Two years of Insight Intelligence...and much more to come
Discover more from Insight Intelligence
Two years of Insight Intelligence...and much more to come
May 2023 from Insight Intelligence
I managed to completely forget the two-year anniversary of the Insight Intelligence newsletter. Hard to believe that I’ve been writing for more than two years at this point! It’s also hard to believe that I never struggle for a topic. That’s both great…and bad (from a global security perspective).
Happy 2 Year Anniversary of Insight Intelligence!
A big thank you to all the people who have joined us over the last two years. We’re at nearly 4,000 subscribers, and many of you have converted to paid, which is brilliant. Those paid subscriptions really help us keep the quality high, helps us bring in new voices (Hi, Elena!), and continue developing groundbreaking content about illicit financing.
To celebrate the two-year anniversary of Insight Intelligence, I’m bringing back the 7-day free trial. If you’re on the fence about subscribing, you have seven days to check it out. But I hope you’ll stay longer than that!
I’ve also gotten some feedback from subscribers that they want ~more~ Insight Intelligence newsletters. So….good news: we are now going to publish twice a week!
May 2023
If you’re new around here, here’s what you might have missed last month:
As part of a broader body of work (some of which has been commissioned by clients) looking at ISIL province financing, we create group financing profiles of ISIL-Libya and Ansar al-Sunna in Mozambique. This was quite timely as I (Jessica) was in Mozambique in May talking counter-terrorist financing. Ansar al-Sunna is well funded, and more concerning, well-connected into other ISIL provinces in Africa, which will make dislodging them much more challenging.
We also continued our examination of the financing of extreme right groups with a financial profile on the Order of Nine Angles. Like many extremist groups, O9A self-finances a lot of their activities, and relies on members to conduct self-funded attacks, but does use financial resources to spread propaganda.
One of the main topics we like to engage on here at Insight Intelligence is how terrorist attacks are financed, and is a key part of our unique value added. We’ve got a good (and growing) database of how much attacks around the world cost and how that operational financing has happened. This month we added another to our list: the Christchurch Attack. This is very detailed article, thanks in large part to the Royal Commission report on the attack. Elena provides a great service here by pulling out all the relevant financing information so it’s easily accessible in one spot.
Foreign interference is also hot (and contentious!) topic in Canada at the moment (and I’d dare say globally). We have started to build out our analysis of foreign interference and espionage financing, as well as other threats to global security. Here’s a first cut of the framework we’re using for that:
Terrorist Financing Analysis Course
The first few students have completed the terrorist financing analysis course, and the reviews are really positive. They’ve also given us a few areas to improve and expand, so we’ll be starting those upgrades in the near future. Rest assured if you’ve paid for the course, it’ll remain available to you forever. We’re also starting work on our next couple of courses, hopefully to be launched later this year. Stay tuned for that!
Coming up from Insight Intelligence
This month, we have a full schedule of content coming at you. We’re kicking things off with a terrorist financing news roundup (free to read for a short time for all subscribers). We’re also taking a close look at a couple of terrorist attacks and plots and how they were financed. We’ll continue to grow our group-based analysis through a financial profile of Blood & Honour, and we’ll take a look at what the death of al-Sudani means for the financing of ISIL’s East Africa network – including my assessment of whether he was critical for operations, or easily replaced. 🧐
Do you want to navigate the complex world of illicit financing more effectively? Upgrade your subscription to paid to get expert guidance, and access to over 270 articles. And if you want to expense your subscription, I’ve got a draft email you can use for that purpose!
Two years of Insight Intelligence...and much more to come
Bon anniversaire !!