Opinion piece by Isaac Hammouch
Modena, May 16, 2026. Salim El Koudri, a man of Moroccan origin in his thirties, deliberately drives into pedestrians in the center of the Italian city. Eight people are injured, four of them seriously. A woman loses both her legs. He exits his vehicle with a knife in hand before being subdued by law enforcement. Three days later, Kuwaiti Prime Minister Sheikh Ahmed Abdullah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah is welcomed on the red carpet in Athens for the first Euro-Gulf geopolitical and investment summit. Europe mourns its victims in the morning. In the afternoon, it signs energy, digital, and infrastructure agreements. This chronology is not a coincidence. It is a symbol.
Kuwait knows how to play its role. It sends its Prime Minister to Greece with reassuring rhetoric: energy cooperation, strategic investments, digital transformation, infrastructure. On paper, it is appealing. Kuwait wants to present itself as open, modern, and democratic, just as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar already do. They buy football clubs, skyscrapers, and works of art. They organize summits. They smile for the cameras. But behind the diplomatic smile lies another reality. Kuwait is not a partner like the others. For decades, Kuwait has been one of the central hubs of Islamist terrorism financing, and even today it continues to fund political Islam in Europe through structured, documented networks that Brussels nonetheless chooses to ignore.
In March 2014, David Cohen, then Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence at the U.S. Treasury Department, described Kuwait as “the epicenter of fundraising for terrorist groups in Syria.” He warned against Kuwaiti Minister of Justice and Islamic Affairs Nayef al-Ajmi, who had “a history of promoting jihad in Syria.” The minister ultimately resigned in May 2014, not out of moral conviction, but under American pressure. In April of the same year, officials from the Obama administration revealed that Kuwaiti individuals and charitable organizations had provided hundreds of millions of dollars to Al-Qaeda-linked terrorists involved in the Syrian civil war, making Kuwait the largest source of funding for these militants.
On August 6, 2014, the U.S. Treasury Department designated Shafi al-Ajmi and Hajjaj al-Ajmi, two Kuwaiti clerics, as terrorists for their support of the Al-Nusra Front, Al-Qaeda’s Syrian branch. Shafi al-Ajmi raised money “under the guise of charity” through social media before personally delivering it to terrorists. He also purchased and smuggled weapons on behalf of the group. Hamid al-Ali, another Kuwaiti cleric, had already been designated as a terrorist by Washington in December 2006 for financing Al-Qaeda. He issued fatwas approving suicide bombings and the tactic of crashing airplanes into buildings.
And that is not all. In 2003, Richard Clarke, former U.S. National Coordinator for Security and Counterterrorism, testified before the Senate that several Al-Qaeda operations had been linked to the Kuwaiti Muslim Brotherhood, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind behind 9/11, and Ramsi Yousef, the perpetrator of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Clarke revealed that the Kuwaiti government was financing Muslim Brotherhood-controlled charities such as Lajnat al-Dawa, which was designated as a supporter of Al-Qaeda by both the U.S. Treasury and the United Nations in January 2003. Kuwait, therefore, is not a country that merely experienced temporary problems. It is a state that, for years, served as a financial pump for global terrorism — and continues to do so.
On April 11, 2026, one month before the Athens summit, the Kuwaiti Ministry of Interior announced the dismantling of a twenty-four-member cell accused of financing terrorist organizations. Among them were five former Kuwaiti members of parliament. Not fringe extremists, not isolated outlaws — elected officials, representatives of the people. These twenty-four individuals collected funds under the cover of religious and charitable organizations before diverting them to terrorist entities abroad. They used pharmacies and commercial businesses as fronts. This was not an amateur operation. It was a system. And it was not an isolated case. In March 2026, Kuwait had already arrested sixteen individuals linked to Hezbollah, including fourteen Kuwaitis and two Lebanese nationals, for an alleged sabotage plot. The message is clear: the problem of terrorism financing in Kuwait has not been resolved. It is structural. It reaches into the political elite. It persists. And yet Europe continues to welcome this very state as a privileged partner.
Kuwait does not only finance war in the Middle East. It also finances the construction of mosques and associations in Europe through a structured and documented network. Europe Trust, based in the United Kingdom, is the financial arm of the Federation of Islamic Organizations in Europe, identified as the umbrella organization of the Muslim Brotherhood on the continent. According to the Middle East Quarterly, this trust channels Gulf money to Muslim Brotherhood-aligned groups across Europe, primarily for the construction of mosques, and it is heavily financed by Kuwait. Amsterdam’s Blue Mosque is entirely funded by Kuwait through Europe Trust Nederland. Its president is none other than Kuwaiti Minister of Religious Affairs Mutlaq al-Qarawi. One of the most active Islamic organizations in the Netherlands is therefore led not by a Dutch citizen, but by the Kuwaiti government. Rotterdam’s Al Salam Mosque, the largest mosque in Western Europe, led by Nooh al-Kaddo — who is also a board member of Europe Trust — was financed by the Makhtoum Foundation of the United Arab Emirates. The trust is involved in properties in France, Greece, Romania, and Germany. In Belgium, the Muslim League of Belgium reportedly received around €150,000 from Kuwait, according to a 2016 report, to finance its Islamic centers.
Europe Trust is led by Ahmed Al-Rawi, former president of the FIOE and a leading figure of the Muslim Brotherhood in the United Kingdom. In 2004, he signed a declaration supporting uprisings against what he described as the “filth of the occupation” in Iraq and Palestine, and refused to condemn attacks against coalition forces. The Islamic Cultural Centre of Ireland, linked to Europe Trust, hosts the European Council for Fatwa and Research, headed by Egyptian Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi — the cleric who defended suicide bombings and advocated the death penalty for homosexuals, according to the Irish Independent. Kuwait is not merely building mosques. It is building ideological Trojan horses.
In October 2024, the FATF and MENAFATF published their mutual evaluation of Kuwait, and the verdict was unequivocal. Kuwait has a limited understanding of the risks related to terrorist financing. There are technical and practical deficiencies preventing the implementation of targeted financial sanctions. The Kuwaiti counterterrorism committee has the authority to freeze assets, yet it has never made a single decision to do so. There is no legal framework allowing the seizure of terrorism-related assets, and without such a legal basis, enforcement measures remain ineffective. Investigations into terrorist financing rely primarily on foreign intelligence rather than domestic capabilities. Kuwait remains on the FATF grey list as a country with strategic deficiencies in anti-money laundering measures. The result is clear: Kuwait promises transparency, but does not practice it. It promises cooperation, yet depends on others to conduct investigations. It promises security, but has never frozen a single terrorist asset. And it is this very state that Europe invites to Athens to sign strategic agreements.
On May 16, 2026, Salim El Koudri turned his car into a weapon in Modena. Eight victims, shattered lives. Europe condemns, mourns, and promises firmness. Three days later, that same Europe opens its doors to the Kuwaiti Prime Minister. Discussions revolve around energy, digital transformation, and investments. There is no discussion about Lajnat al-Dawa. No mention of Europe Trust. No mention of the twenty-four financiers arrested in April, including five former members of parliament. No mention of the FATF grey list. No mention of the hundreds of millions of dollars funneled to Al-Qaeda in Syria. This Europe is schizophrenic. It holds moments of silence in the morning for the victims of Islamist terrorism, and rolls out the red carpet in the afternoon for the states that financed it.
This summit should have been an opportunity to impose a clear doctrine: no economic partnership without political, security, and ideological guarantees. No strategic investment without full transparency regarding the origin of the funds. No energy or digital agreement without a public, written, and verifiable commitment against any financing of political Islam in Europe. Kuwait, like every Gulf partner, must be held accountable. If it wishes to strengthen its ties with Europe, it must prove that this cooperation will never serve as a Trojan horse for religious or ideological influence networks hostile to European democratic values. It must prove that Europe Trust will no longer finance a single mosque in Europe without complete oversight of financial flows. It must prove that its Ministers of Religious Affairs will no longer lead Islamic organizations on European soil. It must prove that its former members of parliament will no longer finance terrorism under the guise of charity. It must leave the FATF grey list not through promises, but through concrete actions.
Europe does not need partners who buy its silence. It needs partners who respect its laws, values, and security. The era of naivety is over. Gulf money can no longer be welcomed blindly. Europe cannot, on the one hand, mourn the victims of Modena, Paris, Brussels, Nice, and Berlin, while on the other hand signing contracts with states that remain on the FATF grey list, that have financed Al-Qaeda, that oversee Muslim Brotherhood networks in Europe, and that send their ministers to chair Islamic trusts in Amsterdam.
Kuwait is using the narrative of economic openness to make the world forget its security reality. Just as Saudi Arabia does with its concerts and stadiums. Just as Qatar does with its museums and universities. Just as the Emirates do with their skyscrapers and artificial islands. But money does not wash everything away. The mosques financed by Kuwait do not disappear simply because the Prime Minister smiles in Athens. The Muslim Brotherhood-linked networks of Europe Trust do not dissolve because a renewable energy agreement is signed. The twenty-four financiers arrested in April do not become model citizens simply because Europe opens its market to them.
Europe must choose: protect its citizens or continue selling its vigilance to the highest bidder. The Athens summit is not a diplomatic victory. It is a warning. If Europe signs agreements without demanding guarantees, it is signing its own surrender.
(*) Isaac Hammouch is a Belgian-Moroccan journalist and writer. Author of several books and opinion pieces, he analyzes societal issues, governance challenges, and the transformations of the contemporary world.
