ISIS Economy Is Breaking Slowly

ISIS Economy Is Breaking Slowly

 

United Nations, New York - and the finance ministers are due to meet at the United Nations can not put an Islamic state in the financial binding. But it can provide some crucial strikes to an organization already showing signs of financial stress.
The second UN Security Council are often at odds, and the meeting of finance ministers next week comes at an opportune moment, when the terrorist attacks all over the world has created a sense of purpose shared - even, apparently, between the United States and Russia.
The essence of the wealth of the Islamic state is, in many respects, out of reach of the meetings next week, hosted by the United States. Turkey can only close their borders in the face of oil smugglers who carry the Islamic state and other contraband, the only military force that can deprive a group of land which used to blackmail and taxation.
But a more coordinated effort in targeting the financial resources of the Islamic state could pay dividends. For example, the United States and others, and reports of Bank of suspicious financial transactions to more effective targeting of locations where the Islamic state be is to produce and load petroleum products.

Intensify this format is akin to "pressure on the balloon" of financial Islamic state - although "not yet hard enough to pop it," Matthew Levitt says, the director of counter-terrorism and program intelligence at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
And it is vital to the defeat of the Islamic state, he says. "Any chance to get this level of attention and cooperation on the issue, which will be pivotal in the destruction of ISIS that should be seized and built upon."
Terrorist attacks linked to the Islamic state in Beirut, Paris and San Bernardino, Calif., It seems, galvanized the international community.
"What is reassuring is how much of the world with this threat more and more seriously and work together with greater unity," said Farhan Haq, a spokesman for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, told reporters earlier this week.
Particularly promising are indicators of the United States and Russia "agree that efforts to dry ISIS funding can and should be tightened up," says Mr. Levitt, using another shortcut Islamic state.
And the payment of both the United States and Russia to a new Security Council resolution on the financing of terrorism, and could agree on a single text of the December 17 summit
Indeed, there are indications that the Islamic state is feeling the financial pinch.

• Reports out of Islamic State-controlled cities indicate the terror group is starting to cut back or is failing to make payroll to its employees and fighters.

• The number and quality of Islamic State’s propaganda videos has declined in recent months as the group has been pushed out of territory in Syria and Iraq, according to a recent study by the website Jihadology, which is run by Aaron Zelin of the Washington Institute.

• The progress Iraqi forces have made recently in taking back parts of the city of Ramadi is evidence not just of military weaknesses, but also of mounting financial woes, some experts say.

• As for oil sales – the Islamic State’s second-most-important revenue source behind taxation – they, too, have taken a significant hit. Airstrikes by the US and other countries have shifted from targeting individual oil trucks to hitting refineries. Initially the US wanted to avoid destroying the infrastructure that Syria and Iraq developed.

The summit of finance ministers of the Security Council stresses the importance of world leaders put on both the financing of terrorism and to coordinate financial resources, intelligence, and military efforts. Will the summit will be the first time that a session of the Council will be chaired by the finance official - US Treasury Secretary Jack Liu.
Finance ministers can work to apply greater scrutiny in all areas - from financial transactions that provide crucial evidence about the economy of the Islamic state to the money brought into the Islamic state at the hands of foreign fighters and donors throughout the region.
But the summit can be a lot of work.
It is created half or more of the financial resources of the Islamic state of taxes or extortion within the territory controlled by the group in Syria and Iraq. This means that successfully cut the Islamic government funding is directly related to the international military campaigns aimed at reducing its territory.
"There are a number of actions that can be taken to reduce the financial flows, but one thing is clear: if you want to deprive ISIS of cash, and you deprive it of the earth," says Jonathan Schanzer vice president for research at the Defense of Democracies Foundation in Washington.
Moreover, the Islamic State trafficks much of the oil and monuments across the Turkish border with Syria, experts say. The United States put pressure on Turkey for several months - mostly behind closed doors - to do more, while Russia was much more public with their accusations.
Next week's meetings are an opportunity for the international community to get on the same page to address some of these currents greater funding.
"We're not going to get anywhere on the crucial issue such as the financing of terrorism if all banks in a lot of accusations and counter-accusations," says Levitt. "If you can get beyond the rhetoric, then a lot of good can be done if you focus on helping Turkey closed down those borders."