Stringent US Moves against Money Flows from Iraq to Iran

A currency exchange shop in central Baghdad (AP)
A currency exchange shop in central Baghdad (AP)
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Stringent US Moves against Money Flows from Iraq to Iran

A currency exchange shop in central Baghdad (AP)
A currency exchange shop in central Baghdad (AP)

The decline in the value of Iraq’s national currency and the rise in the prices of foodstuffs and imported goods can be traced back to remarkable change in the policy adopted by the US Treasury and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Both bodies have had a policy shift to curb money laundering and the illegal appropriation of dollars by Iraqi commercial banks for the benefit of Iran and other countries subject to sanctions in the Middle East.

The New York Fed began enforcing tighter controls on international dollar transactions by commercial Iraqi banks in November in a move to curtail money laundering and the illegal siphoning of dollars to Iran and other heavily sanctioned Middle East countries, US and Iraqi officials said according to the Wall Street Journal.

Iraqi banks had operated under less stringent rules since shortly after the 2003 US invasion.

It is time for Iraq’s banking system to comply with global money-transfer practices, the officials added.

Since the procedures went into effect, 80% or more of Iraq’s daily dollar wire transfers, which previously totaled over $250 million some days, have been blocked because of insufficient information about the funds’ destinations or other errors, according to US and Iraqi officials and official Iraqi government data.

Under the new procedures, Iraqi banks must submit dollar transfers on a new online platform with the central bank, which are then reviewed by the Fed.

The system is aimed at curtailing use of Iraq’s banking system to smuggle dollars to Tehran, Damascus and money laundering havens across the Middle East, US officials said.

Another US official said the measures would limit “the ability of malign actors to use the Iraqi banking system.”

US officials have pressed Iraq for years to strengthen its banking controls. In 2015, the Federal Reserve and Treasury Department temporarily shut off the flow of billions of dollars to Iraq’s central bank over concerns that the currency was ending up at Iranian banks and possibly being funneled to ISIS militants, officials said at the time.



Bangladesh Protest Leaders Taken from Hospital by Police

People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
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Bangladesh Protest Leaders Taken from Hospital by Police

People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)

Bangladeshi police detectives on Friday forced the discharge from hospital of three student protest leaders blamed for deadly unrest, taking them to an unknown location, staff told AFP.

Nahid Islam, Asif Mahmud and Abu Baker Majumder are all members of Students Against Discrimination, the group responsible for organizing this month's street rallies against civil service hiring rules.

At least 195 people were killed in the ensuing police crackdown and clashes, according to an AFP count of victims reported by police and hospitals, in some of the worst unrest of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's tenure.

All three were patients at a hospital in the capital Dhaka, and at least two of them said their injuries were caused by torture in earlier police custody.

"They took them from us," Gonoshasthaya hospital supervisor Anwara Begum Lucky told AFP. "The men were from the Detective Branch."

She added that she had not wanted to discharge the student leaders but police had pressured the hospital chief to do so.

Islam's elder sister Fatema Tasnim told AFP from the hospital that six plainclothes detectives had taken all three men.

The trio's student group had suspended fresh protests at the start of this week, saying they had wanted the reform of government job quotas but not "at the expense of so much blood".

The pause was due to expire earlier on Friday but the group had given no indication of its future course of action.

Islam, 26, the chief coordinator of Students Against Discrimination, told AFP from his hospital bed on Monday that he feared for his life.

He said that two days beforehand, a group of people identifying themselves as police detectives blindfolded and handcuffed him and took him to an unknown location.

Islam added that he had come to his senses the following morning on a roadside in Dhaka.

Mahmud earlier told AFP that he had also been detained by police and beaten at the height of last week's unrest.

Three senior police officers in Dhaka all denied that the trio had been taken from the hospital and into custody on Friday.

- Garment tycoon arrested -

Police told AFP on Thursday that they had arrested at least 4,000 people since the unrest began last week, including 2,500 in Dhaka.

On Friday police said they had arrested David Hasanat, the founder and chief executive of one of Bangladesh's biggest garment factory enterprises.

His Viyellatex Group employs more than 15,000 people according to its website, and its annual turnover was estimated at $400 million by the Daily Star newspaper last year.

Dhaka Metropolitan Police inspector Abu Sayed Miah said Hasanat and several others were suspected of financing the "anarchy, arson and vandalism" of last week.

Bangladesh makes around $50 billion in annual export earnings from the textile trade, which services leading global brands including H&M, Gap and others.

Student protests began this month after the reintroduction in June of a scheme reserving more than half of government jobs for certain candidates.

With around 18 million young people in Bangladesh out of work, according to government figures, the move deeply upset graduates facing an acute jobs crisis.

Critics say the quota is used to stack public jobs with loyalists to Hasina's Awami League.

- 'Call to the nation' -

The Supreme Court cut the number of reserved jobs on Sunday but fell short of protesters' demands to scrap the quotas entirely.

Hasina has ruled Bangladesh since 2009 and won her fourth consecutive election in January after a vote without genuine opposition.

Her government is also accused by rights groups of misusing state institutions to entrench its hold on power and stamp out dissent, including the extrajudicial killing of opposition activists.

Hasina continued a tour of government buildings that had been ransacked by protesters, on Friday visiting state broadcaster Bangladesh Television, which was partly set ablaze last week.

"Find those who were involved in this," she said, according to state news agency BSS.

"Cooperate with us to ensure their punishment. I am making this call to the nation."