| New York Times | - |
AL
SUBAYHIYAH, Kuwait - The money flows in via bank transfer or is
delivered in bags or pockets bulging with cash. Working from his sparely
furnished sitting room here, Ghanim al-Mteiri gathers the funds and
transports them to Syria for the rebels ...
Private Donors’ Funds Add Wild Card to War in Syria
Bryan Denton for The New York Times
A sign outside Kuwait City
directing donors to a house used by Sheikh Shafi al-Ajmi to raise funds
for Islamist rebels in Syria.
By BEN HUBBARD
Published: November 12, 2013 49 Comments
AL SUBAYHIYAH, Kuwait — The money flows in via bank transfer or is
delivered in bags or pockets bulging with cash. Working from his sparely
furnished sitting room here, Ghanim al-Mteiri gathers the funds and
transports them to Syria for the rebels fighting President Bashar
al-Assad.
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Mr. Mteiri — one of dozens of Kuwaitis who openly raise money to arm the
opposition — has helped turn this tiny, oil-rich Persian Gulf state
into a virtual Western Union outlet for Syria’s rebels, with the bulk of
the funds he collects going to a Syrian affiliate of Al Qaeda.
One Kuwait-based effort raised money to equip 12,000 rebel fighters for $2,500 each. Another campaign,
run by a Saudi sheikh based in Syria and close to Al Qaeda, is called
“Wage Jihad With Your Money.” Donors earn “silver status” by giving $175
for 50 sniper bullets, or “gold status” by giving twice as much for
eight mortar rounds.
“Once upon a time we cooperated with the Americans in Iraq,” said Mr.
Mteiri, a former soldier in the Kuwaiti Army, recalling the American
role in pushing Iraq out of Kuwait in 1991. “Now we want to get Bashar
out of Syria, so why not cooperate with Al Qaeda?”
Outside support for the warring parties in Syria has helped sustain the
conflict and transformed it into a proxy battle by regional powers, with
Russia, Iran and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah helping the
government and with Saudi Arabia and Qatar providing the main support
for the rebels.
But the flow of private funds to rebel groups has added a wild-card
factor to the war, analysts say, exacerbating divisions in the
opposition and bolstering its most extreme elements. While the West has
been hesitant to arm and finance the more secular forces that initially
led the turn to armed rebellion, fighters have flocked to Islamist
militias and in some cases rebranded themselves as jihadist because that
is where the money is.
“It creates a self-sustaining dynamic that is totally independent of all
the strategic and diplomatic games that are happening and being led by
states,” said Emile Hokayem, an analyst in the Middle East with the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Most private donors shun the Western-backed Supreme Military Council,
undermining a body meant to unify the rebels into a moderate force. And
they dismiss the opposition’s political leadership as well as calls by
the United States and other powers for peace talks. With funds estimated
to be at least in the tens of millions of dollars, they have
contributed to the effective partition of Syria, building up independent
Islamist militias that control territory while espousing radical
ideology, including the creation of an Islamic state.
Rebel fund-raisers have relied heavily on social media. Some have
hundreds of thousands of followers on Twitter, where they spread posts
calling for donations, announcing drop-off points and listing phone
numbers where operators are standing by.
Prominent fund-raisers often boast of attacks by their preferred groups, which thank them with videos showing their new weapons.
The campaigners say they are merely helping the oppressed.
Sheikh Mohammed Haif al-Mteiri, a former member of Parliament who is not
related to the former Kuwaiti soldier and leads a committee that funds
mainline rebel groups, said private funding would not exist if countries
like the United States had intervened to protect Syrian civilians.
Kuwait lacks a tough police state like those that have cracked down on
such activity in other gulf states, and a range of Islamists participate
in its relatively open political system. A number of former members of
Parliament actively raise funds, and some have traveled to Syria to meet
their rebel allies. Kuwait’s turning a blind eye to the fund-raising
has upset Washington.
The nation’s location and banking system also make it easy for donors
from more restrictive countries to wire money in or drive it across the
border for drop-off.
Some fund-raisers and donors have amplified the conflict’s sectarian
overtones, calling for revenge against Shiites and Alawites, the sect of
Mr. Assad.
“Among the beautiful things inside Syria is that the mujahedeen have
realized that they need to deeply hit the Alawites, in the same way they
kill our wives and children,” Sheikh Shafi al-Ajmi, a prominent Kuwaiti
fund-raiser, told an interviewer this year.
The sheikh declined to comment. But in an interview, his brother,
Mohammed al-Ajmi, said that their group funded operations rooms for
military campaigns and that the Nusra Front, a Syrian affiliate of Al
Qaeda, was free to work with them. He denied that fighters funded by his
group had killed civilians.
“We believe that in the end, God will ask you, ‘What did you do?’ and you will need to have an answer,” Mr. Ajmi said.
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