Follow the money

Follow the money: The E.U. has agreed to begin talks with the United States on a pact to share counterterror info on European citizens’ bank transactions, but past CIA covert activities render some wary, The Irish Times tells — while Deutsche Presse Agentur has the very prospect “uniting disparate parts of the German political spectrum in opposition.” The Swiss government has extended a list of individuals and groups linked to al Qaeda or the Taliban who are banned from travelling through Switzerland or having Swiss accounts, Dow Jones Newswires relates. Foreign terrorists’ and insurgents’ “use of third party countries for training, fundraising, and transit is not merely an operational phenomenon, but an economic one as well,” the author of a paper titled “Foreign Fighters and Their Economic Impact” summarizes in The Counterterrorism Blog.. Somali pirates are probably using the ransom money they collect from hijacking western ships to finance Islamic terrorists, The Daily Telegraph has a parliamentary committee reporting.