Financing is key to the effectiveness of every terror organization and tactic

Although the costs of specific operations may be relatively inexpensive (and even more so for low level attacks), terrorist organizations require much larger budgets to function. Organizations need to devote resources to recruiting new members. If they are operating in failed or sympathetic states, they need funds to build training camps, and sometimes must provide food and housing for their members. Organizations must acquire the equipment necessary for conducting acts Of violence—guns, explosives, triggers, training simulators, as well as fake passports and other travel or identification documents—and communication devices such as phones and computers. They may need to bribe officials to turn a blind eye to their activities. Finally, many groups need funds to pay stipends to their "retired" veterans and the families of dead terrorists or suicide bombers. As a result of these expenses, terrorist groups have budgets that can range up to hundreds of millions of dollars per year, especially for the larger and more active groups. Although the following numbers are just estimates, they are indicative of the overall phenomenon: al-Qaeda's annual budget was estimated to be $30 millions until the 1990s, the Provisional IRA had a budget of up to $15 million per year;6 at its peak the 1 the PKK was thought to have an annual budget of $86 million" Hezbollah's budget is between $100 million and $200 million per year, and may range as high as $400 million* the FARC Colombia has an annual budget of somewhere between around $100 million and $1 billion the Afghan Taliban raises somewhere between $240 million and $360 million per year, 10 and all the different insurgent groups in Iraq collectively raised between $70 million and $200 million per year. Il As these figures demonstrate, the organizations that are responsible for terrorist attacks are much more expensive to operate than is indicated by the cost of any individual attack. Acquiring tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars requires that the organization must pay a certain degree of attention to its own financial portfolio.