Efforts needed to stop terrorist funding.

A Council on Foreign Relations task force is recommending that the White House establish a special assistant to the president, as well as lead efforts to create an international organization, to combat terrorist financing.

The measures were among several that are needed to halt donations made to charities that support terrorists as well as money laundering, and trade in precious gems and metals that hide the transfer of funds, the task force said.

Additionally, the group is calling for the implementation of background investigations on institutions, corporations and non-governmental organizations that receive U.S. government grants, to ensure that those funds are not diverted to groups that have ties to terrorists.

"Fundamentally, U.S. efforts to curtail the financing of terrorism are impeded not only by a lack of institutional capacity abroad, but by a lack of political will among U.S. allies," the task force said. "Some have a history of ignoring the problem, and some simply do nor assign the same priority to the issue--or they perceive correctly or incorrectly that U.S. attention to the subject has waned."

The Council on Foreign Relations is an independent, nonpartisan center dedicated to producing and disseminating information on foreign policy choices facing the United States. It established the Independent Task Force on Terrorist Financing to examine U.S. efforts.

The 68-page report recommends expanding the U.S. bilateral technical assistance program to help countries to the creation of effective regulatory and enforcement measures for financial institutions and charitable organizations.

Although President Bush's fiscal year 2003 budget included $4 million for the Treasury Department's Office of Technical Assistance to provide training and expertise to foreign governments to combat terrorist financing, task force members said the "funding for such efforts should increase at least tenfold."

The study acknowledges that the creation of the CIA-based Foreign Terrorist Asset Tracking Group is a good start, but "adequate budgets should be requested and intelligence agencies will need to build up the level of linguistic, financial, and cultural expertise to investigate and combat Islamic terrorist financing effectively."

Covert action programs to disrupt or dismantle financial institutions, organizations and individuals financing terrorists should be broadened, said the task force. The Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network also should be strengthened.

International efforts to curtail funding of terrorist groups should include tying International Monetary Fund assistance to a nation's implementation of strict anti-terrorist financing laws.

The World Bank also should provide technical assistance to less developed nations to create anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing that meets international standards, according to the task force.

Countries such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Pakistan need to cooperate with international requests for law enforcement assistance and intelligence requests for information.