Garbanzo Toons

Jihad Damages the Environment

By way of Smoothstone, here is a post by Illustrated P.I.G. to Islam (warning! graphic photos of dead mutilated animals) on Islamists in India who poach endangered animals to raise money for jihad.

Poaching for Bin Laden In the jungles of India,
local animal trappers have a new breed of client: Islamic militants using the trade in rare wildlife to raise funds for their cause. Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark report from Assam Saturday May 5, 2007

[ . . .]

In recent times, however, the wildlife has attracted a new kind of visitor. According to India's security services, police, intelligence analysts, local traders and forestry officials, Islamic militants affiliated to al-Qaida are sponsoring poaching in the reserve for profit. These groups have established bases in the formerly moderate enclave of Bangladesh and have agents operating all along the country's porous 2,500-mile border with India. They have gone into business with local animal trappers and organised crime syndicates around Kaziranga - as well as in parks and reserves in Nepal, Burma and Thailand - in a quest for horns, ivory, pelts and other animal products with which to raise "under the wire" funds that they can move around the world invisibly.

A small rhino horn, the size of a bag of sugar, with good provenance (the beast's tail and ears, presented to a prospective buyer) and in the right marketplace (in Asia, Europe or North America), can fetch £20,000. Big cat pelts can go for up to £10,000. Monkey brains, bear bile, musk, big cat carcasses, elephant feet, tails, horns and teeth have considerable value. A shipment worth £2.8m was recently intercepted by UK customs. Profits from the trade run from $15bn to an incredible $25bn a year, according to estimates from the WWF (formerly the World Wide Fund for Nature). The punishment for trading in these items is generally a fine as low as £300 in India and £900 in Nepal.
A senior Indian security source, based in the north-east, who has tracked the incursion into the trade by Bangladeshi militants, warns that the poaching has global consequences. "There is an environmental disaster in the offing here, but as pressing are the security ramifications," he says. "Only a minuscule percentage of the vast profits need to trickle back into a nascent Islamic insurgency in a country like Bangladesh to bring it to the boil. And then it can reach out around the world."

It's a fairly lengthy article, but one that should be read by all "Greens". If you are truly concerned about the envirnment, help battle against the jihad, if only to save the lives of innocent rhinos and elephants.

Labels: environment, islam, jihad, poachers

posted by Harry @ 4:30 PM