TerrorismISIS is brutal, but also business-savvy

Oil smuggling, extortion, human trafficking, and kidnapping have made the Islamic State (IS) the wealthiest terrorist group in history, according to reports from senior U.S. intelligence officials. Since controlling large sections of Iraq and Syria, including as many as eleven oil fields, ISIS daily revenues have reached $3 million.

“There’s a lot of money to be made,” said Denise Natali, an American aid official and 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” she told the AP.

TheIndependent reports that ISIS sells its oil through underground networks at a discounted price of $25 to $60 per barrel, compared to a market rate of $100 or more. The Assad regime helped ISIS enrich itself so it could be in a better position to fight the moderate Syrian rebels, and Turkey, at least for a while, allowed ISIS to sell the oil under its control through Turkey in the hope that it would aid ISIS in its eventual goal of toppling the Assad regime. Before embarking on a series of revenue-enhancing enterprises, ISIS was funded by Qatar and wealthy donors in other the Gulf states, but that revenue stream began to diminish when videos featuring violent tactics by ISIS gained worldwide attention.

The Obama administration has urged Iraq, Turkey, and Jordan to enforce tighter restrictions on border activities. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been earned from smuggling antiquities out of Iraq and Syria to be sold in Turkey, according to Luay al-Khatteeb, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Doha Center in Qatar. TheGuardian reported in June that ISIS made $36 million from the looting of al-Nabuk in Syria, an area in the Qalamoun Mountain west of Damascus and home to antiquities that are up to 8,000 years old.

ISIS has also added human trafficking to its revenue stream. As towns become destabilized in ISIS-controlled regions, hundreds of women and children have been abducted and sold as sex slaves. “Its cash-raising activities resemble those of a mafia-like organization,” a U.S. intelligence official said. “They are well-organized, systematic and enforced through intimidation and violence.”

Kidnapping is another revenue generator for ISIS. Earlier this year, four French and two Spanish journalists held hostage by ISIS were freed after their governments paid millions of dollars in ransom through intermediaries. The Homeland Security News Wire reported last month on the U.S. government’s push to discourage European governments from paying kidnapping ransoms to ISIS, al-Qaeda, and other terror groups. British prime minister David Cameron also urged fellow European governments to stop paying ransom to IS. “In the case of terrorist kidnap, no ransom should be paid. Britain continues with this policy; America continues with this policy; but we need to redouble the efforts to make sure that other countries are good to their word,” Cameron said earlier this month.