Monday, November 23, 2015

ISIS - Why They're Rich

"What’s made the Islamic State one of the richest terrorist armies in history?" PBS NewsHour 11/19/2015

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  How does the Islamic State militant group make money to fund its operations?  A key source is oil extraction, which has helped make the group one of the richest terrorist armies in history.  Economics correspondent Paul Solman takes a look at the Islamic State’s revenue sources, while William Brangham learns more from Cam Simpson of Bloomberg Businessweek.

PAUL SOLMAN (NewsHour):  Since the Paris attacks this weekend, the forces arrayed against ISIS have been pounding the territory it holds, and, specifically, hitting oil it’s been extracting for sale, as oil is a key source of ISIS revenue, having made the group one of the richest terrorist armies in history.

Earlier today, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton insisted the U.S. should be targeting ISIS’ money.

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, Democratic Presidential Candidate:  When it comes to terrorist financing, we have to go after the nodes that facilitate illicit trade and transactions.  The U.N. Security Council should update its terrorism sanctions.

They have a resolution that does try to block terrorist financing and other enabling activities.  But we have to place more obligations on countries to police their own banks.

PAUL SOLMAN:  Republican candidate Donald Trump has been even more aggressive.

DONALD TRUMP, Republican Presidential Candidate:  ISIS is making a tremendous amount of money because they have certain oil caps, right?  They have certain areas of oil that they took away.  There’s some in Syria, some in Iraq.  I would bomb the (EXPLETIVE DELETED) out of them.

PAUL SOLMAN:  Meanwhile, there’s been a debate over just how much money ISIS actually has.

Last year, David Cohen, then with the U.S. Treasury Department, said on the “NewsHour”:

DAVID COHEN, Former U.S. Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence:  In the aftermath of some of the airstrikes that have been taken, as well as some of the efforts that have been undertaken to restrict ISIL’s ability to use these smuggling networks, our estimate is that ISIL is now earning something on the order of a couple million dollars a week.

PAUL SOLMAN:  A report this week in Bloomberg Businessweek suggests Cohen was overly optimistic, citing new data from the Treasury that ISIS actually took in as much as half-a-billion dollars in the past year from oil.

But just yesterday, Army Colonel Steve Warren, spokesman for the joint task force, said the stepped-up offensive against ISIS’ main source of revenue is paying off.  For the first time, the U.S. is attacking oil delivery trucks.

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