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Hitting ISIS Where It Hurts

(New York Times) Patrick B. Johnston and Benjamin Bahney - ISIS currently brings in more than $1 million a day in revenue and is now the richest terrorist group on the planet. Yet there are options for noncombat assistance that would help degrade the group's finances. America could send expert teams to assist Iraqi and Kurdish forces in developing the financial intelligence needed to plan military operations against key ISIS elements. Targeting the terrorist group's bookkeepers, its oil business and its cash holdings could both disrupt ISIS' financing and provide additional intelligence on its inner workings. Contrary to the common myth that the group relies on wealthy donors abroad, ISIS records show that its money came mostly from protection rackets that extorted the commercial, reconstruction, and oil sectors of northern Iraq's economy. The group also made considerable money through war itself, plundering millions of dollars from local Christians and Shiites. Iraqi and Kurdish forces should make it a priority to displace the group from oil wells in northern Iraq, and to restrict its ability to process oil at its refining facilities in eastern Syria. Patrick B. Johnston is a political scientist at the RAND Corporation, where Benjamin Bahney is a member of the adjunct staff.
2014-08-14 00:00:00
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