The US Senate Finance Committee initially launched an investigation into the relationship between non-profit organization World Vision and Islamic Relief Agency (ISRA) in February 2019, in the wake of a National Review article in July 2018that claimed Barack Obama's administration had approved a “$200,000 grant of taxpayer money to ISRA.”
A US Senate investigation has discovered that the Barack Obama Administration in 2014 approved sending government funds to an organisation that had been sanctioned for its ties to terrorism.
The transaction between World Vision United States, a non-profit humanitarian agency, and the Islamic Relief Agency (ISRA) was revealed on 22 December in a report recently released by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa).
A probe into the connections between World Vision and ISRA was launched in February 2019.
The investigation found that World Vision had not known that ISRA had been sanctioned by the US since 2004, after channelling an estimated sum of $5 million to Maktab al-Khidamat, also known as the Afghan Service Bureau, the precursor organisation to Al-Qaeda, controlled by Osama Bid Laden.
‘Ignorance Not an Excuse'
The Senate report concluded that the humanitarian agency's ignorance had stemmed from “insufficient vetting practices”.
The investigation launched in 2019 was triggered after the emergence of an article in National Review in July 2018. Sam Westrop, the director of the Middle East Forum's…
