US Looks for Ways to Cut Off Islamic State’s Money Flow
This is a smart tactic : terrorist abilities to recruit grow exponentially better when they have not only a grab bag of local and religious causes but also pay better than the armies and police that they are fighting. e.g. The Taliban’s deep roots in narco-terror heroin trafficking is one of the reasons they’ve been so hard to dislodge from the poppy regions of Afghanistan.
Shaky video posted to YouTube last week pans across foot-high bundles of $100 bills topped by two shining gold ingots. A man’s voice calls for Islamic blessings and says the rich trove — “maybe even millions of dollars” — belongs to Usama Nujaifi, a deputy president of Iraq.
Not anymore. Islamic State seized the cash and gold as part of its effort to raise money through robbery, extortion, seizure of assets, kidnapping and oil smuggling. U.S. intelligence officials estimate the militant group takes in $100 million annually.
Hoping to choke the illicit financing that has made Islamic State the world’s wealthiest terrorist group, the Obama administration has set up an interagency team, led by the Treasury Department, to track down Islamic State’s foreign donors, crack down on its smuggling, and identify individuals and institutions that help the group transfer or hide its money.
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