June 10, 2016
The Islamic State terror group made nearly $1 billion in total revenue last year, half of which came from the sale of oil, and earned as much $350 million per year by extorting funds from the local population, a top US Treasury Department official has said.
ISIL’s sources of income include oil and gas sales, extortion and taxation, external donations, kidnapping-for- ransom, and previously, bank looting, Daniel Glaser, the Treasury’s assistant secretary for terrorist financing said.
The senior official said the ISIL clearly has vast financial resources, but the Obama administration has seen indications that America’s efforts to disrupt ISIL’s sources of revenue are bearing fruit.
Through air strikes, the coalition has directly targeted ISIL’s entire oil and natural gas supply chain: from oil fields, to refineries, to tanker trucks, targeting ISIL’s primary source of revenue, he claimed. “While difficult to quantify, the strikes have undoubtedly impeded ISIL’s ability to produce, sell, and profit from oil as it had been doing,” he said.
Glaser also said that recent Coalition strikes have also reduced the levels of cash in ISIL-controlled territory.