Recent robberies finance al-Qaeda, interior ministry asserts

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: Interior Ministry investigations assert that the recent armed robberies in Iraq aimed to finance al-Qaeda in Iraq, according to undersecretary of interior ministry. This came after repeated attacks on banks, jewelry stores and money exchange offices, as the main market of al-Muqdadiya district in Diala witnessed an armed robbery on a jewelry store, where 75 million dinars have been stolen. Five people were killed and two wounded on Monday in a daylight robbery at a money exchange office in downtown Baghdad, an Interior Ministry source said. Gunmen using silencer-fitted pistols broke into the al-Warkaa money exchange office in the commercial al-Rasheed Street Monday afternoon (Oct. 11) and opened fire at employees and customers, the source added. “The robberies aim to finance al-Qaeda and other armed groups after the decrease of their financial sources, forcing them to rob jewelry stores and exchange offices,” General Hussein Kamal told IraqiNews.com news agency. “The organized crime does exist and there is money laundry and money transfer to support and finance terrorism and the results of investigations that were held in banks assert that the operations aim to finance al-Qaeda,” he added. “There is a possibility for the involvement of some security elements, but we can’t be 100% sure,” he said, pointing out that the ministry had sacked 65,000 security elements, asserting that such operations will continue to clean the ministry from suspected and dirty elements. For his part, Ali al-Haidari, a strategic analyst, said that armed robberies are three types; those for robbing only, others to finance al-Qaeda, while the third type belongs to gangs working for international intelligence to destabilize the country. “The robberies are not new, as in 1999 some jewelers were killed in al-Bayaa region in Baghdad, and some gangsters joint security authorities and they have licenses to carry weapons and can pass checkpoints easily, which help them in their operations,” he added. “Al-Qaeda is not the only group which finance its self by robbing exchange offices and banks. There are unknown organizations used to launch armed robberies,” Joumaa Abdullah al-Mutlaq, another analyst, told IraqiNews.com news agency, noting citizens have to cooperate with security authorities to prevent such attacks. SH (S) 31