FRANCAISInternational Islamic Relief Organisation of Saudi Arabia (al-Ighata al-Islamiya al-'alamiya) - History
1980-1989
-From 1982 on, Pakistan: the IIRO helps Afghans who fled from their country after the invasion of the Red Army. Among them are mujaheddin who fight against the Soviet occupying troops and call for a holy war (jihad) against the communist regime set up by Moscow in Kabul. Based in Peshawar, the IIRO’s operations are directed by Talaat Fouad Abdul Qasim, a terrorist of the Egyptian Jihad (Jama‘at al-Islamiyya) who was sentenced to death in abstentia in his country of origin, and who will eventually be captured the Americans in Croatia and executed in Cairo on 1998.
-From 1984 on, Bangladesh: the IIRO begins to set up projects in a predominantly, not to say exclusively, Muslim country. There, it does not only help destitute people, but also Muslim refugees from Burma, the Rohinga. To empower the population, it eventually sets up a national section which is very close to the Jamat i Islami, the main fundamentalist party in the country. Consequently, the IIRO, which funds over 70% of the new organization, supports Islamists who criticize the State secularism. Syed Abou Nasir, one of its Bangladeshi employees until 1992, and an activist of Lashkar-e-Taiba, is even arrested carrying explosives in India in January 1999, while he was about to plant bombs in the American consulates of Chennai, Madras and Calcutta.
-From 1985 on, Great Britain: the IIRO extends beyond developing countries. It opens its first branch on the European continent at Oxford on the 28th of November 1985 and shares its offices with the IDF (International Development Foundation) of Mohammed Salem Bin Mahfouz and Mohammed Saleh Affara. Both businessmen, the latter are involved in arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the funding of Osama bin Laden’s activities. According to Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquié, the IDF is actually one of the main recruitment centre of al-Qaeda. Another fundamentalist structure is also located at the same address, namely the Oxford Trust for Islamic Studies of Farhan Ahmad Nizami and Khalid Alireza. As Richard Labévière explains, such a system directly links the IIRO to the terrorist Islamist movement.
-From 1985 on, Comoros: the IIRO intervenes in an Islamic Republic. Its activities focus on public health, with health centres in Wachili, Niououmachoua and Tsémbéhou on the islands of Ngazidja, Mwali and Nzwani respectively. From 1995 on, the organization also gets involved in the management of a medical centre in Moroni, the capital city.
-From 1986 on, Chad: the IIRO starts to build mosques and schools in N’Djamena. It also sets up an orphanage which copies an already existing Christian structure.
-From 1987 on, Somalia: in a quasi-exclusively Muslim country, the IIRO begins development programs then turns to emergencies when the civil war escalates. After Siyad Barre’s dictatorship falls down in 1991, the organization shares out food to the victims of famine and fighting. Out of a budget of three millions dollars for Somalia and its refugees at the end of the 1990’s, two thirds consist in gifts in kind: clothes, food, medicines, etc. The IIRO focuses on public health and education. In the Northwest, it thus runs clinics in Hargeisa and Las Anod. In the South, it manages a Koranic school in Mogadishu, Um al-Kora, which accommodates 3,500 orphans according to the organization.
-1988-2001, United States: three years after Great Britain, the IIRO sets up a branch in North America, the IRO (International Relief Organization). Based in Virginia and initially managed by Sulaiman bin Ali al-Ali, it is quickly suspected of being involved in fraudulent deals and trying to raise funds for “jihadist” movements abroad. In 1989, it first launches an investment fund, Sana-Bell, which, from 1992 onwards, takes part in BMI (Bait ul-Mal), a real estate company in New Jersey. Established in 1986 by Soliman Biheiri, an Egyptian émigré who will be charged at the end of 2003, this firm follows the economic rules of the Koranic law and funds the building of houses in Oxon Hill, a suburb of Washington. But it gives some of its profits to Mousa Abu Marzouk, a leader of Hamas in Palestine, and eventually disappears in 1999 without paying off the loans taken out from Sana-Bell. The Saudi NGO is also linked to another shady organization in America, the Benevolence International Foundation, which is managed by Mohamed Jamal Khalifah, a former director of the IIRO in Manila, expelled from the Philippines in 1994. Accused of supporting terrorist movements, this foundation will be banned after the attacks of September 11th, 2001.
-1989, Saudi Arabia: the IIRO, whose annual budget reaches 60 millions dollars since 1987, becomes institutionalized. With the Islamic Bank for Development, it sets up in 1989 a relief department for the victims of natural disasters or armed conflicts. It also extends its operations outside of Arab and African countries: in 1988, it thus launches a section to cover South-East Asia under the aegis of Mohamed Jamal Khalifah.
