ISIS war chest grows by an estimated $3M every day
Extremist group's resources exceed that 'of any other terrorist group in history'
The Associated Press
Posted: Sep 14, 2014 10:48 AM ET
Last Updated: Sep 14, 2014 12:08 PM ET
ISIS earns money from a variety of sources, including
smuggling antiquities out of Iraq, selling women and children as sex
slaves, extortion payments, ransom from kidnapped hostages, and stealing
materials from the towns it has seized. (Reuters)
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Islamic State militants, who once relied on wealthy Persian
Gulf donors for money, have become a self-sustaining financial
juggernaut, earning more than $3 million a day from oil smuggling, human
trafficking, theft and extortion, according to U.S. intelligence
officials and private experts.
The Islamic State group has taken over large sections of Syria and Iraq, and controls as many as 11 oil fields in both countries, analysts say. It is selling oil and other goods through generations-old smuggling networks under the noses of some of the same governments it is fighting: Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq, Turkey and Jordan.
While U.S. intelligence does not assess that those governments are complicit in the smuggling, the Obama administration is pressing them do to more to crack down. The illicit oil is generally transported on tanker trucks, analysts said.
"There's a lot of money to be made," said Denise Natali, who worked in Kurdistan as an American aid official and is now a senior research fellow at National Defense University. "The Kurds say they have made an attempt to close it down, but you pay off a border guard you pay off somebody else and you get stuff through."
The price the Islamic State group fetches for its smuggled oil is discounted — $25 to $60 for a barrel of oil that normally sells for more than $100 — but its total profits from oil are exceeding $3 million a day, said Luay al-Khatteeb, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution's Doha Center in Qatar.
The group also has earned hundreds of millions of dollars from smuggling antiquities out of Iraq to be sold in Turkey, al-Khatteeb said, and millions more from human trafficking by selling women and children as sex slaves.
Other revenue comes from extortion payments, ransom from kidnapped hostages, and outright theft of all manner of materials from the towns the Islamic State group has seized, analysts say.
"It's cash-raising activities resemble those of a mafia-like organization," a second U.S. intelligence official said, reflecting the assessment of his agency. "They are well-organized, systematic and enforced through intimidation and violence."
Once the group took over Mosul, in northern Iraq, and other areas, it
grabbed millions of dollars in cash from banks, though not the hundreds
of millions initially reported, U.S. intelligence officials say.
This spring, four French and two Spanish journalists held hostage by Islamic State extremists were freed after their governments paid multimillion-dollar ransoms through intermediaries.
The Islamic State group "has managed to successfully translate territorial control in northern Syria and portions of Iraq into a means of revenue generation," said a third U.S. intelligence official.
Analysts say the group is relying on the fact that the area along the border between Iraq and Turkey has long been a smugglers haven, and was made more so by the fall of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in 2003. Generations of families have illicitly moved goods through the region.
The Islamic State is the successor to al-Qaeda in Iraq, which was founded by Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. For a time, the group was allied with the Nusra Front, the al-Qaida affiliate that is a key player among the rebels battling Syrian President Bashar Assad. The Islamic State group has since broken with the Nusra Front and al-Qaeda.
In the early days of the Syrian civil war, the Islamic State group was funded in large part by donations from wealthy residents of Gulf States, including Kuwait and Qatar, American officials have said.
"A number of fundraisers operating in more permissive jurisdictions — particularly in Kuwait and Qatar — are soliciting donations to fund ... al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, the Nusra Front, and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS)," David Cohen, the Treasury department's top counterterrorism official, said in a speech in March.
That stream of funding has diminished in recent months as the group's violent tactics have drawn worldwide attention, U.S. intelligence officials say.
The group's reliance on oil as its main source of revenue could easily be disrupted by American airstrikes, officials say. But so far, no decision has been made to target Iraqi or Syrian oil infrastructure, which is serviced by civilian workers who may have been conscripted.
end quote from:-
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The Islamic State group has taken over large sections of Syria and Iraq, and controls as many as 11 oil fields in both countries, analysts say. It is selling oil and other goods through generations-old smuggling networks under the noses of some of the same governments it is fighting: Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq, Turkey and Jordan.
While U.S. intelligence does not assess that those governments are complicit in the smuggling, the Obama administration is pressing them do to more to crack down. The illicit oil is generally transported on tanker trucks, analysts said.
"There's a lot of money to be made," said Denise Natali, who worked in Kurdistan as an American aid official and is now a senior research fellow at National Defense University. "The Kurds say they have made an attempt to close it down, but you pay off a border guard you pay off somebody else and you get stuff through."
The price the Islamic State group fetches for its smuggled oil is discounted — $25 to $60 for a barrel of oil that normally sells for more than $100 — but its total profits from oil are exceeding $3 million a day, said Luay al-Khatteeb, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution's Doha Center in Qatar.
The group also has earned hundreds of millions of dollars from smuggling antiquities out of Iraq to be sold in Turkey, al-Khatteeb said, and millions more from human trafficking by selling women and children as sex slaves.
Other revenue comes from extortion payments, ransom from kidnapped hostages, and outright theft of all manner of materials from the towns the Islamic State group has seized, analysts say.
"It's cash-raising activities resemble those of a mafia-like organization," a second U.S. intelligence official said, reflecting the assessment of his agency. "They are well-organized, systematic and enforced through intimidation and violence."
Extortion, bank robberies, ransom
Even prior to seizing Mosul in June, for example, the group began to impose "taxes" on nearly every facet of economic activity, threatening death for those unwilling to pay, U.S. intelligence officials say. An analysis by the Council on Foreign Relations estimated the group was reaping $8 million a month from extortion in Mosul alone.
ISIS
militants, who once relied on wealthy Persian Gulf nations for money,
have become a self-sustaining financial juggernaut. The group, which has
taken over large sections of Syria and Iraq, controls as many as 11 oil
fields in both countries, analysts say. ( Manu Brabo/File/Associated
Press)
This spring, four French and two Spanish journalists held hostage by Islamic State extremists were freed after their governments paid multimillion-dollar ransoms through intermediaries.
The Islamic State group "has managed to successfully translate territorial control in northern Syria and portions of Iraq into a means of revenue generation," said a third U.S. intelligence official.
Analysts say the group is relying on the fact that the area along the border between Iraq and Turkey has long been a smugglers haven, and was made more so by the fall of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in 2003. Generations of families have illicitly moved goods through the region.
The Islamic State is the successor to al-Qaeda in Iraq, which was founded by Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. For a time, the group was allied with the Nusra Front, the al-Qaida affiliate that is a key player among the rebels battling Syrian President Bashar Assad. The Islamic State group has since broken with the Nusra Front and al-Qaeda.
In the early days of the Syrian civil war, the Islamic State group was funded in large part by donations from wealthy residents of Gulf States, including Kuwait and Qatar, American officials have said.
"A number of fundraisers operating in more permissive jurisdictions — particularly in Kuwait and Qatar — are soliciting donations to fund ... al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, the Nusra Front, and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS)," David Cohen, the Treasury department's top counterterrorism official, said in a speech in March.
That stream of funding has diminished in recent months as the group's violent tactics have drawn worldwide attention, U.S. intelligence officials say.
The group's reliance on oil as its main source of revenue could easily be disrupted by American airstrikes, officials say. But so far, no decision has been made to target Iraqi or Syrian oil infrastructure, which is serviced by civilian workers who may have been conscripted.
ISIS war chest grows by an estimated $3M every day
If you figure 30,000 ISIS troops at $600 to $1200 a month they have to pay them that's 18 million a month for 30,000 at $600 or $36,000,000 a month at $1200 a month. So, even though they are now making $3 million to 6 million a day through extortion from people so they won't be killed by ISIS, that means that 3 million dollars times 30 days that they are only making 90 million a month at 3 million a day. So, how long can they continue to pay their soldiers at this rate? However, then there is another fact. They also have to arm these men and transport them to battles too. This is very expensive also. So, the more money they have to spend to get and to keep troops after so many die taking suicide bombs and setting them off or taking really crazy risks that get them killed there is going to be a big turnover either dead or those that think this is completely crazy at some point and just run away in horror never to be free from PTSD ever again or walking down the street talking to themselves from then on from watching children be raped, old men and women being beheaded and you name it.
In a sense all human beings are the same in the sense that anyone with a conscience can't do this kind of work because most people aren't robots. There is a price for treating human beings like dolls you are beheading and most or all human beings will pay this price one way or another sooner or later.
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