Cashing in on Guns: Identifying the Nexus between Small Arms, Light Weapons and Terrorist Financing

By Tanya Mehra, Méryl Demuynck, Colin P. Clarke, Nils Duquet, Cameron Lumley, Matthew Wentworth

This report presents the main findings of ICCT’s year-long research project on Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW) as a source of terrorism financing. Chapters 2 and 3 take a regional focus and explore this phenomenon in respectively West Africa and the Middle East. Chapter 4 then investigates the possible role that DDR programmes can play in reducing SALW flows. Chapter 5 assesses the existing legal and policy frameworks from a multitude of angles. Chapter 6 reflects on the short and long-term implications the possession and identified use of SALW by terrorist groups has for Europe. The final chapter considers the various direct and indirect ways through which terrorists are ‘Cashing in on Guns’, and lists a number of policy recommendations for the EU to take a step forward in addressing this phenomenon.

The Hague: International Centre for Counter-Terrorism, 2021. 147p.