Obama administration knowingly funded al-Qaeda affiliate: US Senate report

Former US President Barack Obamas administration knowingly funded a sanctioned affiliate of the panIslamist banned terror outfit alQaeda as per a recently released report of a US Senate committeeThe report is based on a probe by the office of the Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley RIowa into the Obama administrations approval of a 200000 grant to a US evangelical aid organisation World Vision for the alQaeda affiliate Islamic Relief Agency ISRAIncidentally World Vision works in India as well and is a member of InterAction Americas largest alliance of international nonprofit organisations Last year IANS in a major expose revealed how the US government agencies have been funding the Islamic charities linked to terror groups based in Pakistan and the Middle East through InterActionInterActions Together Project involves the most controversial Islamic charities including Helping Hand for Relief amp Development HHRD which works with the charitable and political wings of LashkareTaiba the Pakistani terror outfit directed against India in KashmirThe US Senate probe into World Vision and its ties with ISRA had been initiated in 2019 after the Middle East Forums Sam Westrop and Cliff Smith exposed the details through a series of articles published in 2018In January 2014 the United States Agency for International Development USAID awarded World Vision a grant of 723405 grant for providing humanitarian services to the conflicttorn Blue Nile region of Sudan World Vision outsourced the services to ISRA with which it had collaborated earlier tooBut ISRA has been sanctioned by the US government since 2004 World Vision in its defence has claimed that it was unaware about the sanctions against ISRA over its ties to terrorismThough the Senate committee report has exonerated World Vision of any intentional wrongdoing it lashed out at the charity for illegally sending government funds to ISRAThough World Vision was notified of ISRAs status as a sanctioned entity in September 2014 and its payments halted yet it sent requests that ISRA be awarded a temporary licence to complete the contract Despite official confirmation about ISRAs sanctioned status the US State Department on May 4 2015 asked the Office of Foreign Assets Control OFAC to oblige World VisionThe OFAC granted World Vision the licence to pay ISRA 125000 for its services but later sent it a cautionary letter informing it that its collaboration with ISRA violated the Global Terrorism Sanction RegulationsIn its report the Senate committee report concluded that World Vision had access to the appropriate public information and should have known how but failed to properly vet ISRA as a subgrantee resulting in the transfer of US taxpayer dollars to an organisation with an extensive history of supporting terrorist organisations and terrorists including Osama Bin LadenDescribing World Visions vetting as borderline negligent the US Senate committee said the organisation ignored elementary level investigative procedures World Vision it said has a duty to ensure that funds acquired from the US government or donated by Americans do not end up supporting terrorist activityMoreover although we find no reason to doubt World Visions assertion that the funds in their entirety were used by ISRA for humanitarian purposes that money inevitably aids their terrorist activities the Senate committee saidThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever