April 24, 2009: Canadian intelligence officials have revealed that a major Tamil charity was actually a conduit for millions of dollars in contributions that were used to buy military goods for Tamil LTTE rebels in Sri Lanka. There, the Tamil minority had been fighting, for over two decades, to partition the island between Tamils (about ten percent of the population) and everyone else. The LTTE has finally been defeated, and in the process more evidence of these overseas fund raising and smuggling (weapons and other military goods) operations.
This is nothing new. Several Islamic charities have been successfully prosecuted, since September 11, 2001, for doing the same thing. The U.S. took years of effort to get Saudi Arabia to shut down charities in its territory that were supporting terrorism. Terrorist organization prefer to set up support organizations in Europe and North America, as they can safely stash their families, and key operatives there by having them all claim asylum. This, until recently, was something these nations were often quick to offer, and were quite tolerant of terrorist activity. But these nations, especially the ones that were subjected to terrorist attacks, are much less accommodating these days.
