⚠️ Early-Stage Draft
This matrix represents an exploratory outline of possible tactics and adversarial objectives related to terrorism financing (TF). It is not yet supported by techniques or indicators, and active development is not currently in progress.
Feedback and expressions of interest from the community are welcome to help guide future prioritization.
Terrorism financing involves acquiring, managing, and moving funds from both legitimate and illicit sources to support terrorism activities and organizations. This financial process may utilize conventional methods such as donations or lawful businesses, as well as fraudulent schemes, criminal enterprises, and underground networks like hawala. Funds are directed toward recruitment, training, propaganda, logistical support, and execution of attacks. Within adversarial frameworks like kill-chain models, TF comprises diverse tactics including infiltration of legitimate financial institutions and employing layered transactions to evade law enforcement and regulatory detection.
In the AMLTRIX adversarial framework, terrorism financing is modeled distinctly from money laundering, highlighting unique tactics and strategic financial objectives. These tactics aim not only to channel resources effectively toward operational goals but also to ensure the long-term resilience and adaptability of terrorist entities.
The outlined matrix below presents seven foundational tactics, each reflecting stages in the financial lifecycle of terrorist organizations. These tactics provide a conceptual foundation for future development of detection techniques, indicators, and analytical frameworks:
Draft Terrorism Financing Tactics Overview
| Tactic | Description |
|---|---|
| 1. Establishing Funds Collection | Creating stable inflows via legitimate or illicit channels, such as charities, crowdfunding, businesses, or criminal activities, to sustain fundraising. |
| 2. Fundraising | Actively increasing financial resources through legal self-financing, criminal enterprises, external support, or manipulation of non-profits. |
| 3. Legitimation | Gaining credibility and social acceptance by integrating with lawful domains—business, religious affiliations, propaganda, cultural events—to mask financial activities and attract additional funds. |
| 4. Money Movement | Transferring funds secretly through formal and informal networks like banking, remittances, hawala, cryptocurrency, and physical smuggling to conceal origins and destinations. |
| 5. Value Storage | Securing funds in discreet, stable assets such as real estate, precious metals, digital wallets, or decentralized finance tools to retain liquidity and minimize detection risk. |
| 6. Resource Procurement and Expenditure | Directing resources towards operational necessities, including weaponry, communications, logistics, personnel recruitment, and strategic outreach. |
| 7. Operational Continuity | Ensuring ongoing survival by diversifying funding methods, embedding redundancy, preparing successors, and adapting financial practices to circumvent countermeasures. |