Kuwait, a U.S. ally on Syria, is also the leading funder of extremist rebels
▻http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/kuwait-top-ally-on-syria-is-also-the-leading-funder-of-extremist-rebels/2014/04/25/10142b9a-ca48-11e3-a75e-463587891b57_story.html?hpid=z5
Senior Treasury delegations have traveled to Kuwait “a dozen times in the last three years” to talk about terror financing issues, said the Treasury official.
Until recently, public U.S. criticism has been tempered by the close diplomatic ties between the two governments and the fact that Kuwait is also by far the largest donor in the Gulf, and fifth in the world, of U.N.-coordinated humanitarian aid to Syria.
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Kuwait’s response, the official said, “is that they’re working on it. They acknowledge that there are steps they need to take.”
Adding to the agitation within the Obama administration is the presence in the Kuwaiti cabinet of a figure who U.S. officials charge is a major terror financier.
The appointment this year of Nayef #al-Ajmi as minister for justice and Islamic affairs was a “step in the wrong direction,” Cohen said at a speech to the Washington-based Center for a New American Security. Ajmi, he said, “has a history of promoting jihad. . . . In fact, his image has been featured on fundraising posters” for #Jabhat_al-Nusra.
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But this month, Ajmi announced that he had resigned from the government.
Less than a week later, the cabinet said it had rejected his resignation.
Now, the Treasury official said, “we actually don’t know precisely where it stands.”
