Cutting oil supplies of Daesh can stop its financing and curb terrorism
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LONDON: Islamic State (ISIS) is banking as much as $3m (£1.98m) a week from oil sales to smugglers and the local market as US and British air strikes attempt to destroy the infrastructure that allows Daesh (IS) to pump and refine crude in its strongholds in eastern Syria. Tom Keatinge, director of the Centre for Financial Crime and Security Studies (CFCS) at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) think tank in London, said that the oil produced by IS was either being trucked across the border to Turkey, sold to the regime of Bashar al-Assad or sold to Syrians living under IS rule. The oil is being smuggled into Turkey or not, targeting IS infrastructure remains the only feasible way for the anti-IS coalition to cut funding for the terrorist group in Syria. IS makes most of its money either by selling oil, extorting money from its population through taxes and, on a far smaller scale, selling historical artifacts and cigarettes outside of its territory. "The only real source of funding that the international community has any reasonable control over is the oil. So bombing the oil facilities seems like the only solution when it comes to disrupting their finances. (Source: IB Times)
