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The ISIS Files
(New York Times) Rukmini Callimachi - For nearly three years, the Islamic State controlled a stretch of land that at one point was the size of Britain, with a population estimated at 12 million people. How did the group hold onto so much land for so long? Part of the answer can be found in more than 15,000 pages of internal Islamic State documents I recovered during five trips to Iraq over more than a year. A team of journalists spent 15 months translating and analyzing them page by page. The documents show that the group realized its dream to establish its own state, a theocracy they considered a caliphate, run according to their strict interpretation of Islam. The militants taxed every transaction. It was tax revenue on daily commerce and agriculture - not oil - that powered the economy of the caliphate.