Report: U.S.-led effort to cut off terrorism money foundering

LOS ANGELES, March 24 (Xinhua) -- The U.S.-led effort to choke off financing for al-Qaida and other terrorist groups is foundering due to setbacks at home and abroad, the Los Angeles Times reported Monday.

Extremist groups have blunted financial anti-terrorism tools by finding new ways to raise money, while the U.S. government has stumbled over legal difficulties and interagency fighting in its effort, officials and experts told the newspaper.

The most serious problems are fractures and mistrust within the coalition of nations that the United States admits it needs to target financiers of terrorism and to stanch the flow of funding from wealthy donors to extremist causes, according to the report.

Officials said that because of political, legal, cultural and technical problems, the U.S.-led coalition is deteriorating.

"The international cooperation and focus is dropping, the farther we get from 9/11," the report quoted Michael Jacobson, a former senior advisor in the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, as saying.

As political climates have changed and negative perceptions of the United States have risen, key allies are cooperating less, while in the Middle East and elsewhere, many countries have resisted U.S. pressure to investigate and identify financiers, U.S. officials said.

Meanwhile, al-Qaida and other terrorist groups continue to have access to the funds they need for active and expanded indoctrination, recruitment, maintenance, armament and operations, according to a former UN terrorism finance official.