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97–635PDF 2015

TERRORIST FINANCING: KIDNAPPING, ANTIQUITIES

TRAFFICKING, AND PRIVATE DONATIONS

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON TERRORISM, 

NONPROLIFERATION, AND TRADE

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

NOVEMBER 17, 2015

Serial No. 114–120

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/ or

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/

(II)

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

TED POE, Texas 

MATT SALMON, Arizona 

DARRELL E. ISSA, California 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

PAUL COOK, California 

RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas 

SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania 

RON DESANTIS, Florida 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

TED S. YOHO, Florida 

CURT CLAWSON, Florida 

SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee 

REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin 

DAVID A. TROTT, Michigan 

LEE M. ZELDIN, New York 

DANIEL DONOVAN, New York 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

KAREN BASS, California 

WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts 

DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

ALAN GRAYSON, Florida 

AMI BERA, California 

ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California 

GRACE MENG, New York 

LOIS FRANKEL, Florida 

TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii 

JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas 

ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois 

BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania

AMY PORTER, Chief of Staff THOMAS SHEEHY, Staff Director

JASON STEINBAUM, Democratic Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON TERRORISM, NONPROLIFERATION, AND TRADE

TED POE, Texas, Chairman 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

DARRELL E. ISSA, California 

PAUL COOK, California 

SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania 

REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin 

LEE M. ZELDIN, New York 

WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas 

ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

WITNESSES 

Mr. John Cassara (former Special Agent, U.S. Department of the Treasury) ... 6

David Andrew Weinberg, Ph.D., senior fellow, Foundation for Defense of 

Democracies .......................................................................................................... 17

Ms. Diane Foley, founder, James W. Foley Legacy Foundation Inc. ................... 54

Michael D. Danti, Ph.D., academic director of cultural heritage initiatives, 

The American Schools of Oriental Research ...................................................... 60

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

Mr. John Cassara: Prepared statement ................................................................. 8

David Andrew Weinberg, Ph.D.: Prepared statement .......................................... 19

Ms. Diane Foley: Prepared statement .................................................................... 57

Michael D. Danti, Ph.D.: Prepared statement ...................................................... 62

APPENDIX 

Hearing notice .......................................................................................................... 88

Hearing minutes ...................................................................................................... 89

David Andrew Weinberg, Ph.D.: Material submitted for the record ................... 90

The Honorable Ted Poe, a Representative in Congress from the State of 

Texas, and chairman, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and 

Trade: Material submitted for the record .......................................................... 95

(1)

TERRORIST FINANCING: KIDNAPPING, 

ANTIQUITIES TRAFFICKING, AND 

PRIVATE DONATIONS 

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2015

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON TERRORISM, NONPROLIFERATION, AND TRADE,

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS,

Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2 o’clock p.m., in 

room 2200 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Ted Poe (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Mr. POE. The subcommittee is called to order. 

Without objection, all members may have 5 days to submit statements, questions, extraneous materials for the record subject to the 

length limitation in the rules. 

The Chair recognizes itself for an opening statement and when 

the ranking member, Mr. Keating, gets here he will be, of course, 

allowed to make his opening statement. But we will proceed at this 

time. 

The terrorist attacks in Paris last Friday remind us the damage 

a terrorist organization can do with even a little money. ISIS, however, is the richest terrorist organization in history. Last year alone, ISIS made over $1 billion. That is more money 

than some countries make in a year. Much of that money was 

made from seizing state assets, selling oil on the black market and 

taxing people living in its so-called caliphate. 

Those sources of money are mostly internal and do not use the 

international financial system. But other sources of funding are 

more dependent on the outside world and may be easier to cut off. For example, ISIS made nearly $50 million last year from kidnapping for ransom. Some estimates put kidnapping for ransom as 

high as 20 percent of ISIS’ revenue. 

ISIS is not the only terrorist group kidnapping hostages to make 

money. AQIM is said to rely almost exclusively on kidnapping for 

ransom for funds. 

This is the same terrorist group that attacked a gas plant in Algeria and killed one of my constituents, Victor Lovelady, after taking him hostage. From 2008 to 2014, terrorist groups made roughly $165 million 

from ransom payments. To try and stop this wave of payments in 

the last 2 years the United Nations passed three Security Council 

resolutions condemning the payment of ransoms to terrorists. 

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Our own country has a long history of countering this barbaric 

practice. From the very beginning, the United States has always 

refused to pay ransom to terrorists. 

The Barbary Pirates captured American merchant ships and demanded ransoms to release the crews in the early 1800s. Even 

then, President Thomas Jefferson refused to pay the bounty. 

Jefferson argued that doing so would only encourage more attacks. Throughout history, terrorists have learned to demand ransoms from those who will pay. 

Also, I want to recognize that this issue can be complex. We have 

the mother of James Foley here with us today. Mrs. Foley, I want 

to express my condolences to you for the loss of your son. 

I think it is important that we hear from family members of 

those who are kidnapped so I appreciate—the committee appreciates the fact that you were willing to testify. 

Terrorist groups have long depended on criminal activity for 

funding including trafficking of cultural antiquities. ISIS is currently in control of hundreds of sites throughout Syria and Iraq. 

These sites are the cultural heritage of humanity but ISIS sees 

them as a financial opportunity. Declassified ISIS documents show 

that the terrorists made hundreds of millions of dollars from selling 

these antiquities. 

According to some estimates, antiquity smuggling at one point 

was ISIS’ second largest source of funding. ISIS is killing people 

with the money it makes from these artifacts while also destroying 

history. 

Believe it or not, there are some people who voluntarily give 

their money to these murderers. ISIS has maintained connections 

with wealthy donors for nearly a decade. Many of these donors are 

based in Gulf countries like Qatar, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. 

Between 2013 and 2014, ISIS received as much as $40 million 

from these wealthy benefactors, and ISIS is not the only terrorist 

group benefitting from these deep pocket donors who give money 

to terrorist groups. 

Wealthy individuals from these countries fund terrorists all over 

the world including al-Qaeda and Al-Shabaab. They set up charities and funnel the money directly to the terrorists. 

The governments of these Gulf countries simply do not do enough 

to stop the steady stream of terrorist financing that seems to start 

from a handful of Middle Eastern countries. 

These private donors are just as guilty as the terrorists. Unless 

more is done, the governments of these countries are complicit in 

the crimes. 

These three sources of terrorist funding have given ISIS hundreds of millions of dollars in the last year. Cutting off even one 

of these sources could make a big difference. ISIS thrives off the 

appearance that it is winning. 

By cutting even a portion of ISIS’ funds we can challenge its narrative of victory. That will mean not only less money for the terrorists but also possibly less recruits. 

More importantly, it would mean less victims of ISIS’ barbaric 

terrorist attacks. We must use all the resources at our disposal to 

target every source of terrorist funding no matter where it comes 

3

from and that is the purpose of these hearings to listen to these 

experts on this issue. 

I will now turn to the gentleman from Massachusetts for his 

opening statement, Mr. Keating. 

Mr. KEATING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you for conducting this hearing. Thank you to our witnesses for being here today. This hearing is on terrorist financing 

generally but in consideration of the recent events it is an opportunity and an appropriate one to pay particular attention to ISIL. 

Friday’s attack in Paris and recent bombings in Beirut, the 

bombing, we can now say, of the Russian passenger Metrojet in 

Egypt indicate that ISIL may intend increasingly to attack targets 

outside of its basis of power in Iraq and Syria and it is worth taking a moment to express on behalf of myself and I think the committee, you know, our greatest sympathy for the victims and their 

families of those terrible tragedies. 

This worrisome development in the United States and our allies 

must endeavor at all fronts—demonstrates we must endeavor on 

all fronts to defeat ISIL. 

In order to defeat ISIL, we need to continue to assist our allies 

militarily to roll back the territorial gains made by ISIL and in addition and not unimportantly we must work to cut off ISIL’s supply 

of money and manpower by more effectively countering terrorist recruitment, terrorist travel and terrorist financing. 

According to a 2015 report by the Financial Action Task Force, 

ISIL earns revenue from several sources including various illicit 

proceeds derived from the occupation of territory, kidnapping for 

ransom, donations by or through nonprofit organizations, support 

from foreign fighters, and fund-raising through the Internet. 

One of the significant ways ISIL finances its activities is through 

the illicit sale of antiquities. ISIL is directly involved in the 

lootings of archeological sites in Iraq and Syria, theft from regional 

museums and stockpiling of cultural objects for future sale on the 

international market. 

Further, ISIL earns money by charging others for licenses they 

call taxes to loot archeological sites and by taxing traffickers moving items through ISIL-controlled territory. 

To date, ISIL has reportedly earned tens of millions of dollars 

from the antiquities stolen in Syria alone. To counter this threat, 

we need to do more to prevent the theft and destruction of antiquities in countries like Iraq and Syria. 

We also need to do more here at home to ensure that the United 

States isn’t importing stolen antiquities and financing terrorism as 

a result. 

I have introduced the bill H.R. 2285, the Prevent Trafficking in 

Cultural Properties Act, that would enhance coordination and 

training within the Department of Homeland Security to stop stolen antiquities from entering the United States and, even more importantly, to investigate and then prosecute the smugglers, traffickers and other criminals that participate in this illicit trade. 

H.R. 2285 was recently reported out of the Committee on Homeland Security and I urge my colleagues to support this bipartisan 

bill, which is aimed at stopping terrorist groups like ISIL from fiVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:46 Dec 16, 2015 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_TNT\111715\97635 SHIRL
4

nancing the murderous activities through the sale of stolen antiquities and other cultural property. 

I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today and learning 

more about different forms of terrorist financing including antiquities trafficking and how better to stop this illicit stream of income. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. POE. I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts. 

The Chair will now recognize members who wish to make opening statements for 1 minute each. 

Chair recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr. Cook, for 1 

minute in his opening statement. 

Mr. COOK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

This is certainly a very timely hearing. I want to thank Ms. 

Foley for being here. This past week many of us gave speeches, 

talked about Veterans Day and the sacrifice that so many Americans have given in wars. 

And no matter how you slice it, this is a war that we are waging 

with this group—ISIL, ISIS, Daesh, whatever you want to call 

them. 

Their tactics—you know, there are no limits to them and I personally think that many people in the Middle East and throughout 

the world have gotten a pass on this. 

We know that there has been support of that through some nations in the Middle East, the Gulf States—a lot of money, all these 

different things that has already been mentioned by my colleagues. 

But without a doubt, we have to do something about this and I 

think this, as I said, after what happened it is the most timely 

hearing we could have on the Hill. 

Thank you. 

Mr. POE. I thank the gentleman. 

The Chair wants to recognize the gentleman from New York, Mr. 

Higgins, and also I recognize the work that he is doing on the issue 

of kidnapping of Americans for ransom. 

So the gentleman from New York is recognized. 

Mr. HIGGINS. Thank you, Chairman Poe. Thank you for holding 

this, obviously, important and timely hearing. 

Kidnapping for ransom, antiquity smuggling and private donations represent an alarming and largely under appreciated source 

of terrorist financing that has largely gone unaddressed. 

Further complicating our counter financing efforts, many of these 

transactions are conducted without reliance on the international 

banking system, rendering many of our tools such as sanctions and 

terrorist designations ineffective. 

In recent years, kidnapping for ransom has become an increasingly lucrative enterprise with reports indicating as much as $165 

million has been paid to al-Qaeda and ISIS since 2008 for the return of hostages. 

Unlike the United States and United Kingdom, many of our allies continue to pay ransoms, resulting in a vicious cycle in which 

terrorist groups specifically seek out citizens of countries known to 

pay, resulting in more kidnappings. 

5

We must ensure our friends and allies halt government-sponsored ransom payments. Doing so will lead to fewer kidnappings 

while also depriving terrorists of a major revenue source. 

I am pleased to be working closely with Chairman Poe to develop 

legislation to address this issue and I look forward to today’s witnesses and I yield back the balance of my time. 

Mr. POE. I thank the gentleman from New York. 

The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from South Carolina, 

Mr. Wilson. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your leadership on 

this critical issue of terrorist financing. 

I would like to extend my sincerest appreciation to Ms. Foley for 

the courage that you have shown in coming before the committee 

today to share your story. Our hearts truly are with you and your 

family. 

The murderous attacks in Paris killing 159 citizens on Friday, 

the Beirut killing of 41 persons last week and the bombing of the 

Russian charter jet killing 224 innocent passengers October 31st 

further highlight the fact that our current methods of preventing 

Daesh ISIL’s terror financing are not working. 

It is critical that America and its allies have the necessary resources to cut off ISIL’s funding from any source that we can. 

It is imperative that those who do business or provide funding 

to the Islamic State in any way are able to be accurately identified 

and that we have laws in place to deal with them. 

I look forward to the recommendations of the panel. 

Mr. POE. Do any other members wish to be recognized for an 

opening statement? 

Therefore, without objection all members will have 5 days to submit statements, questions, extraneous materials for the record subject to the length limitation in the rules. 

And also without objection, all the witness’ prepared statements 

will be made part of the record. I ask that each witness please keep 

your presentation to no more than 5 minutes. I will introduce each 

witness and then give him time for their comments. 

Mr. John Cassara is a formal special agent to the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence. 

Mr. Cassara is considered an expert in money laundering in the 

Middle East and the growing threat of alternative remittance systems. 

Dr. David Weinberg is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies where he worked primarily on Saudi Arabia 

and the Gulf States. 

His research in this area focuses on energy security, counter terrorism, alliance transparency and human rights. 

Ms. Diane Foley is the mother of James Foley, an American journalist who was kidnapped and killed by ISIS last year. 

She is the founder of James Foley Legacy Foundation to continue 

James’ legacy of freedom and justice for those without a voice, and 

once again, Ms. Foley, thank you very much for being here today. 

Dr. Michael Danti currently serves as the academic director of 

the American Schools of Oriental Research Cultural Heritage Initiatives, which monitors and reports on the heritage situation in 

Syria and northern Iraq. 

6

He is a Near Eastern archeologist with experience directing programs in Syria, Iraq and Iran. 

Mr. Cassara, we will start with you and you have 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF MR. JOHN CASSARA (FORMER SPECIAL 

AGENT, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY) 

Mr. CASSARA. Chairman Poe and members of the subcommittee, 

thank you for the opportunity to testify today. It is an honor for 

me to be here. 

Mr. Chairman, I have submitted a written statement. I would 

like to take just a few minutes to give a brief summary. 

Kidnapping for ransom is a crime as old as antiquity. Unfortunately, in recent years, terrorists and associated criminal organizations have turned to kidnapping as a relatively easy and lucrative 

source of funding. The United Nations’ estimates that approximately $120 million 

in ransom payments was paid to terrorist groups between 2004 and 

2012. Some experts believe kidnapping for ransom is our most significant terrorist financing threat today. 

As the tragic events in Paris last Friday make clear, the United 

States and the international community are rightfully alarmed 

about ISIS. 

The terror organization has kidnapped multi hundreds if not 

thousands of victims including local Iraqis, Syrians, members of 

ethnic minorities as well as Westerners and other foreign nationals 

living in the region. 

Some were brutally murdered to send a political message. Others 

were used to extract ransom payments. According to the Financial 

Action Task Force, in 2014 ISIS raised approximately $45 million 

from kidnapping for ransom. 

In fact, because kidnapping and associated crimes such as extortion have been so successful, it appears the average ransom payment is increasing. It is a vicious cycle. 

There is no doubt that ransom payments lead to future 

kidnappings, and future kidnappings lead to additional ransom 

payments and, of course, the ransom payments eventually build the 

capacity of terrorist organizations which fuels additional terrorist 

attacks. 

There have been several United Nation Security Council resolutions attempting to curtail ransom payments into terrorist organizations’ coffers. Despite the restrictions, the world has not stopped 

payment. 

Of course, the complicating factor is our humanity. It is difficult 

to turn away from the anguished cries of those kidnapped and the 

frantic appeals of those—of their loved ones. 

Last week, a new book that I wrote was released, ‘‘Trade-Based 

Money Laundering: The Next Frontier in International Money 

Laundering Enforcement.’’

It is often overlooked but the misuse of trade and associated underground financial systems are often part of the kidnap for ransom equation. 

For example, money and value transfer services are found 

throughout Iraq and Syria, including areas where ISIS operates. 

Sometimes they are called hawaladars. They are trusted brokers 

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and have established relationships throughout the region. They operate on trust and secrecy. 

Hawaladars generally do not conduct electronic fund transfers as 

banks do but rather communicate via email, fax and phone with a 

local or foreign associate to pay or receive payment from a counter 

party to the transaction. 

Eventually brokers have to settle their accounts. Sometimes they 

use cash, sometimes the conventional banking system. 

But I want to emphasize and something that is continually overlooked and that is historically and culturally in all areas of the 

world where terrorist adversaries opposite, trade-based value 

transfer is used to balance the books or settle accounts. 

So examining trade records for invoice fraud and value transfer 

could be the back door into money and value transfer systems used 

by terrorists. 

Unfortunately, neither the United States nor partners are doing 

this. Moreover, I can make the argument that if one includes all 

its varied forms including underground financial systems, tradebased money laundering could very well be the largest money laundering methodology in the world and unfortunately it is also the 

least understood, recognized and enforced. 

Yet, I am optimistic. By using modern analytic tools to exploit a 

variety of relevant big data sets, I believe international trade 

transparency is theoretically achievable or certainly possible to factor many times over what we have today. 

As an added bonus, cracking down on trade fraud could also be 

a significant revenue enhancer for the governments involved. 

In my book and written statement I go into detail on many of 

these issues and I provide a number of recommendations on achieving trade transparency so as to combat trade-based money laundering, underground finance and terror. 

I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today and I am 

happy to answer any questions you may have. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Cassara follows:]

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Mr. POE. The Chair will recognize Dr. Weinberg for your statement. 

STATEMENT OF DAVID ANDREW WEINBERG, PH.D., SENIOR 

FELLOW, FOUNDATION FOR DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACIES 

Mr. WEINBERG. Chairman Poe, Ranking Member Keating and 

distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you on behalf 

of the Foundation for Defense of Democracy’s Center on Sanctions 

and Illicit Finance for the opportunity to be here today. 

I will highlight some worrisome weak links in America’s efforts 

to convince our allies to target financial facilitators and private donors to terrorism who often go unpunished. 

I will also offer some policy recommendations to hopefully help 

address the growing epidemic of kidnapping by terrorists for ransom. 

While I will defer to others on this panel regarding antiquities 

trafficking, I would ask your approval to enter into the record 

CSIF’s new report by Yaya Fanusie and Alex Joffe on antiquities 

trafficking in financing the Islamic State. 

Mr. POE. Without objection, that will be made part of the record. 

Thank you, Dr. Weinberg. 

Mr. WEINBERG. Thank you. 

Several of America’s Mideast allies, namely, Qatar, Kuwait, 

Saudi Arabia and Turkey, unfortunately pursue problematic or 

even adversarial positions over tackling private terror finance. 

Despite promises to do so, they have failed to effectively obstruct 

the flow of such funds and to try punishing its practitioners. 

In my written testimony, I note dozens of reported examples of 

such negligence. In many instances, these governments grant legal 

impunity to people whom the U.S. and the U.N. have sanctioned 

on charges of funding al-Qaeda. 

In my written remarks, I also reveal new indications that Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia have let their territories become 

major financial hubs for Hamas. 

To ensure that our Government’s terror finance sanctions list 

isn’t treated in the region as a mere toothless piece of paper, the 

U.S. should develop a broader range of options for when our allies 

refuse to do the right thing versus terror financiers. 

Congress can help sensitize members of the executive branch 

outside of Treasury to these concerns. When the U.S. is absolutely 

confident that an individual who enjoys legal impunity in one of 

these jurisdictions is indeed a senior financial facilitator for terrorism, the U.S. could privately and then publicly seek that individual’s extradition. 

If that fails, the U.S. could even consider capturing and killing 

them as it does toward other terrorist operatives. 

Congress could help hold these governments responsible as well 

for extending such impunity by restricting trade in dual-use items 

as suggested under the Export Administration Act of 1979 and by, 

again, amending the Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act so victims of 

terrorism and their families can sue foreign governments in civil 

court for letting terror financiers and other operatives enjoy local 

impunity. 

18

As for the vicious terrorist tactic of kidnapping for ransom, we 

should recognize that Americans are still evidently being held hostage by terrorists today. 

In 2012, Treasury described kidnapping for ransom as ‘‘today’s 

most significant source of terror financing.’’ Now, the volume of 

that income has only increased since then. 

ISIS actually makes more money off of oil sales, but ransoms 

have helped it and al-Qaeda conquer that territory in the first 

place. The Obama administration announced a new hostage policy 

in June which was mainly comprised of efforts to be more responsive and effective at hostage recovery. 

But there is little sign that this is being matched by efforts to 

decrease the money that terrorists take in from such tactics, even 

though the New York Times, AP, Reuters and the Wall Street 

Journal have described allied governments in Europe or in the Gulf 

as sources of such payments. 

Although these states deny paying ransoms, the Journal called 

such state payments game changers which can fuel the growth in 

ransom payments and incentivize future kidnappings. 

Doha’s reported role is particularly striking. In my written testimony I compiled press reports of 15 different episodes within 3 

years alone in which Qatar is reported to have helped mediate hostage talks, typically with terrorists, and often in which a multi-million-dollar ransom was discussed or allegedly paid to the terrorists 

by Qatar. 

The U.S. should stigmatize governments that pay state ransoms. 

Congress could require the administration to expose such governments in public, perhaps even imposing targeted financial sanctions. 

President Obama should also direct diplomats to prioritize convincing those governments in several key countries to stop paying 

such state ransoms and Congress can encourage policy makers 

abroad to enact such prohibitions into local law. 

The U.S. could also follow in Britain’s steps, blocking insurance 

companies from reimbursing ransoms to terrorists, but only provided this can be done in a manner that would not impose an 

undue additional burden on hostages’ families. 

Finally, Congress and the administration could consider starting 

a fund with seized terrorist assets to compensate kidnapping victims and their families for their suffering. 

The good news is that the U.S. now has a plan to try and improve efforts at hostage recovery and the proof will be in how well 

those steps are implemented. 

The bad news is that U.S. policy is failing to deter foreign governments primarily our allies from paying multi-million-dollar ransoms that enrich terrorists and incentivize future attacks. 

Our Government needs a new strategy to address this critical 

part of the problem and Congress can help facilitate that debate. 

Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Weinberg follows:]

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Mr. POE. Thank you, Dr. Weinberg. 

Ms. Foley. 

STATEMENT OF MS. DIANE FOLEY, FOUNDER, JAMES W. 

FOLEY LEGACY FOUNDATION INC. 

Ms. FOLEY. I am Diane Foley, mother of American journalist, 

James Foley, who was publically executed by ISIS, as you know, 

in August 2014. 

And I certainly want to say that our thoughts and prayers are 

with the people of France and who have suffered such tragic loss 

at the hands of ISIS. 

But we too as Americans have suffered from ISIS. Our son, 

James, was tortured and starved by ISIS for nearly 2 years just for 

being an American. 

Our family’s ordeal was made worse by our incoherent and often 

ineffective hostage policy. Jim was the oldest of our five children 

born into a very average American middle class family. 

He was well educated, holding two Master’s degrees in writing 

and journalism. But far more importantly, he was a man of service—teaching in our inner cities in Phoenix through Teach for 

America and later in Chicago and Massachusetts. 

He was always passionate about those without a voice, be they 

hostages, conflict journalists or disadvantaged children in our inner 

cities. In fact, his belief in human rights actually led him to become 

a journalist so that we Americans might hear the unheard stories 

of suffering in conflict zones. 

In my opinion, our current American hostage policy has not 

changed. I am very aware that our U.S. public policy is no concessions to terrorists to include no ransom or release of prisoners. 

However, our policy also states that the United States will use 

every appropriate resource to gain the safe return of our American 

citizens held hostage by terrorists. 

During Jim’s horrific captivity in Syria, our policy was interpreted to mean no concessions, no engagement with his captors. 

Since 9/11, our Government officials have often mistaken no concessions for meaning no negotiations, leading to an inconsistent 

and often unjust approach to the kidnapping of our citizens. 

The hands of our powerful FBI were tied during the 2014 Syrian 

captivity of our son, Jim, and three other American citizens held 

by ISIS. 

I am told that our strict adherence to this policy saves lives by 

decreasing the rate of capture of Americans. But no one has been 

able to show me the research behind our hostage policy. 

In fact, it would seem that Americans are becoming targets at an 

alarming rate. I respectfully demand to see the proof that our current hostage policy is truly protecting Americans. 

It did not protect Jim or Steven or Kayla or Peter. In the last 

18 months, these four Americans have been killed because our policy was strictly applied, whereas five other Americans—Casey 

Coombs, Sam Farren, Scott Darden, Theo Curtis and Sgt. 

Bergdahl—who were negotiated for by us or others have returned 

home safely. 

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This inconsistent implementation of our American hostage policy 

is unacceptable. Additionally, I would have you gentlemen know 

that we were deceived as an American family. 

We were told repeatedly that Jim was their highest priority—

your highest priority. We trusted our Government to help him return home. 

During the brief month that Jim’s ISIS captors reached out to 

negotiate for his release, our Government refused to engaged with 

the ISIS captors, leaving us alone as parents to negotiate for our 

son’s freedom. 

Eighteen months after Jim’s captivity our family and three other 

families of hostages held with Jim in Syria were threatened by Col. 

Mark Mitchell, member of our National Security Council, with 

prosecution by our Government, although there was never any 

precedent, if we attempted to raise a ransom to free our loved ones. 

He also very clearly told us that our Government would not ask 

allies to help negotiate release and would never conduct any military operation to rescue them. 

He made it very clear that our United States Government 

planned to abandon these four Americans. Thus, it became clear 

that Jim, Peter, Steven and Kayla were considered collateral damage and that we families were truly on our own. 

I had spent much of our family’s savings, quit my job as a nurse 

practitioner to travel monthly to Washington to beg for help for 

Jim, to the United Nations, countless Embassies and to Europe 

multiple times to speak to freed hostages, all to no avail. 

While our U.S. senators reached out to us and were sympathetic, 

we never even heard from our United States congressman. The 

family—the Foley family did try to raise a ransom for Jim’s relief 

in spite of threats of prosecution. 

But because we believed in our Government to help, we started 

much too late and were unable to raise the money to interest ISIS. 

The reality is that very few families would be able to raise money 

actually needed to free their loved ones. 

Our U.S. Government also refused to engage at a high level with 

our allies who also had citizens held by ISIS. At one point, there 

were over 20 Western hostages held together and all of them our 

allies. 

In the spring of 2014, a freed French hostage had very specific 

information from ISIS to negotiate for our four American hostages 

and the three British ones. But our Government refused to engage 

with the French or U.K. to save our citizens. 

The result is that all the European hostages are now home 

whereas our son, the other Americans and British were brutally 

killed. 

Although we had specific information regarding the exact location of their captivity beginning in the fall of 2013, a military operation was not even attempted until July 2014 after all the Europeans were safely home. 

We are sincerely grateful to the brave soldiers making that attempt but it was much too late. In our situation, our hostage policy 

prohibited our Government from interacting in any way with Jim’s 

captors, prohibited even from investigating who our son’s captors 

were. 

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Had our Government been allowed to engage the captors, perhaps vital intelligence about ISIS might have been gleaned. Our 

Government’s abandonment of Jim allowed their deaths to be used 

as propaganda for ISIS recruitment, thus strengthening and 

emboldening ISIS. 

It surely helped in their recruitment of other violent people who 

want to destroy us. As I said before, at one point there were more 

than 20 Western hostages held together, all of whom are citizens 

of our allies. All our Western allies value their citizens enough to 

negotiate for their freedom. 

Had Jim been French, Spanish, German, Italian or Danish he 

would be alive today. You know, we form coalitions for war. Why 

did we not engage with our allies to free all the Western hostages? 

I believe that much stronger coalitions with our allies are essential to deal with the shrewdness and hatred of these terrorist 

groups. I fear that our posture of no engagement with Jim’s ISIS 

captors led to our underestimation of their intelligence and their 

deep-seated hatred for the United States and our citizens. 

What if we had been shrewd enough to engage Jim’s Syrian captors in the fall of 2013 to learn all we could about them instead 

of ignoring them? Is it ever wise to ignore enemies of freedom and 

justice? 

You know, Jim believed in America. He believed that our Government valued him as a journalist, as a citizen. I am told he was 

hopeful until the very end of his 20 months of captivity. 

He and our family were truly abandoned by our Government. 

How would you feel if one of your sons or daughters had been in 

Jim’s predicament and had been treated similarly? 

Four Americans were publicly beheaded. Where is our outrage as 

Americans? Is an individual American citizen no longer valuable? 

Why would Jim and the other Americans in Syria considered collateral damage? 

If our United States of America truly wants to protect and 

prioritize the return of its citizens, if so I ask you esteemed Members of Congress to hold this new fusion cell accountable for the return of our American citizens and to mandate a thorough reevaluation of our current hostage policy to make sure that recent validated research is being done to ensure that our policy truly saves 

the lives of Americans. 

Thank you for your attention. I appreciate it. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Foley follows:]

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Mr. POE. Thank you, Ms. Foley, very much. 

Dr. Danti. 

STATEMENT OF MICHAEL D. DANTI, PH.D., ACADEMIC DIRECTOR OF CULTURAL HERITAGE INITIATIVES, THE AMERICAN 

SCHOOLS OF ORIENTAL RESEARCH 

Mr. DANTI. Thank you, Chairman Poe and Ranking Member 

Keating, for this opportunity to discuss terrorist financing through 

antiquities trafficking. 

It is an honor to be here among such esteemed company but, of 

course, with a heavy heart and with very serious concerns. 

Since the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011 and sudden 

expansion of the so-called Islamic State, or ISIS, in 2014, we have 

witnessed the worst cultural heritage crisis since World War II. 

On a daily basis cultural sites are being destroyed for tactical, 

strategic, economic and ideological reasons. Antiquities and other 

cultural property are being pillaged to finance continued conflict 

and global terrorism. 

As an archeologist who has worked in Syria and Iraq for the last 

25 years, there is not a day that goes by when I don’t anguish over 

the current plight of the Syrian and Iraqi people and the atrocities 

ISIS and other groups are committing. 

My colleagues and I at the American Schools of Oriental Research work closely with Syrian and Iraqi cultural heritage experts 

and other concerned parties who are daily risking their lives to 

save heritage from systematic campaigns of cultural cleansing. 

These brave heritage professionals understand the importance of 

ensuring a brighter future by preserving the past and cultural diversity. 

The current conflict in Syria and Iraq is a war over ideas and 

cultural identity that is rapidly spreading to neighboring countries. 

The project I direct, the American Schools of Oriental Research 

Cultural Heritage Initiatives, constantly monitors the cultural heritage crisis in Syria and northern Iraq, implements heritage 

projects in Syria and produces reports and conducts outreach for 

the U.S. Government and the general public. 

We have seen that most of the major combatants commit cultural 

property crimes. But by far, ISIS is our greatest concern. Over the 

last 16 months, ISIS has developed a highly organized approach to 

looting, trafficking and selling antiquities and other cultural property for funding. 

ISIS also brazenly destroys heritage places to promote its radical 

ideology and gain media exposure. 

There is no doubt that terrorists derive significant revenue from 

looted ancient antiquities and stolen cultural property. Satellite imagery, in-country sources and open-source information support this 

conclusion. 

Information in antiquities recovered by U.S. Special Operations 

forces during the Abu Sayyaf raid in May of this year proves ISIS 

uses the illicit antiquities trade as an important source of revenue. 

To ISIS, antiquities are a natural resource to be mined from the 

ground or pilfered from cultural repositories. This criminal activity 

has increased as other revenue streams such as oil have been targeted through air strikes or other counter measures. 

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Antiquities trafficking is difficult to target and for ISIS and other 

extremists it has the benefit of rewarding collaboration with employment. 

Antiquities trafficking doesn’t make as many enemies among the 

local population as other crimes but instead it exploits poverty and 

hopelessness. Also, antiquities serve as instruments for money 

laundering. 

We don’t know the total dollar values of the illicit antiquities 

trade. There are too many unknowns. But ISIS and other 

transnational criminal organizations certainly find it crucial to 

their operations and the financial and cultural costs of the destruction are manifest now and will have a cascading effect for generations to come. 

The current crisis requires increased and improved capacities in 

the United States for cultural security and cultural diplomacy. We 

need a more proactive and nimbler approach that couples existing 

governmental and nongovernmental capacities. 

High level coordination would greatly enhance this work and 

would facilitate containing, degrading and ultimately destroying 

ISIS and other radical groups and transnational criminal organizations operating in the Middle East, North Africa and beyond. 

Reducing global market space for conflict antiquities should be 

one of our highest priorities. Legislation is pending in the House 

and Senate that would help to achieve these goals. 

Ultimately, the best solutions for the current cultural heritage 

crisis in Syria and northern Iraq also contribute to alleviating the 

humanitarian crisis, promoting conflict resolution, strengthening 

counter terrorism efforts and fostering peace building. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Danti follows:]

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Mr. POE. Thank you very much, Dr. Danti. Thank you all for 

being here today. I recognize myself for some questions. 

It seems to me, and I may not have all of their sources of revenue, but we have heard that terrorist groups will do anything for 

money. They will steal, like the robberies of the banks in Iraq. 

They will, as Mr. Cassara talked about—I call it money laundering. I am a former judge. I call that money laundering what you 

were talking about—cooking the books on trade. They make money 

off of antiquities. 

They make money off of hostages and they make money off of 

their wealthy donors who want to send money to these terrorist 

groups. And there are probably a whole lot more. 

Let me try to address a couple of issues. Ms. Foley, you gave us 

some remarkable information and if I understand the current status of American hostage law or procedure, the United States has 

always had a policy not to pay ransom. 

Now it has changed that the government won’t pay money for 

ransom but if families or individuals do that law will not be enforced as to that payment. 

Is that your understanding of the current status? 

Ms. FOLEY. Families, you know, in criminal activity—a family 

has never been prosecuted for paying ransom to criminals who 

have a loved one. So there is——

Mr. POE. That is what I am asking. So as far as you know, no 

family has ever been required——

Ms. FOLEY. No. I know that, because we researched it, because 

we finally realized we were on our own and we had to try to raise 

a ransom. 

But of course we wanted to protect anyone, you know, who would 

care to help us. So there is no precedent for that, sir. 

Mr. POE. So that portion of the law, as the President said, is not 

being enforced as to prosecute families that pay for ransom? 

Ms. FOLEY. Well, it really was never meant to prosecute families. 

It was meant to——

Mr. POE. It has never—okay. 

Ms. FOLEY [continuing]. Prosecute any groups that might pretend to be a charity and instead give money to finance terrorism 

or something. It was never meant to be——

Mr. POE. Was your son kidnapped for ransom or was he kidnapped as a propaganda tool or both? 

Ms. FOLEY. That is a good question. Only God would know what 

might be—might have might have been in their heads. He was a 

Westerner. 

They don’t check passports when they kidnap people, sir. You 

know, he was obviously a Westerner. He had been in and out of 

Syria. 

He had been there over a year and more and more of the 

jihadists had come in in 2012. Jim had made very good relations 

with a lot of the family there and was trying to expose the atrocities of the Assad regime so felt, you know, protected. 

A lot of the rebels really welcomed journalists early on so that 

their plight might get out to the world. But some people——

Mr. POE. He was used as a propaganda tool, too, though, wasn’t 

he? 

72

Ms. FOLEY. I think—I think initially they wanted to make money 

off of him. 

Mr. POE. Okay. 

Ms. FOLEY. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. The propaganda only came when 

our Government would not engage in any way. Nobody would negotiate for him. No one cared. So they thought well, hey, we can 

make a spectacle of this. We can really use—get a lot of PR out 

of killing these Americans. 

Mr. POE. Dr. Weinberg, let me ask you some questions about the 

Gulf States. I am going to be real specific here, probably going to 

hurt somebody’s feelings in the Gulf States. 

We have a military base in Qatar that we use to fly aircraft in 

the Middle East when we are engaged in military activities in Afghanistan or Iraq. Is that right? 

Mr. WEINBERG. That is correct. 

Mr. POE. So Qatar helps us out with that. But we know that 

Qatar has donors there—wealthy donors who give money to terrorist groups. Is that correct? 

Mr. WEINBERG. It has certainly been correct in the past. 

Mr. POE. Do we know who those donors are? Do we know their 

name, rank and serial number, so to speak? 

Mr. WEINBERG. The United States has sanctioned a number of 

Qatari nationals——

Mr. POE. What does that mean—don’t do this anymore? I mean, 

what is a sanction against a national in Qatar who gives money to 

terrorist groups? 

Mr. WEINBERG. That is exactly the problem, sir. They——

Mr. POE. Don’t do anything, don’t do it again, it is not nice. 

Mr. WEINBERG. And the problem is that they—the local government often doesn’t do anything about it. In fact, I have seen not 

a single indication of Qatar prosecuting anybody and convicting 

them under terror finance laws that have been on the books. 

Mr. POE. Do we pay to have our military base in Qatar? 

Mr. WEINBERG. No. The Qataris pay for it. 

Mr. POE. Okay. So you think Qatar is playing both sides? 

Mr. WEINBERG. I think Qatar is absolutely playing both sides in 

this regard and I think the United States——

Mr. POE. So they harbor people who give money to terrorist 

groups but they also have a military base where the United States 

can go and attack terrorist groups? 

Mr. WEINBERG. Yes, and individuals the United States has sanctioned live just down the road from where this U.S. base is and if 

the United States chose to do so it would not be too difficult to 

launch air strikes if we were convinced or, you know, conducted 

some sort of operation. 

Mr. POE. You mentioned that the United States has the authority to go after these people who are contributing to foreign terrorist 

organizations. 

Mr. WEINBERG. If it chooses to use that capacity it is hard to envision——

Mr. POE. To your knowledge—this is my last question—to your 

knowledge of those different—I have two questions. 

How many people are we talking about that are contributing 

money to terrorist groups? 

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Mr. WEINBERG. The people sanctioned in Qatar, it is—you can 

count them on a single hand. 

Mr. POE. It is not very many? 

Mr. WEINBERG. No. 

Mr. POE. And, second, have we ever extradited, prosecuted or 

taken out somebody who is giving money to terrorist groups, to 

your knowledge? 

Mr. WEINBERG. Have we ever prosecuted, extradited? Well, the 

United States sought to capture Khalid Sheikh Mohammed from 

Qatari territory in the 1990s. 

He was a senior al-Qaeda operative responsible for attacks linked 

to the 1998——

Mr. POE. Did we ever get him? 

Mr. WEINBERG. He—according to former U.S. officials cited in 

press reports, a senior Qatari, either royal family member or government official, tipped him off and he fled the country when we 

went to find him. 

Mr. POE. So my question is—just answer the question. Have we 

ever captured, extradited, brought back one of these moneybag 

guys who are giving money to terrorist groups to the United States 

to prosecute them? 

Mr. WEINBERG. Well, ultimately we caught KSM himself, who 

was a senior money man as well as operational man. But we did 

it in Pakistan. 

Mr. POE. All right. Mr. Keating from Massachusetts. 

Mr. KEATING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I think one of the most important things any of us can do as 

Americans is get to the root issues of what is going on even though 

it is dangerous, even though they risk their lives doing it and get 

that message out to the U.S. and the world. 

And Ms. Foley, your son did that and your testimony—I think he 

inherited a lot of his courage from his mother but—and thank you 

for being here. 

I know that there are things we can do tangibly in terms of antiquities. I know there are things we can do in terms of trade-based 

money laundering. I know there are things that we can do to sanction some countries. But it is really troubling on the issue of kidnapping, ransom. 

Could you tell me a little bit about the James W. Foley Legacy 

Foundation you are so involved with, Ms. Foley? One of the things 

they do is hostage support. Could you describe what kind of work 

you do there and what the foundation is doing? 

Ms. FOLEY. In truth, we are just beginning. Jim was very, as I 

said, concerned about people without a voice. So one of the big 

issues, obviously, I have been concerned about are American hostages. 

They end up in a truly gray zone, and gray meaning that nobody 

knew whose job it was to try to get them out and no one really 

wanted to touch the issue. It is a hot potato. 

So one of the first things we have done this past year is we have 

raised funds for something called Hostage U.S., which will be similar to Hostage U.K. which will support American families in this 

predicament. 

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But the James W. Foley Foundation wants to go further. We 

want our Americans home. So whereas Hostage U.S.—we are going 

to continue to support them because families need support but I 

couldn’t have cared how I was treated if Jim were home and I really feel as Americans we need to be shrewder. 

We need to find a way to get them home, and I recognize that 

it is complex because of our—because we certainly don’t want to 

fund terrorists. But is it wise to not even engage these people? 

Then we don’t have a clue. 

We don’t know what is going on. We don’t know what they want. 

We don’t know who they are and, you know, I don’t think so. I just 

think we have to be a lot shrewder. Otherwise, we are going to be 

out of luck. 

So as far as the foundation, yes, we are working very closely with 

the fusion cell and Lisa Monaco, Jen Easterley, trying to find ways 

to hold them accountable for gee, a lot of U.S. assets have been 

given now. 

Fifty individuals have this mission to bring Americans home. 

None are home yet since they have been started. 

Granted, it is new but I am concerned because I think their 

hands are tied in a lot of ways. So that is one thing. 

The other issue is conflict journalism. These days—it used to be 

in World War II journalists and aid workers were off limits. People—they had a certain neutrality. Not so anymore. 

I mean, journalists and aid workers are targets and we have to 

be aware of that. So as a democracy ourselves, unless we come together for global safety for people who are giving us information, 

who dare to go where many don’t dare to go, that is a huge concern 

of ours. 

So we are really—we are working with an international coalition 

for safety and journalism and continue to be concerned about children without access to education, because Jim loved children. 

He really felt education was the only way to—for societies to get 

out of poverty. So we are looking at that. 

Mr. KEATING. One of the things I hope we can do is not have others experience everything that your family experienced and as you 

go forward with the foundation’s work if you could keep us informed about some of the areas you think that we can get involved 

with as you go forward. 

Please do that. Feel free to do that because I think we can certainly do better. 

Ms. FOLEY. We better do better, sir. You know, it is frightening 

if we can’t do better in that regard. 

Mr. KEATING. I agree, and thank you——

Ms. FOLEY. Thank you. 

Mr. KEATING [continuing]. For that. Just another question for Dr. 

Danti. The May 15th raid on ISIL leader Abu Sayyaf—you called 

that a game changer at a certain point. 

What did we learn from that that we didn’t know before? 

Mr. DANTI. We learned that antiquities were very important to 

the organization and they were the functional equivalent of other 

natural resources. 

75

There were emails. There were documents indicating that Abu 

Sayyaf had been put in charge of that trade because it was important to the organization. 

He was found to be in possession of hundreds of antiquities, 

some of them looted from the Mosul museum, and he also had, disturbingly, photographs of other high-end items on his laptop. Some 

of those items we had been tracking are known to have been sold 

through Turkey. 

Mr. KEATING. Okay. I don’t know if anyone else wants to comment on that briefly. But I will say this, that many times in this 

very turbulent time of terrorism we are so frustrated we put up our 

hands and we can say what can we do. 

I think you four as witnesses have given us things we can do to 

further fight this effort and I appreciate it and I think these are 

very tangible real suggestions that can go forward on all fronts. 

Thank you. I yield back. 

Mr. POE. I want the members to know that we are in the midst 

of voting. We will continue after votes. We have one vote. But we 

will not recess until we have at least one more member ask questions and then we will come back. I apologize to our panelists but 

that one vote shouldn’t take a long time. 

Mr. Wilson from South Carolina. 

Mr. WILSON. Ms. Foley, again, thank you for your courage, and 

as a former reporter myself so many points you have made—that 

indeed in other conflicts the journalists have been noncombatants. 

But it is such a chilling reminder that we are dealing with illegal 

enemy combatants not in uniform. This is just so—to me, so extraordinarily unprecedented and putting the American people at 

risk, and we are at a time even today, within the last 48 hours, 

that ISIL Daesh issued a statement that Washington and Rome are 

the next targets and so we have just got to be vigilant. 

That is why I appreciate the point that you are making too that 

where we all support no concession, no tribute, that doesn’t mean 

not negotiate. So I—you are making a difference by raising these 

issues. 

And then it is appalling to me that there was not an effort of 

military rescue. Was there any reason—particularly when you indicate that it was an exact location of 20 together. 

With that information, it is just appalling to me that action was 

not taken. And that is one question. Then the next question why 

was that not done, and then, you know, with the attack in 

Benghazi we are still discussing who did it. What? This should be 

determined, and then there should be efforts to find them. 

So on both—why was there no action and what is the status of 

determining who these murderers are. 

Ms. FOLEY. Well, those are all good questions—questions that I 

truly don’t have the answers for. 

All I know is an American citizen—we started to have eyewitnesses as of fall—early fall of 2013 of exactly where Jim was 

and our Government knew that there were three other Americans 

and British with him and where—quite sure that they also realized 

how many other of allies were also together because slowly the 

other—their allies were negotiating all of these people out. 

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Jim had already been held a whole year before all these other 

peoples were added. Jim was one of the first—Jim and British citizen John Cantlie and, of course, Austin Tice, who was taken in 

August 2012. 

They were the first ones that I know of that were taken in Syria. 

But then gradually all these others were taken, most of them in 

later in 2013, and—but the other European countries got right on 

it and started negotiating with the captors so that their citizens 

came out. 

As far as where they were held, we had information throughout 

starting in the fall of 2013 and then again December 2013. They 

were moved, but because hostages started coming out in early 2014 

we were—we received very detailed information. 

As a matter of fact, it became clearer and clearer as the spring 

of 2014 went on because these European hostages came out with 

very specific information and some of them—one Italian citizen 

came to the U.S. twice on his own dime trying to get somebody to 

hear the specifics he had in terms of exact location of where they 

were being held. 

But no one wanted to hear it, and this—particularly Federico 

came more than any of the others. Some of the others hesitated to 

do that because their governments had figured out a way to get 

them out. 

So they, understandably, expected our Government to work with 

theirs to collaborate, if you will, to get our citizens out. But it 

didn’t happen, sir. 

Mr. WILSON. Well, and it is inconceivable with the released captives that there couldn’t be an effort to determine who the perpetrators are and so——

Ms. FOLEY. Don’t you think? I agree with you. I am appalled as 

an American, sir. 

Mr. WILSON. Well, I want to work with our chairman and get 

this straight. So thank you very much. I yield. 

Mr. POE. The Chair will now go to Mr. Higgins for his statement. 

Mr. HIGGINS. Thank you, Chairman. 

Mr. POE. Or questions. Excuse me. 

Mr. HIGGINS. Ms. Foley, in your testimony you had indicated 

that you and your family were left to negotiate with your son’s captors. With whom would you negotiate and what was the nature of 

that discussion? 

Ms. FOLEY. Well, the only—the only opportunity we had, Mr. 

Higgins, was for a month in 2013 end of November we out of the 

blue got an email saying that they had Jim and they would send 

us—they wanted some questions, proof of life. Pardon? 

Mr. HIGGINS. Who is—who is they? 

Ms. FOLEY. They really didn’t want us to know. They said they 

were Syrian rebels. They didn’t identify themselves anymore than 

that. 

Mr. HIGGINS. So they initiated contact with you and your family? 

Ms. FOLEY. Mm-hmm. Absolutely. But it was through a very 

encrypted email that our FBI had no way of tracking. So they are 

very shrewd, sir. Very shrewd. They knew how to reach us but we 

didn’t know how to reach them. 

Mr. HIGGINS. So you couldn’t respond back? 

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Ms. FOLEY. Well, I could—I could only respond through that 

email. But what I meant to say is we couldn’t find out who was 

sending it. It was obvious that they were English speaking, however, because, you know, of the command of language. 

Mr. HIGGINS. And was there specifics about a ransom number or 

conditions? 

Ms. FOLEY. When they initially reached out to us, yes, it was ridiculous—like, it was—they wanted 100 million euro or all Muslim 

prisoners kind of thing and, you know, FBI—you know, of course, 

we right away sent it to FBI and they just said, oh, keep them 

talking—keep them talking. 

But within a few emails when they realized they were just talking to the family they had absolutely no interest and so they cut 

off discussions until the only other time, sir, was when the French 

came out in March 2014 they came out with another very specific 

offer to negotiate for all Americans and all the British. 

Mr. HIGGINS. And your primary source of contact in the United 

States was the FBI? 

Ms. FOLEY. We had no primary source. I did have one—we had 

one FBI agent who debriefed me all the time. But——

Mr. HIGGINS. Debriefed you on what? 

Ms. FOLEY. Anything. I mean, I was—I was talking to anybody—

all the freed hostages that I could. I said earlier a lot of times FBI 

couldn’t even get to them. So——

Mr. HIGGINS. At any point during your ordeal did you get a sense 

that your son was going to be freed at some point or——

Ms. FOLEY. Not at all. However, our Government told me, anyone 

I talked to at State or FBI, that Jim was the highest priority. So 

we were deceived throughout the first 18 months. 

Mr. HIGGINS. You never believed that? 

Ms. FOLEY. Oh, I believed it totally, sir. 

Mr. HIGGINS. How long——

Ms. FOLEY. That is why I didn’t—we didn’t try to raise ransom 

or do anything privately. Oh, we totally believed it. 

Mr. HIGGINS. When did you stop believing it? 

Ms. FOLEY. By the—by the late spring of 2014 when I could—

primarily when Mark Mitchell threatened us three times and made 

it very obvious that our Government was going to do nothing for 

those citizens. 

Mr. HIGGINS. And what was the nature of Mark—what was his—

what was his threat? 

Ms. FOLEY. Oh, that first of all as Americans if we dared to raise 

a ransom to get our loved ones out we would definitely be prosecuted and, secondly, there is no way our Government would ever 

ask another country. 

You know, he was going by the law and I know that the law says 

we are not—you know, we don’t want Qatar to do these things and 

I—but what he was saying essentially is your government will do 

nothing to get your people out. Nothing. 

And he just said it in a very—I mean, God bless that man anyway. I don’t know. It is just very appalling that as an American 

that we would do nothing for some of the best of America, some of 

our journalists, some of—people who care about the suffering of the 

people in Syria. 

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It was appalling to me, sir. 

Mr. HIGGINS. I have no further questions. 

Mr. POE. I thank the gentleman from New York. 

We will be in a short recess until the members vote and quickly 

come back and we will continue this. 

I want to thank the witnesses for your patience. But your information is so important that we don’t want to—I don’t want to end 

this hearing at this point. 

So we will be in recess until—for 15 minutes maximum. 

[Recess.] 

Mr. POE. The subcommittee will reconvene. 

The Chair recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr. Sherman. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Thank you. 

Qatar doesn’t just allow its citizens to give money to terrorist 

groups. Government money is going to Hamas and other terrorist 

groups. 

I think we have to get serious about this war. I will give you 

some examples of where at least some of our friends are not serious. 

The Iraqi Government pays salaries to former civil servants who 

live in ISIS-controlled areas. I do not remember General DeGaulle 

sending gold coins to French teachers in Normandy or Bordeaux. 

The oil fields controlled by ISIS we don’t bomb. We bombed 

World War II oil fields. We don’t bomb these. Some say it is because the Iraqis want to get them back intact. Some say it is because the Iraqi Government is making a lot of money on this war 

and doesn’t want to see ISIS lose the revenue. 

But you have something which by the definitions of a war we 

took most seriously—World War II—is a strategic target. We know 

that ISIS is pumping the oil. We hit their mobile refineries but we 

won’t hit the oil fields. 

We are not hitting the dams. We are not hitting their electric 

generation facilities and I can’t get a straight answer out of either 

our Government or the Iraqi Government as to whether Iraq is providing free electricity to Mosul. 

But the lights are on for—and they are not on all the time but 

they are on for a reason. The biggest score—and I realize it may 

be slightly outside the definition of this hearing, although we do 

have the word donations in this—is ISIS has got its hands on $500, 

$800 million of Iraqi currency. 

Now, what other countries do for various reasons is that they 

issue new currency. You do a recall of the greenbacks and you 

issue bluebacks. 

Iraq didn’t do that because that is a technique that is used to go 

after corrupt politicians and organized crime and when you have 

a Baghdad government installed by us, protected by us, financed 

with our money that is pretty dependent upon, infiltrated by, controlled by Iran, the Quds Forces and organized criminal and corrupt elements, they are not going to recall the currency. 

So the—as to hostages, we definitely should not do nothing. The 

raid didn’t work but it shows a U.S. determination. We need to 

sanction Iran for holding five American hostages. 

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The President made it clear that the deal in Geneva related only 

to nuclear weapons and if any other country was holding five of our 

hostages we would—we would certainly sanction them. 

Dr. Weinberg, does Qatar even pretend to outlaw voluntary contributions made by its citizens to Hamas? Is that a violation of 

Qatari law? 

Mr. WEINBERG. So Qatari law doesn’t discuss specific organizations in terms of the legislation. They have had several laws on the 

books, one actually approved by the emir this week banning individual—banning citizens from collecting money without authorization for donations. 

But this is the——

Mr. SHERMAN. Well, that is collecting from others. What—is it illegal to just send your money directly—Hamas donation fund care 

of Gaza? 

Mr. WEINBERG. The Qatari Government has given itself the authority to list terrorist groups or——

Mr. SHERMAN. Have they listed any? 

Mr. WEINBERG. Not to my knowledge. There—of the four laws intended to combat terrorism finance in the country the U.S. has yet 

to see serious convictions under——

Mr. SHERMAN. So it is illegal to give money to anyone on the list, 

and the list is a blank piece of paper? 

Mr. WEINBERG. The latest law, theoretically, means that you 

need to get governmental authority to collect donations for anybody. The question is——

Mr. SHERMAN. To collect. But if—I mean, it is—if Qataris see 

that there is a disaster in Bangladesh and they give to the 

Bangladeshi Red Crescent Society or the—or UNICEF or something like that, they don’t need government permission to write a 

check to UNICEF, do they? 

Mr. WEINBERG. The—I think the most striking evidence in this 

regard is that the United States sanction to Qatari nationals in August, I believe, who, as I understand it, were running the most 

high profile fund-raising organization for Syria relief in Qatar. 

The U.S. alleged that they both were high level al-Qaeda financial operatives. It took the Qataris almost a year after the organization was allegedly, according to the Washington Post, endorsed 

by the Nusra Fund on social media for the Qataris to shut it down 

and a year after that when the U.S. actually sanctioned them, U.S. 

officials indicated the Qataris still had not arrested the two men. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Nor would we expect them to. I would point out 

to our friends in Qatar that just because you host a U.S. military 

base does not mean that the United States has to preserve your regime. 

We have a military base in Cuba. That doesn’t mean we are supporters of the government in Havana—our policies changed from 

this way or that way. But it is nice to have the base there. That 

doesn’t mean we have to support their government. 

I would also point out, and with Ms. Foley here, you know, I feel 

bad saying it but I don’t think that we should be allowing—paying 

money—give ransom to terrorist organizations. 

From an emotional standpoint you want to. From an emotional 

standpoint it may get your—the particular loved one back. But it 

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is just a while before they kill some other Americans or seize some 

other American hostages and, of course, with money that gives 

them both an incentive and a capacity. 

So I yield back and thank you for time. 

Mr. POE. The Chair recognizes Mr. Keating from Massachusetts. 

Mr. KEATING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

A question about the nonprofit again—not just Qatar but particularly, Mr. Cassara, Dr. Weinberg, what other nonprofits are there 

in the world? 

Are some people donating unwittingly, not knowing where some 

of the money is going? Are we able to do this? If you could, just 

enlighten us on some of those sources of financing——

Mr. WEINBERG. Sure. Absolutely. 

Mr. KEATING [continuing]. That the terrorists get. 

Mr. WEINBERG. So this has been a longstanding practice among 

financiers of—financial operatives for al-Qaeda for years, which is 

basically while we can’t openly practice what we do in many regards so let us cloak it in a veneer of charitable relief. 

There is a particularly noteworthy case in Kuwait as well and 

there was a fund-raising outfit operated by an individual named 

Hajjaj al-Ajmi, which was presenting itself in most of its presentations as relief for the Syrian people, support for legitimate resistance. 

But in practice, according to what the U.S. Government has designated, he was basically funding al-Qaeda in very large amounts 

and since then he has been called in for questioning by Kuwaiti authorities——

Mr. KEATING. Are donors aware—are some of them innocently 

being——

Mr. WEINBERG. Some of them are innocently being exploited. 

There are—the—this tribe in Kuwait as well as another tribe have 

been exploited by people trying to play on their sympathies. 

The challenge is that once these sorts of frauds are exposed the 

penalties are inconsistent at best in some of these places. 

And so the United States can work to try and build leverage to 

motivate the host governments to act because apparently so far 

they don’t seem to be sufficiently consistently motivated. 

Mr. KEATING. And I imagine if you just go with a nonprofit name 

and not the people behind, sort of like Whac-A-Mole because they 

can do this and start another nonprofit. 

Mr. WEINBERG. Exactly. One of—in that instance one of the individuals—that individual is under sanctions but his co-captain in 

one of his main fund-raising networks is still a senior operative in 

a Kuwaiti political party. 

Mr. KEATING. Dr. Danti, just quickly. I am curious, too. With 

the—you know, the passageway for the antiquities what are some 

of the transit countries involved? 

What is being done there and are they following the say routes 

of other illicit activities like drugs or money laundering? 

Are there parallels and how can we—I think we can do things 

here at home to, you know, tamp down on demand, talk to people 

in the U.K. similarly, you know, motivated to do that in terms of 

final destinations but what about the transit companies—countries, 

rather, and what about—what can we do to disrupt that chain? 

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Mr. DANTI. Right. So in the cases that we have seen over the last 

16 months, the primary trafficking points were antiquities coming 

out of Syria were Lebanon and Turkey, and from that point much 

of the material was going to Bulgaria and Greece and then with 

the objective of moving the material into the Schengen zone—the 

free border zone. 

Those are the cases that we were looking at. There were allegedly routes taking material to Jordan, Israel and the Gulf as well. 

Since, let us say, October some of those routes have shifted as 

the Turks have taken military action. Some of the border crossings 

that Islamic State was using have fallen to YPG, or Turkish forces, 

and we see initial indicators that some of the Sunni Arab and Islamic State ISIS trafficking is moving out toward Lebanon. 

There has been a shift in the markets there presumably to take 

the material from Lebanon to either Cyprus, Greece or Bulgaria. 

I would say that in terms of trying to shut that trade down what 

could be done is to limit the number of ports that are involved in 

illicit trade in antiquities and also to limit the number of people 

who can legally import antiquities. 

Mr. KEATING. Are they following other illicit activities like drugs 

or money laundering? Any of those? 

Mr. DANTI. Yes. In looking at the—into the routes that the material was taken through Turkey and Bulgaria it was following a lot 

of other contraband out of the country—for example, stolen automobiles, their stolen capital goods, and following the routes that 

fighters—Islamic State fighters were entering the country through 

and in illegal weapons the same border crossings—for example, the 

Tell Abyad-Akc ̧akale border crossing that the—that ISIS told its 

would-be migrants to use to come and join the caliphate in a PDF 

that was posted online. 

Satellite imagery, in-country sources indicated that was a route 

that the antiquities were leaving the country from to ports in western Turkey and in southern and western Turkey where Islamic 

State essentially is surely alighting with or joining up with organized crime units within Turkey to move that. 

Islamic State is essentially new management taking advantage 

of existing looting networks and existing trafficking networks that 

predate the conflict period and they have essentially just encouraged additional—far more looting and trafficking of antiquities. 

But these routes existed in the pre-conflict period. 

Mr. KEATING. Just quickly, any human trafficking involved in 

that? 

Mr. DANTI. Not that I am aware of. 

Mr. KEATING. Okay. Thank you. I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. POE. Chair recognizes the gentleman from New York. 

Mr. HIGGINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I just—you know, kidnapping for ransom has, you know, become 

a significant source of terror financing. In 2003, al-Qaeda would get 

about $200,000 per hostage. Now, they are getting about $10 million. 

Over half of al-Qaeda’s operating revenue comes from ransom 

from kidnapping. But ISIS seems to be different. ISIS seems to be 

involved in other activity and a lot of their ability to raise funds 

is locally—terrorizing the local population, taxing people. 

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Every activity that is done there is taxed and results in a revenue source for ISIS. Any thoughts about that distinction and what 

is gleaned from it? Anybody on the panel. 

Mr. WEINBERG. So I think it is—it is certainly important to 

contextualize this, like you said, and to say that the primary 

sources of revenue that ISIS in particular have are derived from 

controlled local territory. 

I think it is also important for us to recognize that Treasury has 

indicated ISIS as well as branches of al-Qaeda in Yemen and north 

Africa have been able to conquer territory in part because they 

have used private donations as well as ransoms to fuel and to fund 

that territorial conquest. 

Particularly as the United States and our allies work to cut off 

their income from oil smuggling and from other—and from their 

ability to even hold territory in the first place they are going to fall 

back on these other sorts of revenue as well. And so if we really 

want to conquer this phenomenon we need to address this. 

We have also learned that ISIS and al-Qaeda frequently will use 

these private donations and other sorts of external funding to particularly pay for moving recruits from other countries, which they 

have done in the tens of thousands, to battle zones. And so if we 

can cut off these two other sources of funding we may be able to 

limit the abilities—the ability of the organization to function even 

if it still has other sources of revenue. 

Mr. CASSARA. It is not only sources of funding, it is laundering 

money. I would just like to share a quick anecdote. 

About 2002, not too long after 9/11, I had a conversation with a 

Pakistani gentleman who I guess you could charitably describe 

works in the gray markets. 

And I was talking to him about things we are talking about 

today. I was talking to him about trade-based money laundering, 

over and under valuation, hawala, the misuse of the Afghan transit 

trade, et cetera, et cetera. 

And he finally turns to me, he says, Mr. John, he says, don’t you 

know that your enemies are transferring money in value right 

under your noses but the West doesn’t see it. Your enemies are 

laughing at you. 

And I think that kind of encapsulated a lot of what this issue is 

all about. We have spent an incredible amount of time the last 14 

years since 9/11 looking in many of the wrong places. 

We have been concentrating on financial intelligence, setting up 

financial intelligence units, filing suspicious activity reports, sanctions and designations. We are a nation of laws. 

Our adversaries, the terrorists, they are not. They are laughing 

at us, okay. We need to start thinking how they operate, all right. 

We need to understand their cultures, their methods of doing business, their values. 

We are making progress but it has taken far too long. I think we 

are kind of emphasizing the wrong things. Just an observation. 

Ms. FOLEY. I would concur with that in a big way. I mean, I just 

feel that they have the upper hand because they are shrewder. 

They are—they have studied us. They know how to use Twitter. 

They know how to use PR, video, et cetera, to get their message, 

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to recruit people who hate us, and we—you know, we won’t even 

talk to them. 

I mean, we have got to know our enemies. We have got to use 

our cultural expertise to really get serious about engaging with us. 

You know, I mean that is why, you know, I realize Jim was just 

a young American but he—they didn’t—our FBI and State didn’t 

use that situation with four Americans being held there to find out 

who are these people that are holding our four Americans. 

Why are they holding our—what do they want? They didn’t even 

try, and how are we going to understand and engage this enemy 

if we don’t even try to know them? Thank you. 

Mr. HIGGINS. Yield back. 

Mr. POE. Chair recognizes himself for two more questions in closing. 

In addition to the list we started out making about where terrorist organizations get their money we have to now add wildlife 

poaching is another way they get their money, and as my friend 

from New York mentioned, human trafficking—they make money 

off of human trafficking as well and charities. 

Let me ask you something, Dr. Weinberg. You mentioned specifically about charities in other countries. Do we have charities in the 

United States that are not really charities—they are just a front 

for money laundering or donations that go to charity but ends up 

in the hands of these bad guys? 

Mr. WEINBERG. Yes. The—most recently U.S. law enforcement 

authorities I believe pressed charges against a network of several 

Yemeni nationals who were using illicit methods within the United 

States to fund-raise for al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula including defrauding credit card companies, taking out money and then 

closing down the accounts. 

Also, if you look back historically Hamas used U.S. territory 

quite deftly in methods that were exposed during the Holy Land 

Foundation trial and many of those individuals have gone on 

abroad—people who are linked to the Holy Land Foundation—to 

continue to be parts of Hamas’ regional financial network including 

one case I identified in my written testimony. 

Mr. POE. And once again, the handful of individuals who do most 

of the contributing to foreign terrorist organizations, giving them 

money, we know who those people are. 

Is that right or not? 

Mr. WEINBERG. Sometimes. 

Mr. POE. We know who some of them are? 

Mr. WEINBERG. Right. Part of—part of the challenge is that the 

donors are often harder to track down than the operators themselves, right. 

If you look at it almost as a pyramid or something——

Mr. POE. I understand. 

Mr. WEINBERG. Right. But if you take out the people in the middle——

Mr. POE. Like in a drug trafficking we get the guy who is selling 

drugs on the corner. We don’t get the guy who is bringing it into 

the country or making the money. 

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Mr. WEINBERG. Exactly. The more we can take out the operatives 

in the middle. The people at the bottom of the period are more 

prone to sting operations and things like that. 

Mr. POE. And Mr. Cassara, going back to your comments, United 

States has a financial investigation of money going from banks to 

banks, trying to track it to see if it is legitimate or not. 

But your testimony—the terrorists don’t operate that way. Is 

that—is that a fair statement? They operate through trade and 

how much illicit money have they been making with the money 

laundering through trade that you discussed? 

Mr. CASSARA. First of all, I would like to explain that, as we have 

talked about here today, terrorists are adversaries. They diversify 

just like any criminal organization does, just like—just like a good 

investor does, if you will. 

You don’t put all your eggs in one basket. They diversify. So they 

use a wide variety of funding methods and laundering methods. 

Yes, they use banks. They do. But I think there has been an 

overemphasis on us targeting Western-style financial institutions. 

In effect, we are still fighting the war on drugs where large 

amounts of dirty money sloshed around through Western financial 

institutions. In fact, our anti-money laundering counter measures 

were put in place, you know, a generation ago when we were fighting the war on drugs. We have to be a little bit more nimble right 

now. Yes, I believe trade is a huge issue. The Financial Action 

Task Force calls it one of the three largest money laundering methodologies in the world. 

Mr. POE. How much money are we talking about? 

Mr. CASSARA. You are talking—the magnitude of money laundering in general, according to the International Monetary Fund, 

is about 3 to 5 percent of the world GDP or, roughly speaking in 

rough numbers, say, $5 trillion a year, okay—roughly, the size of 

the U.S. budget. 

Mr. POE. Give or take a trillion or two? 

Mr. CASSARA. Give or take a trillion or two. You are talking real 

money here. They further think that is about equally divided between—talking suspicious—SUAs, suspicious unlawful activities, 

predicate offenses to charge money laundering, the criminal side—

fraud, antiquities smuggling, human trafficking, narcotics, et 

cetera, and tax evasion. 

So it is about equally divided. Say, it is $4 trillion a year—about 

$2 trillion tax evasion and about $2 trillion traditional criminal 

predicate offenses. How much of that involves trade-based money 

laundering, my personal opinion is, and I detail that in this book, 

is—that is the largest money laundering methodology in the world. 

But we don’t know because it has never been systematically examined. We haven’t done it in the United States. Our Department 

of Treasury has never taken a look at it. 

I mean, the Financial Action Task Force did a money laundering 

methodology back about 2006 and, you know, they kind of threw 

up their hands. 

But this—it is not a solvable problem but it is something that we 

can do a great deal more to combat because the data exists in 

many hidden money laundering systems methodologies out there 

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today. Say, for example, bulk cash smuggling—it is very, very difficult to follow that trail. 

But this type of thing has data and with modern analytics today 

we can do a much better job. 

Mr. POE. All right. I want to thank all four of you for being here. 

Oh, you want to ask some more questions? 

Mr. SHERMAN. Yes. 

Mr. POE. Mr. Sherman. 

Mr. SHERMAN. I am inspired by this work. I just want to bring 

to the attention of the subcommittee it is not just Qatar that takes 

a blind eye. It is also the U.S. Government. 

I brought to the attention of both the attorney general and the 

IRS the fact that there is a group based in Britain called Viva 

Palestinia that gives money to Hamas. 

Now, you got to understand that in liberal circles it is kind of—

very liberal leftist circles—it is kind of acceptable to give money to 

Hamas. 

It is not al-Qaeda, not ISIS but Hamas, okay. And so brought to 

their attention the Viva—and then the Web site of the Interreligious Foundations for Community Organization that said we will 

help you get a tax deduction for giving money to Viva Palestinia 

so that they can give the money to Hamas. 

Brought this to their attention. Not only was there no criminal 

action taken but after 5 years there is just a review of the Interreligious Foundations and if there is anybody in this room who wants 

to give a—get a tax deduction and give money that they can be certain will go to Hamas the Web site is available to you right now. 

So I know we are the international affairs committee and we 

criticize a lot of foreign governments. Our own is in this, and I will 

say this. 

The IRS has published the fact that they are doing a study on 

this and they may eventually turn to the Interreligious Foundation 

for Community Organization. 

In spite of the fact that it has the word interreligious in it and 

deny their 501(c)(3) status, maybe by then we will see peace in the 

Middle East and Hamas won’t be a problem. 

Second, on cultural awareness I know Ms. Foley brought that up. 

I have been on—the double entendre would be I have been on a 

jihad to get the State Department to hire just a few people who are 

hired not because they can pass the Foreign Service exam but because they are real experts in the theology and jurisprudence of 

Islam because you do have to understand not just your enemy but 

the group that we are trying to win over, which is the 1.2, 1.3 billion Muslims who ISIS would like to win over to their side. 

And they are pretty rigid over there. You know, if you go to 

Princeton they will hire you but if your knowledge—if you reach 

one of the highest levels of knowledge in the theology and jurisprudence of Islam they won’t and so their arguments are basically to 

tell people ISIS is bad because they kill men, women and children 

Yazidis without being in a position to argue as to whether—to deal 

with the argument from ISIS that—well, that is a good thing. Look 

at their twisted interpretation of Islamic jurisprudence and theology. 

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So just when we—while we criticize other governments we have 

got a government that will still to this day give you a tax deduction 

for giving money that you know goes to Hamas and we do have 

some people in the State Department that know some things about 

Islam, whatever you can learn kind of from the outside in a couple 

of graduate seminars, and we have religious Muslims but they may 

be working on trade issues. 

There is no department there that says here is how we can frame 

our arguments to Islamic governments based on—based on a real 

knowledge of Islam. 

With that, I think I have gone over time. I yield back. I haven’t 

gone—I am yielding back a minute early. Put that on the record. 

Thank you. 

Mr. POE. I will put it down because that is a record. 

But I do want to thank the Members of Congress. I want to 

thank you all for being here. I can’t emphasize enough how valuable the information that you have given us is. 

We—Ranking Member Keating and I were talking during the 

break that we could have a hearing on each one of the issues that 

the four of you talked about because it is important information 

and we appreciate the fact that you have been here and have given 

us this information. 

Once again, Ms. Foley, thank you so much for being here. I agree 

with the comment that was made—your son probably got his spunk 

from you, which is—that is a compliment, by the way. 

So I thank all of you all and if you have any other information 

that you would like to share with the committee feel free to do 

that. Give it to me and I will share it with the other members of 

the committee. 

The committee now is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 4:10 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD BY THE HONORABLE TED POE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS, AND CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON

TERRORISM, NONPROLIFERATION, AND TRADE


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