The Kenyan Financier of Islamic State: Halima Adan Ali

The Kenyan Financier of Islamic State: Halima Adan Ali

Halima Adan Ali, a 34-year-old female Islamist militant has recently been revealed to be a financier, supporter, and recruiter of the Middle East-based Islamic State (IS).

Her name is emerging at a time when the role of women as facilitators of terrorist activities has become a key focus of both local and international security actors across the world.

At the same time, Ali’s association with IS is not accidental. Security experts observe that IS, after losing most of its territory in the Middle East, is searching for a new base elsewhere, and Africa is in its spotlights.

That expansion plan has seen the group gain affiliates in North, East, and West Africa, completing a circle of footprints with claims that it had made entry in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). In April, the group claimed responsibility for attacks in the North Kivu region of the troubled parts of the country (Congo Today, April 19).

Ali is alleged to have—on several occasions—moved money for the organization from her bases in the coastal city of Mombasa, where she was born and schooled. Although no confirmation is available at the moment, she is believed to own some family businesses in Mombasa, according to a reliably sourced interview. [1] Recently, Ali told a Kenyan court that she solely takes care of her eight siblings, after her father died and her mother fell ill.

Halima is believed to be part of a global network that is moving millions of dollars for the terrorist groups through Halawas, the Arabic term for money transfer. Also known as Hundi, the unregulated alternative system of remittances runs parallel to banks and is popular among the members of the Somali community and Muslims. In the platform, money is transferred without any currency actually moving.

In April, the U.S State Department listed the woman among seven global funders, alongside others based in Germany and Turkey.  The United States accused her of playing a critical role in facilitating finances for IS through a network of affiliates which span across Europe, the Middle East, the Americas, and Central Africa. The department barred Americans from trading with her. It would also seize any of Ali’s assets that are on U.S. soil (Daily Nation , April 19).

Ali’s key person linking her to IS is a man named Waleed Ahmed Zein, a.k.a Abu Waleed, a Kenyan from the coastal city of Mombasa, whose family is based in Syria. In September 2018, the U.S State Department labeled Zein as a dangerous terrorist on accusations that he is running a global network of financial facilitators for IS. The network uses intermediaries to evade police and fund their deadly activities (Daily Nation, September 9, 2018).

Zein had been working as a long-distance truck driver in East Africa to mask his terror financing activities. As a truck driver, he was able to travel across East African countries, including DRC. In Mombasa as well, he runs a fleet of Tuk Tuks (motorized auto-rickshaws common in Asia, Africa and South America). He had also worked in a brokerage firm in Nairobi’s central business district. When he made huge deposits into his bank, Zein claimed these were proceeds from his father’s auto spare company (KBC, July 8, 2018).

Zein allegedly paid the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a DRC militant group, at least once, according to a report by New York University’s Congo Research Group.

Ali, as part of this network, is alleged to have received large sums estimated at $150,000, which she proceeded to forward to IS fighters in Libya, Syria, and Central Africa, probably in the DRC (Standard Digital, April 18).

There are indications that at some point Ali and Zein had built a bond that could have led to marriage, after which they would travel to Syria. However, Ali’s arrest had forced Zein to leave for Syria without her (KBC, July 8, 2018).

Initially, she is believed to have acted as a recruiter, especially of young women, for al-Shabaab, the deadly al-Qaeda affiliate in East Africa. Kenyan security services have also linked Ali to terrorist-related activities in the country, where al-Shabaab have carried deadly attacks in Nairobi, the coastal region, and the north-eastern regions (Standard Digital, April 18).

Ali has been arrested several times by Kenyan security as she attempted to flee the country. In the period one of her arrests, three female attackers linked to IS were killed as they attempted in 2016 to storm the Mombasa Central Station to free a suspect. Although the identity of the suspect targeted for the rescue by the women has not been publicized, there are suspicions it was Ali (Capital News, September 11, 2016).

In 2015, she was one of the al-Shabaab brides nabbed as they attempted to travel to Somalia together with three other young women, Ummulkheir Sadri Abdalla, Khadija Abubakar Abdulkadhir, and the late Maryam Said Aboud (Daily Nation, April 19, 2018).

At the time of arrest, the women were believed to have joined a Ghuraba, a social media group through which potential members of the group are recruited, radicalized and supported to join the militant groups’ bases in Somalia. In another earlier arrest in 2014, Ali was caught before she could travel to Syria, the IS stronghold.

She has been detained at the Lang’ata Women’s Prison in Nairobi and spent more than a year at the Shimo la Tewa prison in Mombasa. In one of the arrests in 2015, she was bundled into a small car and driven to Mombasa where she was charged with collecting videos and articles for commission of terror acts using her phone (The East African, April 19, 2018).

In 2017, Ali, alongside the three other women, was released on bail after spending nearly two years incarcerated at the Shimo la Tewa prison. They collectively faced 19 terrorism charges, including being members of al-Shabaab, and conspiracy to commit terror crimes in Kenya (Standard Digital, Jan 17, 2017).

Zein, using the Hawalas, managed to facilitate funds to secure Ali’s release. Successfully released through the IS links, Ali switched sides, dumping al-Shabaab and joining IS ( KBC, July 8, 2018).

In August 2018, Ali’s sister Abdia Abdi was arrested by the Kenya police after she appeared in court impersonating her sister. Ali was to appear in court for the final hearing of her case for facilitating recruitment for al-Shabaab. Ali had colluded with her lawyer, according to news reports, to sneak her sister into the court, in order to skip the hearing. Reports indicate that even after her release from prison, she had continued to recruit youths to travel to Syria and financing terrorist activities in secret through her network (Kenyans, August 21, 2018).

Conclusion

With IS disintegrating in the Middle East, it is clear that it is attempting to widen its reach and extend its operations beyond Syria and Iraq. One of the approaches it is using to achieve this goal is to fund its off-shoot groups and operations beyond the Middle East.

In East Africa, Ali is seen as one of the new female militants aiding that plan by facilitating the movement of money for the group across the region. At this time, the emergence of the female jihadist and militants is the latest new twist in the fight against terrorism. Moreover, female jihadists like Ali are playing more indirect but important roles, making them an important asset for the continuation of the militant group’s activities.

At the same time, the female jihadist’s have proven themselves better able to conceal their activism and chances are strong that male jihadists will continue to find them useful in facilitating activities—including in money transfers, gathering information in heavily protected areas, and recruitment.

Cases such as Ali and others indicate that the growing involvement of women in jihadist activities should now become a key focus of security experts and anti-terrorism actors.

Notes