USAID OIG Admits They May Have Accidentally Funded Terrorism

In a recent post on X, Elon Musk discovered that “officers at Treasury were instructed always to approve payments, even to known fraudulent or terrorist groups.”

While Musk may have been speculating, he was more right that he might have known. A recent post from U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) revealed that $9 million in humanitarian assistance for Syria was diverted to a terrorist organization, the Al-Nusrah Front.

Food kits intended for conflict-affected Syrian refugees were instead sold for cash by the non-governmental organization it was funding, and that cash went to leaders of the Al Nusrah Front to overthrow the regime of Syrian President Bashar al Assad via “mass executions of civilians, suicide bombings, and kidnappings.”

The Syria episode may not be a one time affair as the OIG also released a recent report noting the limitations in vetting grantee organizations and sub-grantees for their “ties to designated terrorist organizations and known corrupt actors.”

USAID may not really know who is and isn’t a terrorist. While USAID grantees must go through a prospective antiterrorism certification, such a process doesn’t exist for contractors. Additionally, United Nations agencies have been reluctant to share information with USAID about employees connected to fraud, sexual abuse, and terrorist activity.