Over the years, I’ve often asked how it is that jihad groups, particularly in Africa, so often show themselves to be better funded, better equipped and better trained than the national armies that are ostensibly opposing them. This story offers a significant clue, although it is from Syria, not Africa, but in Syria, a jihad group now actually controls the government, so the point still holds. Short-sighted, self-serving Western corporations, with their eye only on the profit line, will be the death of the West, in a spectacularly literal manner.
“Paying ISIS to keep a cement plant running: How a major French company financed one of the world’s most brutal terrorist groups,” by Louis Auge, EU Reporter, June 12, 2026:
On 23 May, 2026, families of victims of ISIS attacks and U.S. military personnel killed or wounded in the fight against the terrorist group demanded access to nearly $778 million paid by French cement giant Lafarge under its 2022 settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice. Just three days earlier, on May 20, legal experts at Global Rights Compliance argued that the Lafarge case could become a defining precedent for multinational corporations operating in conflict zones, warning that companies may increasingly face criminal liability for maintaining business relationships with armed groups during wartime. Human rights organizations have also continued to raise concerns about two unresolved aspects of the scandal: the lack of compensation for former Syrian employees who allegedly faced kidnappings, shelling, and other dangers while working at Lafarge’s Syrian plant, and an ongoing French investigation into whether the company’s dealings with ISIS could amount to complicity in crimes against humanity.
These developments have renewed attention to one of the most controversial corporate scandals of the Syrian civil war. Nearly ten years have passed since the French newspaper Le Monde first revealed that Lafarge, which later merged with Swiss-based Holcim, had paid millions of dollars to ISIS and other armed groups in Syria to keep its cement plant operating. The revelations triggered an international scandal by exposing how far a major multinational corporation was willing to go to protect its commercial interests in a war zone, including entering into financial arrangements with terrorist organizations. The affair also became a major embarrassment for France, where legal proceedings related to the case continue to this day….
rick says
Wouldn’t be surprised if Lafarge managed to use their pull with the French Government to throw in a few hundred Visas for long term stays in France as well.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
This trend is more likely to be valid for Africa than Syria. There were at least sanctions against Syria, not over ISIS but against the Assad regime nonetheless. Even though in this story, Lafarge paid ISIS, it would have been much easier for others like them who had operations in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso to pay off similar groups (like Boko Haram), where there are no sanctions regimes. At least not against their governments
Walter Sieruk says
That cement company that paid off ISIS for allowing it to keep operating Syria , as for not have ISIS engage in Islamic terrorism against it in that counrry . That extortion practiced by ISIS reveals another sinister and threating aspect of the Muslim terrorists of that jihad entity. Meaning they are similar to the vicious gangsters of al Capone of Chicago , when they collected money for “protection’, from them in that citiy.