Islamic State’s moneymaking streams take a hit as it loses territory

[MADem]

By Hugh Naylor December 4
BEIRUT — By most estimates, the Islamic State is the world’s richest terrorist organization. But it appears to be wrestling with money problems that could affect its ability to wage war while trying to govern millions of people in its self-declared caliphate.

U.S.-backed forces in Iraq and Syria have retaken significant amounts of territory from the group, depriving it of traditional sources of income, analysts say. Towns and villages that the Islamic State had relied on for tax revenue have been captured by Arab and Kurdish opponents. And lucrative spoils of war, including oil fields, properties to confiscate and captives to ransom off, have become scarcer as the group struggles to seize new areas.

“A problem they face is that much of their income over the last two years has been through conquest, confiscation and extortion, and those are all one-time things that aren’t sustainable,” said Quinn Mecham, an assistant professor of political science at Brigham Young University. “And now they’re losing territory, and that makes it difficult to continue to extract revenues. The pressure is on.”
Information about the Islamic State’s finances is murky. But the group’s diverse sources of income, including extortion and antiquities smuggling, have helped it weather more than a year of airstrikes from a U.S.-led coalition, analysts say.

More at:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/islamic-states-money-makers-take-a-hit-as-it-loses-territory/2015/12/03/b08910aa-91f6-11e5-befa-99ceebcbb272_story.html

Related: Iraqis think the U.S. is in cahoots with the Islamic State, and it is hurting the war

By Liz Sly December 1
BAIJI, Iraq — On the front lines of the battle against the Islamic State, suspicion of the United States runs deep. Iraqi fighters say they have all seen the videos purportedly showing U.S. helicopters airdropping weapons to the militants, and many claim they have friends and relatives who have witnessed similar instances of collusion.

Ordinary people also have seen the videos, heard the stories and reached the same conclusion — one that might seem absurd to Americans but is widely believed among Iraqis — that the United States is supporting the Islamic State for a variety of pernicious reasons that have to do with asserting U.S. control over Iraq, the wider Middle East and, perhaps, its oil.

“It is not in doubt,” said Mustafa Saadi, who says his friend saw U.S. helicopters delivering bottled water to Islamic State positions. He is a commander in one of the Shiite militias that last month helped push the militants out of the oil refinery near Baiji in northern Iraq alongside the Iraqi army.

The Islamic State is “almost finished,” he said. “They are weak. If only America would stop supporting them, we could defeat them in days.”
U.S. military officials say the charges are too far-fetched to merit a response. “It’s beyond ridiculous,” said Col. Steve Warren, the military’s Baghdad-based spokesman. “There’s clearly no one in the West who buys it, but unfortunately, this is something that a segment of the Iraqi population believes.”

The perception among Iraqis that the United States is somehow in cahoots with the militants it claims to be fighting appears, however, to be widespread across the country’s Sunni-Shiite sectarian divide, and it speaks to more than just the troubling legacy of mistrust that has clouded the United States’ relationship with Iraq since the 2003 invasion and the subsequent withdrawal eight years later....


https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/iraqis-think-the-us-is-in-cahoots-with-isis-and-it-is-hurting-the-war/2015/12/01/d00968ec-9243-11e5-befa-99ceebcbb272_story.html

[DetlefK]

1. Reminds me of the collapse of the roman empire.

Its revenue was based on robbing other countries. (The favorite pastime of the rich elite was tax-evasion.)

Eventually, the Roman Empire ran out of countries to pillage:
Middle-East, Scotland and northern Germany? Too dangerous.
Africa and Eastern Europe? Too far away.

Without money, the Roman Empire could no longer afford the army necessary to defend its territory.

[MADem]

2. Fair point! nt