At the moment Israel experience in fighting terror has to be in great demand. The extremely important key role in terminating the terror plays cutting off financial streams to the terrorists. As a consequence of the ISIS acts of terror in France and its threats to other countries, the U.S. officials reported findings of financial streams connected with the Islamic State.
According to a recent article on Bloomberg.com U.S. has seriously undervalued oil resources of ISIS. After the terror attack in Paris on November 13, the Islamic State financial activity and ways to get the money came into sharp focus. Iraqi and Syrian oil fields have been captured by ISIS troops are providing the leaders with a profitable basis to receive funds. Iraq and Syria have extremely rich oil fields; Iraq is well known as the second oil exporter in OPEC. Earlier in February 2015 Bagdad has expanded its crude-storage capacity to 10.5 million barrels, Deputy Oil Minister Fayyad Al-Nima said. Iraqis hurried to sell the black treasure on the market to revive economy; however, also ISIS did hurried.
ISIS already had got access to oil refinery facilities and have been able to trade crude and some of crude derivatives as well. This May “oil emir” of the Islamic State has been killed by American forces. Unfortunately, the man was not the one and only oil magnate in the area; someone else is in charge of negotiation with potential buyers. In October U.S.-led coalition destroyed an oil distribution station near Deir ez-Zor in Eastern Syria, but ceased bombing Iraqi tanker trucks trying to avoid civilian casualties and destroying the fragile economy of the country. When allies behave as humans, barbarians gain an advantage. Thus the crude oil appears to be the best asset for ISIS to earn easy money. The profit from trading oil is estimated almost $500 million per year, U.S. Department of the Treasury officials said.
Who is trading with the terrorists? First of all, a lot of unaffiliated local traders, anxious to feed their families, are involved in transporting the oil from the fields to markets in al-Qaim or Aleppo. Then one of ISIS “oil emirs” takes care of presenting the product to a buyer. According to CNBC, at the moment the Islamic State supplies 50,000 barrels per day, which is twice less than in July 2014. So barbarians have oil for the needs of their own and something to sell off. It is hard to trace whether the oil quit the Middle East, but in any case it brings cash to the terrorists.
On November 18 Deir ez-Zor province was attacked once more by U.S. with allies and Russians as well. At least 10 wells stopped producing, Financial times declared. The struggle with “black” oil from ISIS turns to become the battle with no merci. The financial stream from trading the liquid hydrocarbons should be cut off. Just nobody feels certain that it is possible.