WASHINGTON — The financial fortunes of the Islamic State group have taken a hit.
ISIL, which in the past year has committed some of the most heinous terror acts in modern history, was reportedly worth close to $2 billion a year ago. It all began after the terror group launched a murderous rampage through Iraq and Syria, robbing banks, taking over oil and gas facilities and kidnapping people along the way.
In 2014, the group generated more than $2 million a day in illicit oil revenue, U.S. officials say.
But today, Daniel Glaser, assistant secretary for terrorist financing in the Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, indicated their oil and gas revenue is shrinking.
“I’ve heard numbers early on that were as high as $3 million a day, but these numbers are estimates,” Glaser told WTOP in his Washington office. “Whether it’s one or $2 [million] or $3 million a day, all those numbers are substantially higher than a couple million a week, which we think they are making right now.”
He attributes the change, in part, to the degradation to the U.S. led campaign.
“Coalition airstrikes have had an impact on ISIL’s ability to make money because, many of our strikes have targeted their means of making money, specifically through oil,” said Pentagon spokesman Steve Warren.
Also, the recent death of a key ISIL operative has disrupted funding.
On May 15, Abu Sayyaf — also known as Fathi ben Awn ben Jildi Murad al-Tunisi — was killed in a U.S. military nighttime raid in Deir Ezzor in eastern Syria. His death could be a significant step toward unraveling the organization.
“Abu Sayyaf was a senior ISIL leader who, among other things, had a senior role in overseeing ISIL’s illicit oil and gas operations – a key source of revenue that enables the terrorist organization to carry out their brutal tactics and oppress thousands of innocent civilians,” said National Security Council spokesperson Bernadette Meehan. “He was also involved with the group’s military operations.”
Certainly, Abu Sayyaf’s death was a blow to the organization, Warren said. “[He] was a key figure in the finance of the organization, often referred to as the emir for oil and gas.”
But his killing may only be a temporary setback.
“I think it’s fair to say there are a variety of financial emirs within ISIL, not any one of which is indispensable to the organization,” Glaser said. “I will say Abu Sayyaf was an important financial official within the organization.”
More robust and expansive measures are underway to degrade ISIL’s financial standing, but Glaser said it’s not easy to do: “ISIL is very well off financially and they stand in contrast to most other terrorist organizations in that they are able to derive a substantial portion of their income internally.”
Other countries like Jordan, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Lebanon are being called upon to stiffen their laws to make it more difficult for ISIL to navigate their financial systems.
Meanwhile, 22 countries, including the U.S., are in Paris at the Counter-ISIL Coalition Conference hammering out ways to marginalize the group.
British Foreign Secretary Phillip Hammond said in a statement after the first day of meetings Tuesday, “Coalition intervention with airstrikes has halted ISIL’s precipitous advance. Action on the ground is gradually reducing the amount of territory they control.”
U.S. and international officials all agree: The battle to defeat ISIL is going to take years because of the complex nature of its leadership, and the underlying cultural, political and security problems in Iraq and Syria.
Documents captured from the now-deceased architect of ISIL, Haji Bakr, who spent years in Iraq’s infamous Abu Ghraib prison, detail a meticulously planned strategy. The objective was to embed its operatives in the region and siphon off political power, as well as oil and gas to support their attempts to build a caliphate.
Glaser won’t assign a dollar figure to what ISIL is worth today, but believes “they’re worth hundreds of millions of dollars.”
According to United Nations documents, ISIL has made more than $600 million looting banks, and takes in several million dollars a month extorting money from people under their control in Iraq and Syria. According to U.N. Security Council documents, ISIL receives millions in donations and ransoms paid to release kidnapped individuals.
To counteract that problem, Glaser said TFI is trying to cut off ISIL from the financial system, “to make sure the money they have they can’t put to use, or send it to affiliates, to support attack planning, or support procurement or foreign fighter networks.”
