Baladi News - Journals
The Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL), considered one of the wealthiest terrorist groups in history, still has “over $300 million” in hand in Iraq and Syria even after the U.S.-led coalition and local forces decimated the jihadist organization’s territorial caliphate months ago, PBS News Hour reported Sunday.
According to several U.S. government and independent assessments, ISIS generates revenue from a criminal enterprise that involves oil, antiquities smuggling, kidnapping, human trafficking, extortion, and drug trafficking, among other crimes.
Asked about the impact territorial losses have made on ISIS’s revenue, foreign correspondent Rukmini Callimachi, who covers ISIS and Al-Qaeda for the New York Times, told PBS:
We are expecting a big downturn in their economics as a result of the fact that they have lost the big base of taxation that they had before. I was just in Baghdad a couple of weeks ago, and I met with coalition officials and unfortunately the number that they were citing for how much money ISIS still has on hand, just in Iraq and Syria, is over $300 million.
So that gives you a sense of just how wealthy this terrorist group is. They are now going back to the types of fundraising that they were doing before, namely illegal taxation in areas that they do not control, coming into areas and telling businesses if you don’t pay up, like the mafia, if you don’t pay you’re going to face the consequences.
Callimachi noted that the terrorist group is increasingly turning to “kidnapping” as a significant revenue source.
Last year, ISIS kidnapped more people than any other terrorist group — 2,180, the U.S. Department of State revealed.
While the sale of oil served as ISIS’s top source of revenue, the group also made money from the unprecedented level of looting and destruction of priceless antiques across the Middle East.
During a House panel hearing in April 2016, the expert witnesses told U.S. lawmakers that ISIS was committing “cultural genocide” as it plundered and sold ancient artifacts to fund its terrorist activities.
Source: BreitBart