U.S. Funds Scandinavian Humanitarian Group that Helps Islamic Terrorists

A global humanitarian group that receives generous U.S. government funding helps Islamic terrorist organizations abroad and a country that appears on the State Department’s list of nations that sponsor terrorism. The Scandinavian organization, Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA), recently settled a case in U.S. federal court by agreeing to pay Uncle Sam more than $2 million to resolve claims that it violated federal funding requirements by providing material support to Iran, Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP). Hamas, PFLP and DFLP appear on the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control’s specially designated nationals and blocked persons list.

Iran is a fixture on the State Department’s list of countries that repeatedly provide support for acts of international terrorism. Hamas is the Palestinian Islamist group that rules the Gaza strip. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) are radical Marxist revolutionary groups known for their militant tactics, terrorist attacks on civilians, airline hijackings, and suicide bombers. The PFLP’s best known attacks include a suicide bombing at a bus station in Tel Aviv, the hijacking and explosion of three commercial planes belonging to western countries, and a suicide bombing in a West Bank village that killed three and wounded dozens of others. The DFLP’s accomplishments include a terrorist attack in a town that killed dozens of Israeli civilians — many of them children — and a wagon rigged with a bomb in Jerusalem that killed seven Israelis.

Laughably, the NPA claims it mistakenly used American taxpayer dollars to help terrorists and that doing so was “an unintentional breach of a clause in an agreement.” The group, which describes itself as the labor movement’s humanitarian solidarity organization, works to bring a more equitable distribution of power and resources to developing nations in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East. NPA assures, that despite the breach, it maintains a “positive long-term” relationship with the U.S. government, which has filled its coffers with cash since the 1990s. A few weeks ago a federal judge in New York approved a settlement that allows NPA to keep receiving U.S. funds by writing a $2.025 million check as punishment for assisting terrorists. The agreement also says the group must revise its internal policies to ensure it complies with applicable U.S. sanctions laws forbidding that terrorists benefit from American aid.

NPA gets its American dollars via the famously corrupt U.S. Agency of International Development (USAID), which has a massive budget with little oversight. The money is supposed to support the leftist humanitarian group’s various projects in the region aimed at bringing “human worth and equal rights for all, irrespective of sex, disability, ethnicity, religion, age, sexual preference, or social status.” New York’s top federal prosecutor, whose office handled the case, said in a statement that “for years, Norwegian People’s Aid obtained grant money from USAID by falsely representing that it had not provided, and would take reasonable steps to ensure that it did not knowingly provide, material support to prohibited parties under U.S. law.” NPA provided training and expert advice or assistance to Iran, Hamas, PFLP and DFLP, federal prosecutors say. This includes training members of the Iranian Army and mine clearance activities in Iran. NPA provided Hamas, PFLP and DFLP with training, expert advice and funding for a youth program on the Gaza Strip that taught participants how to organize and become more effective in the political process.

USAID has committed a multitude of atrocities over the years with American taxpayer dollars, including funding terrorist causes. Among the agency’s favorite recipients is Yemen, an Islamic nation that serves as an Al Qaeda breeding ground and is best known as the headquarters of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Since 2016 USAID has awarded Yemen $768 million in “humanitarian aid” even though in its Country Reports on Terrorism, the State Department reveals that AQAP militants have carried out hundreds of attacks including suicide bombers, vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (VBIEDs), ambushes, kidnappings and targeted assassinations. The media has also documented this for years with one in-depth report confirming that “Yemen has emerged as the breeding grounds for some of the most high-profile plans to attack the U.S. homeland.”