FACTBOX: Networks, not attacks, pose militants' main cost

(Reuters) - Devastating bomb attacks on civilians are inexpensive to mount for militant groups, whose main cost is simply keeping their networks running between operations, according to an international anti-money laundering body.

A February 2008 report by the 34-nation group, the Financial Action Task Force, cited the following direct operational costs of big attacks.

COST OF 9/11

According to the U.S. 9/11 Commission Report of 2004, the 2001 attacks on the United States cost somewhere between $400,000 and $500,000 to execute.

INDIRECT COSTS

"Maintaining a terrorist network ... between attacks represents a significant drain on resources."

These costs are:

Salaries/subsistence and communications

Individuals need to cover day-to-day expenses and perhaps also those of dependants. A cell will also need to communicate with its members and perhaps a parent network.

Training, travel, and logistics

Training is required in terms of ideological indoctrination and practical skills, and this often requires travel and procurement of false documents.

Shared funding

Where a cell is part of a network or shares a common goal or ideological or religious background with another cell or network, it may be called on or feel compelled to provide financial support.

Broad organizational needs

Maintaining a network or a specific cell to provide for recruitment, planning and procurement between attacks represents the most significant drain on resources. Beyond funds needed to finance attacks and provide direct operational support, organizations need money to develop a supporting infrastructure, recruit members and promote their ideology.

Militant networks often use compromised or complicit charities and businesses to support their objectives.

There is often a public relations and media operations arm that sustains a militant ideology. Groups such as al-Qaeda are prolific producers of videos and other messages distributed on the Internet dedicated to recruitment and propaganda.

HOW FUNDS ARE RAISED

Legitimate sources

Militant groups receive considerable support and funding from and through otherwise legitimate sources including charities, businesses, self-funding from employment, savings, and social welfare payments - methods that would not otherwise raise concerns because they appear lawful.

Crime

Groups are turning increasingly to alternative sources of financing, including crimes such as arms trafficking, money laundering, kidnap-for-ransom, extortion, racketeering, and drug trafficking. Militant use of criminal activity to raise funds ranges from low-level scams such as credit card fraud to serious organized crime.

Safe havens/failed states/state sponsors

Safe havens and wider cases of weak jurisdictional control, and state tolerance or support of terrorist organizations, give militants wide scope to raise, move and use finance.

HOW FUNDS ARE TRANSFERED

There are three main methods: Use of the financial system (for example money remittance companies), use of the international trade system (for example over- and under- invoicing) and physical movement of money (for example through the use of cash couriers). FATF says militant groups use all three methods to move money for the purpose of disguising its origins and integrating it into the formal economy.

See full FATF report at

here

(Source of attack cost estimates: All statistics are from the August 2004 report of the U.N. Monitoring Team Report on al-Qaeda and the Taliban, apart from the figure for the London attacks provided by the UK Home Office (interior ministry)

(Editing by Richard Balmforth)