ISIS : The king of terrorism - Anonymous Informer

Islamic State of Iraq and Syria

Islamic State of Iraq and Syria(ISIS) also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant(ISIL) was the world's biggest terrorist organization.

Here we will know all things about ISIS, its origin, its aim, funding of it, its weapon source its future, etc.

Origin of ISIS?

The group emerged out of al-Qaeda in Iraq as a response to the U.S. invasion in 2003. It was shaped primarily by a Jordanian jihadist and the eventual head of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Jordanian wished to fuel a civil war between Sunnis and Shiites and establish a caliphate.

After the removal of all 170,300 American troops from Iraq on 21 October 2011 after the Iraq war, Chief of al-Qaeda Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi made ISIS from Al-Qaeda.

Funding of ISIS

In 2014 ISIS had assets worth US$2 billion, making it the richest terrorist group in the world. Even it was richer than some small countries.

Let's see the main funding sources of ISIS:

Taxation and extortion 

ISIS extracts its wealth through taxation and extortion. Regarding taxation, Christians and foreigners are at times required to pay a tax. It also serves as a protection contract involving harsh restrictions on non-Muslims.

According to the Quran, one-fifth of the spoils of war taken by Islamic State fighters must be given to the state, and ISIS is believed to be collecting this tax.

Those who take up professions other than fighting jihad must pay zakat, usually a 2.5% tax on an individual's total assets.

Islamic State has also put in place the 'ushr tariff on imports and exports from their territory.

In addition, the group routinely practices extortion, by demanding money from truck drivers and threatening to destroy their businesses. 

Robbing banks and gold shops have been another source of income. The Iraq government indirectly finances ISIS, as it continues to pay the salaries of the thousands of government employees who continue to work in areas controlled by ISIS, which then confiscates as much as half of those Iraqi government employees' pay. Policemen, teachers, and soldiers who had worked for religiously inappropriate regimes are reportedly allowed to continue work if they pay for a repentance ID card that has to be annually renewed.

Oil revenue

US treasury official estimated in 2014 that ISIS earned US$1 million a day from the export of oil, much of which was sold illegally in Turkey. The same year, Dubai-based energy analysts put the combined oil revenue from ISIS's Iraqi-Syrian production as high as US$3 million per day. An accurate estimate of the ISIS true revenue from oil is difficult, as black market sales are difficult to trace.

In 2014, the majority of the group's funding came from the production and sale of energy; it controlled around 300 oil wells in Iraq alone. At its peak, it operated 350 oil wells in Iraq but lost 45 to foreign airstrikes. It had captured 60% of Syria's total production capacity. ISIS earned US$2.5 million a day by selling 50,000–60,000 barrels of oil daily. Foreign sales relied on a long-standing black market to export via Turkey. Many of the smugglers and corrupt Turkish border guards helped ISIS to export oil and import cash.

Other energy sales include selling electric power from captured power plants in northern Syria, some of this electricity was sold back to the Syrian government.

Sale of antiques and artifacts

More than a third of Iraq's important sites are under ISIS's control. It looted the 9th century BC grand palace of the Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II at Kalhu (Nimrud). Tablets, manuscripts, and cuneiforms were sold, worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Stolen artifacts are smuggled into Turkey and Jordan. It is difficult to accurately measure the revenue from artifacts, as they are primarily sold on the black market, but National Geographic estimates it may be in the tens of millions USD. As well as selling artifacts themselves, ISIS tax traffickers smuggling them across ISIS's territory.

Illegal drug trade

Islamic states make money through trafficking Afghan heroin through its territory. The annual value of this business may be up to $1 billion.

Agriculture

The acreage between Tigris and Euphrates has produced half of Syria's annual wheat crop and a third of Iraq's. It is able to produce crops worth possibly US$200 million per year if properly managed, and the UN Food and Agricultural Organization believes that 40% of Iraq's wheat-producing land is under ISIS control. It is believed that ISIS confiscates wheat and barley crops as zakat, as well as farming equipment that is then rented back to farmers. The organization maintains strict control over the production and distribution of crops, effectively setting prices.

Donations from the Arab States of the Persian Gulf

The State of Qatar has long been accused of acting as a conduit for the flow of funds to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. While there is no proof that the Qatari government is behind the movement of funds from the gas-rich nation to ISIL, it has been criticized for not doing enough to stem the flow of financing. Private donors within Qatar, sympathetic to the aims of radical groups such as al-Nusra Front and ISIS, are believed to be channeling their resources to support these organizations.

According to the U.S. Treasury Department, a number of terrorist financiers have been operating in Qatar. Qatari citizen Abd al Rahman al Nuaymi has served as an interlocutor between Qatari donors and leaders of al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). Nuaimi reportedly oversaw the transfer of US$2 million per month to AQI over a period of time. is Nuaimi also one of several of Qatar-based al-Qaeda financiers sanctioned by the U.S.Treasury in recent years. According to some reports, U.S. officials believe that the largest portion of private donations supporting ISIS and al-Qaeda-linked groups now comes from Qatar rather than Saudi Arabia.

Unregistered charity organizations act as fronts to pass funds to ISIS; they disguise fundings for ISIS's operations as donations for "humanitarian charity". As they use aliases on Facebook's WhatsApp and Kik, the involved individuals and organizations are difficult to trace. 

Weapons of ISIS

In the war between ISIS and Syria in June 2013, the free Syrian army requested all countries for giving them weapons, because their own stock got empty and they will lose the war if they don't get a supply of weapons. In response to requests, many countries(China, Romania, Russia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Serbia, Germany, Iraq, Poland, Czech Republic the United States, and Iran ) send their weapons to the Syrian army but the Syrian army didn't receive weapons, weapons got stolen by ISIS. ISIS also makes small weapons and bullets in their own factories. 

Ideology of ISIS

ISIS aims to create an Islamic state called a caliphate across Iraq, Syria, and beyond. They just want more and more territory under them, they want to dictate as many countries as they can. Jason Burke, a journalist writing on Salafi jihadism, has written that ISIL's goal is to "terrorize, mobilize [and] polarize". Its efforts to terrorize are intended to intimidate civilian populations and force governments of the target enemy "to make rash decisions that they otherwise would not choose".

Decrease in power

ISIS was the world's deadliest terrorist organization. But not anymore, Due to continuous attack by the Iraqi government and military, Shia militias, U.S.A, Iran, Turkey. 

the number of deaths continuously dropping from 9,150 in 2016 to 4,350 in 2017. In 2018, ISIS was responsible for 1,328 deaths - a 69 percent drop from the previous year and an 85 percent drop from its peak in 2016. By the beginning of 2018, ISIS had lost approximately 95 percent of its territory, including the strategic city of Mosul. ISIS-perpetrated attacks decreased by 95 percent over the prior year, with just 12 recorded attacks in 2018.

Future of ISIS

ISIS’s defeat in Iraq and Syria has left governments worldwide grappling with radicalized nationals who left their countries to join the group. Thousands of foreign fighters are currently detained in a war zone by Syrian Democratic Forces, with most governments unwilling to repatriate them. Of the 41,490 total recorded foreign fighters, only 18 percent have returned to their countries of origin.

Despite the fall in deaths in 2018, the number of ISIS affiliates outside of Iraq and Syria continues to rise, as does the number of non-affiliated groups that have pledged allegiance to the group. The group’s influence has infiltrated South Asia and Pakistan via the Khorasan Chapter of the Islamic State, and into North and Western Africa via the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara — respectively the third and ninth deadliest terrorist groups in 2018. 

In the Philippines, ISIS has a strong presence both on its own and through its affiliates, with Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters, Abu Sayyaf, and the Maute group all pledging allegiance to ISIS since 2014. 

While their influence is waning, ISIS remains operational in rural areas in the Levant, conducting kidnappings, assassinations, and attacks on utilities in the Anbar and Nineveh provinces.

So it can happen again that ISIS become the world's biggest terrorist organization.

Disclaimer: Data here is compiled from various sources and by our own research. These data can be approximate and Anonymous Informer does not make any claims about the authenticity of the data.