IS world’s wealthiest terror group

Thick smoke from an airstrike by the US-led coalition rises in Kobani, Syria, as seen from a hilltop on the outskirts of Suruc, at the Turkey-Syria border, Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2014. Kobani, also known as Ayn Arab, and its surrounding areas, has been under assault by extremists of the Islamic State group since mid-September and is being defended by Kurdish fighters. AP

WASHINGTON—The Islamic State has become the world’s wealthiest terror group, earning tens of millions of dollars a month from illegal oil sales and ransoms, officials said on Thursday.

“We have no silver bullet, no secret weapon to empty Isil’s coffers overnight. This will be a sustained fight, and we are in the early stages,” said undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence David Cohen.

Cohen is among a team of Obama administration officials leading the fight against the Islamic State (IS) group—also known as Isil—which has seized a large swath of territory in Iraq and Syria.

The group is now “considered the world’s wealthiest and most financially sophisticated terrorist organization,” said Marwan Muasher, vice president at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“Isil has grabbed the world’s attention for its outlandish ambitions and astounding brutality, but also for another reason: Its substantial wealth,” Cohen told the think-tank.

The group’s “primary funding tactics enable it today to generate tens of millions of dollars per month,” Cohen said.

Wealthy donors

“Those tactics include the sale of stolen oil, the ransoming of kidnap victims, theft and extortion from the people it currently dominates, and, to a lesser extent, donations from supporters outside of Syria and Iraq.”

Cohen said the extremists get several million dollars a month from wealthy donors, and from extortion rackets and other criminal activities, such as robbing banks.

Oil sales alone from captured refineries are allowing the militants to produce some 50,000 barrels a day from fields in Syria and Iraq, representing a daily income of about $1 million.

Cohen said IS was selling the oil “at substantially discounted prices to a variety of middlemen, including some from Turkey, who then transported the oil to be resold.”

$1M per day

Oil has also been sold to Kurds in Iraq, and then resold to Turkey, as it has “tapped into a long-standing and deeply rooted black market connecting traders in and around the area.”

“It is difficult to get precise revenue estimates on the value to Isil of these transactions in light of the murky nature of the market, but we estimate that beginning in mid-June, Isil has earned approximately $1 million a day from oil sales,” Cohen said.

“In a further indication of the Assad regime’s depravity, it seems that the Syrian government has made an arrangement to purchase oil from Isil,” Cohen said, referring to Syrian President Bashar Assad.

It has also generated about $20 million through kidnappings, particularly of journalists and European hostages.

And it demands money from local businesses in cities and towns which it has captured through “a sophisticated extortion racket.”

US sanctions

US air strikes were having an effect on hindering the militants’ ability to produce oil, and US sanctions would target those found buying illegal oil, Cohen said.

“We are focused on restricting Isil’s access to the international financial system in order to impair its ability to collect funds from abroad, and to move, store, and use the funds it acquires locally.”

The group wants to create a caliphate, or Islamic empire, in the Middle East.

Led by Iraqi militant Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Islamic State group initially tried to oust Assad, but other groups, including al-Qaida central command, turned against IS because of its brutality.

Sex slaves

“With the important exception of some state-sponsored terrorist organizations, IS is probably the best-funded terrorist organization we have confronted,” Cohen said.

Unlike the core al-Qaida terrorist network, IS gets only a relatively small share of funding from deep-pocket donors and therefore does not depend primarily on moving money across international borders.

Instead, IS obtains the vast majority of its revenues through local criminal and terrorist activities, Cohen said.

“They rob banks. They lay waste to thousands of years of civilization in Iraq and Syria by looting and selling antiquities,” he said. “They steal livestock and crops from farmers. And despicably, they sell abducted girls and women as sex slaves.”

Tragic reminder

The top official also said that Wednesday’s attack at the Canadian Parliament was “a tragic reminder of the need to remain vigilant in the face of terror.”

Canada would “have every support it needs from US intelligence,” he vowed. Reports from AFP and AP

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