

Mr. Gunanathan said his organization had sent money to the TRO in Sri Lanka -- $1.2-million alone in the months following the tsunami - but it was used for schools, temporary shelter and food for those displaced by the war.

"If you work in the LTTE-controlled areas, they of course control you. They are a de facto government," Mr. Gunanathan said. "That doesn't mean that these people give money for arms."

Shown an RCMP affidavit filed in Federal Court that called the Tamils Rehabilitation a "sub-organization" of the rebels, Mr. Gunanathan said he had not seen the document before.

The affidavit says the RCMP's counter-terrorism unit found evidence about the TRO while investigating another Canadian group suspected of links to the rebels, the World Tamil Movement (WTM).

While executing search warrants in 2006, the RCMP's Integrated National Enforcement Team came across receipts for two bank transfers to the TRO totaling $83,000. According to police, the receipts were marked: "donations to the LTTE in Killinochchi, Sri Lanka."

RCMP Corporal Shirley Davermann wrote that the money was "actually sent to the LTTE in Sri Lanka." But Mr. Gunanathan said he doubted the police account. "It's a false report," he said. "If anybody is sending funds to LTTE and they write ‘We are sending money to LTTE,' it would be the height of absurdity for anybody to say."

The RCMP affidavit also describes links between the Tamils Rehabilitation Organization and the World Tamil Movement, which was shut down by the police earlier this year for allegedly funding the rebels.

For example, the TRO "representative" in Quebec was also the owner of the building that housed the WTM office in Montreal, police said. In addition, several World Tamil Movement officials have said publicly that they had solicited money for the Tamils Rehabilitation Organization.

"We find it significant that the World Tamil Movement, an alleged front organization for the LTTE, canvasses for and advises people to donate to the TRO," Ms. Tromp, the charity official, wrote.

The Tamils Rehabilitation Organization office at Eglinton Ave. and Kennedy Rd. in Toronto has nonetheless continued to solicit contributions. Donation envelopes were inserted into Tamil-language newspapers in Toronto last summer.

An offensive by Sri Lankan troops has made it impossible to get aid into the war zone at the moment, so the group is currently "dormant," Mr. Gunanathan said. He said the TD Bank had closed the group's Canadian account last year but it had since opened another at a different bank.

He said he had no plans to shut down.

"I'm a Hindu," he said. "What I do, I honestly feel I am helping humanity, which is like service to God."

National Post

sbell@nationalpost.com

Excerpt(s): “At least 16 bombs exploded in the Indian city of Ahmedabad in Gujarat state on Saturday, killing at least 45 people and wounding 161, a day after another set of blasts in Bangalore killed a woman. Two more unexploded bombs were found in the city of Surat on Sunday, one of the world’s biggest diamond-polishing centres, located in Gujarat state, police said. A little-known group called the ‘Indian Mujahideen’ claimed responsibility for the Ahmedabad attack on Saturday. The same group said it carried out bomb attacks that killed 63 people in the western city of Jaipur in May. It is unusual for any group to claim responsibility, but India says it suspects militant groups from Pakistan and Bangladesh are behind a wave of bombings in recent years, with targets ranging from mosques and Hindu temples to trains.”

Context/Analysis: Gujarat is one of the wealthiest states in India , as well as one of the most ethnically and religiously divided. More than 2,500 people were killed in 2002 in sectarian riots, mostly Muslims attacks by Hindu mobs. Bangalore is the wealthy center of India ’s hi-tech industry.

http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSSP225114

Police Arrest Activist Of Banned Group In Connection With Ahmedabad Blasts

Source: New Delhi The Times of India Online in English 28 Jul 08

New Delhi: An activist of the banned militant outfit, Ahle Hadees [Ahle Hadith], has been arrested in connection with the serial blasts in Ahmedabad which was on the edge on Sunday [ 27 July] with a live bomb in the city being defused and another three found in Surat city as the death toll rose to 49.

            The arrested activist, identified as Abdul Halim and wanted in connection with 2002 post-Godhra riots, was picked up by the police from the communally-sensitive Dani Limda area in the walled city. He had remained elusive since the riots.

            What is Ahle Hadees?

            The terror outfit, Ahle Hadees, is an ultra conservative religious group that owes its allegiance to the Wahabi sect of Islam. The Ahle Hadees is known to have founded the dreaded Lashkar-e-Toiba [Lashkar-e Taiyiba] militant outfit in Pakistan that is known to be behind several terror attacks in India .

            Many members of this group are also known to be part of the SIMI [Students Islamic Movement of India] cadre. Moreover, several Ahle Hadees activists have been accused of carrying out terror acts.

            On Sunday, a live explosive was found in a garbage can in Amraiwadi area and defused by the bomb detection squad. A bomb kept in a wooden box near a hospital and two car laden with explosives were found in Surat city.

            Army staged flag marches in the vulnerable areas in the city to instill confidence among its shaken residents.

            In New Delhi , Home Minister Shivraj Patil chaired a high-level meeting to review the security scenario in the country and assured all possible help to the Narendra Modi government in its hour of crisis.

            Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, accompanied by Home minister Shivraj Patil and UPA [United Progressive Alliance] chairperson Sonia Gandhi who are to visit Ahmedabad on Monday, was briefed by Patil, National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan and top officials of the Home Ministry on the security situation in the country.

            Intensifying its probe into the serial blasts, the anti-terrorism squad of Maharashtra police raided an apartment in Navi Mumbai's Palm Beach Road area and seized a computer from which an email was suspected to have been sent to TV channels purportedly by a little-known "Indian Mujahideen" [Indian Mujahidin] threatening more blasts in the country.

            Terror struck Ahmedabad on Saturday when 16 coordinated serial blasts ripped through the metropolis killing 49 people and injuring more than 150, a day after multiple explosions rocked Bangalore .

            Several states, including Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi , Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, sounded red alerts heightening vigil in sensitive areas. 

Bombings May Threaten India-Pakistan Relations

Source: AFP, 28 July

Indian cities are on high alert after a series of explosions ripped through the western city of Ahmedabad on Saturday, killing at least 45 people and wounding 160. The blasts, which occurred a day after bombings in the southern city of Bangalore, are the latest in a string of attacks in India believed to be the work of Islamic terrorists. 

A little known group calling itself the "Indian Mujahideen" claimed responsibility for the Ahmedabad bombings, just as it had for an attack in Jaipur in May that killed 60 people. But security analysts and intelligence officials are doubtful about these claims and instead suspect that militant Islamic groups from Pakistan and Bangladesh are behind the attacks.

            "The way in which the attack in Ahmedabad took place – the multiplicity of the bombs and the way in which they were coordinated – suggests a level of expertise not yet associated with any Indian group," says Uday Bhaskar, a security analyst and former director of New Delhi 's Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses. "It is reasonable to say this group has benefited from external involvement," he adds.  Other observers say the "Indian Mujahideen" was coined to cover the involvement of Pakistani groups, although few here doubt that Indian Muslims are involved at some level. Saturday's bombings occurred in two waves. The first series of explosions detonated in crowded markets; the second wave, less than half an hour later, targeted two hospitals where the injured had been taken. Television footage showed blood-covered victims writhing in agony on hospital floors. In all, there were 17 explosions, caused by crudely made devices that peppered victims with red-hot ball bearings and shrapnel.

            The day before, one person was killed and six wounded when eight bombs exploded in quick succession in Bangalore . No group has claimed responsibility for the Bangalore bombings.

            Both attacks – like the one in Jaipur – occurred in states run by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), India 's main opposition party.   Ahmedabad, the main city in Gujarat , is especially vulnerable to communal tensions. In 2002, a train fire that killed members of a Hindu nationalist group sparked Hindu-Muslim riots in which over 2,000 people, most of them Muslim, died.  "Await five minutes for the revenge of Gujarat ," read an e-mail sent to television stations, purportedly from the Indian Mujahideen, moments before Saturday's explosions.  But analysts say that stoking communal tensions is not the sole objective of recent attacks. "These people want to hurt the country in any way possible," says Ajay Sahni, a terrorism expert at the Institute for Conflict Management in Delhi . "Causing communal tensions is a secondary objective to that. If I wanted to whip up communal riots I would ensure that only Hindus were killed whereas these attacks are occurring in areas with mixed populations." Indeed, Saturday's attacks occurred in Ahmedabad's old city, which houses many Muslims.

In recent years, there have been regular, fatal bomb blasts in cities across India . Many have targeted religious sites: a temple in the ancient pilgrimage city of Varanasi in 2006, a mosque near Mumbai ( Bombay ) later that year, and another mosque, during Friday prayers, in the southern city of Hyderabad in 2007.  Often, no one claims responsibility for the attacks. But officials in New Delhi routinely point fingers at Pakistan , or at militants backed by Islamabad .  Such accusations of cross-border terrorism are a legacy of the cold war between India and Pakistan , during which Pakistan has used militancy as a tool to destabilize India .  Many believe that Islamabad retains links to militant groups, although the degree to which it remains operationally in control is unclear, especially at a time when Pakistan itself is suffering from an upsurge of Islamic militancy. Pakistan , meanwhile, denies backing any Islamic militants, including those operating in the disputed Himalayan state of Kashmir .

            The recent bomb attacks come at a time when the Pakistan-India peace process is under strain. Amid one of the sharpest exchanges between the neighbors since they launched peace talks in 2004, Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon said that "elements" in Pakistan were behind a resurgence in militant activities, including the recent bomb attack at the Indian Embassy in Kabul that killed 58 people, including two Indian diplomats.

"There have been statements by leaders of Pakistan , inciting terror," Mr. Menon said. "There are such statements from some government officials and this incitement of violence has culminated in suicide blasts.... All investigations point to Pakistan being behind the blast."  The involvement of home-grown Indian terrorists in such attacks is also of increasing concern here. "In the wake of 9/11 there was a lot of satisfaction that no Indian national was involved in terrorism in India ," says Mr. Bhaskar. "I would be cautious in saying that was changing, but it may be that we are reaching some sort of tipping point."

Fear Grows Over India Car Terror

Source: The Australian, 29 July

Two cars packed with explosives and bomb-making equipment were found yesterday in the Indian city of Surat, where 92 per cent of the world's diamonds are cut and polished, as fears mounted that jihadis have begun a campaign attacking targets of international significance.

Bomb disposal experts dismantled both bombs in cars that had been abandoned in the city, but officials said there was intelligence showing extremists were "trying to cause as much chaos and bloodshed as possible to further the cause ofjihad".

Anti-terror squads swooped on an apartment in an upmarket part of Mumbai, pinpointed as the origin of a 14-page manifesto issued by an organisation known as Indian Mujaheddin following the bomb blasts in Ahmedabad, in Gujarat .

            Police said the apartment was rented to two Americans who had denied any involvement in the email, which, "in the name of Allah", proclaimed "the terror of death" and was sent to several Indian news channels.   Investigators are looking at the possibility that the Americans' personal computers were hacked to send the incendiary document, which analysts say gives the clearest indication yet of the thinking behind the wave of bomb attacks.   The document, written in English, insists Indian Mujaheddin is a home-grown organisation, and asks the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba organisation, which is close to Pakistan's ISI spy agency and linked to al-Qa'ida, not to claim responsibility for bomb attacks carried out in its name.   Indian intelligence experts believe Indian Mujaheddin is the al-Qa'ida-linked Students Islamic Movement of India in a new guise, rebadging itself as Indian rather than a puppet of the ISI.

Terrorist Bombings Rattle India

Source: OSC

Global media reported at least 46 people were killed in a series of bombings in two main Indian cities over the weekend, while a little-known group calling itself the “Indian Mujahideen” claimed responsibility.

A London Times editorial believed Indian politicians were worried that Islamist extremism may have finally taken root in India, which—in spite of having one of the world’s largest Muslim populations, “had not been radicalized so far by the global jihadist movement.”  Like Italy ’s Le Figaro, London Times suspected Pakistani or Bangladeshi involvement. 

*        Indian media saw the attacks as intended to disrupt harmony—Inquilab said they were “aimed at disturbing India ’s religious unity, destroying its economy, or derailing it from the path of progress and development by creating instability.”  Maharashtra Times stated the terrorists’ singular aim was “to unsettle normal life and pit the Hindu majority against the Muslim minority;” however, this design would not succeed because people could easily see through it.  Anandabazar Patrika opined the “sole objective was to spread panic among people and to sow seeds of a long-lasting fear.” 

*        Indian media lambasted the government’s “political and procedural response to terror,” which Indian Express called “scarily confusing.”  Dainik Jagran said, “The present government does not even have a rudimentary sense of how to combat terror;” Gujaratmitra said the attacks reflected a “complete failure in preventing terrorists’ infiltrating into our region from across the borders.”

Indian media also called for a tightening of India ’s security and intelligence networks. Akhbar-E-Mashrique wanted intelligence agents “punished for sitting around, twiddling their thumbs!” Gujarat Samachar and Navbharat Times said security agencies were “napping,” in “blissful slumber.”  Divya Bhaskar exhorted, “The need of the hour is not to play the blame game, but to ensure stringent security measures to prevent such incidents”; The Asian Age declared it was time to implement “a single national authority charged with fighting terrorist hundreds of thousands would “fight the Americans in every city and village” in Afghanistan, and declared the Taliban’s control of the region imminent. Rahmani said the Afghan government was too weak to carry out operations against the Taliban in Pakistan , and the US would not invade it either “because of the resistance it faced and the heavy losses it incurred in Iraq and Afghanistan .”  He called on Pakistan and Iran to assist the Afghan people in their “jihad against the Americans, infidels, and crusaders.”