U.S. Goes After ISIS’ Billion-Dollar Revenue Stream

An image grab taken from a video uploaded on YouTube on August 23, 2013 allegedly shows a member of Ussud Al-Anbar (Anbar Lions), a Jihadist group affiliated to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant , Al-Qaeda's front group in Iraq,  holding up the trademark black and white Islamist flag at an undisclosed location in Iraq's Anbar province. Attacks in Iraq killed 14 people including six soldiers on August 25, Iraqi officials said, amid a surge in violence authorities have so far failed to stem despite wide-ranging operations targeting militants. Arabic writing on the flag reads: "There is not God but God and Mohammed is the prophet of God."  AFP PHOTO / YOUTUBE  == RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE - MANDATORY CREDIT "AFP PHOTO / YOUTUBE " - NO MARKETING NO ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS - DISTRIBUTED AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS FROM FROM ALTERNATIVE SOURCES, THEREFORE AFP IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DIGITAL ALTERATIONS TO THE PICTURE'S EDITORIAL CONTENT, DATE AND LOCATION WHICH CANNOT BE INDEPENDENTLY VERIFIED ====-/AFP/Getty Images

WASHINGTON — (CNN) The U.S. estimates that ISIS brought in $1 billion in revenue last year but that recent airstrikes on their cash holdings and oil infrastructure are beginning to squeeze the group’s finances.
Daniel Glaser, the Treasury Department’s assistant secretary for terrorist financing, said Thursday that the U.S. efforts to cripple ISIS’ ability to raise money are “bearing fruit.”
He pointed to airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS cash storage sites in Iraq and Syria as having destroyed “possibly” more than a $100 million of the group’s money, along with strikes against oil infrastructure and distribution capabilities controlled by ISIS.
He said a combination of military power, intelligence sharing and diplomatic efforts are blunting ISIS’ financial reach — but that it still has paths to revenue at its disposal.
“ISIL’s sources of income include oil and gas sales, extortion and taxation, external donations, kidnapping-for-ransom, and previously, bank looting,” Glaser, using another term for ISIS, said in testimony before a joint meeting of the House Foreign Relations and Armed Services Committees.
And nearly 15 years after the 9/11 attacks, al Qaeda’s ability to fund itself has been hampered through the disruption of its financial networks and designations of various individuals involved with the group by the Treasury Department, Glaser said.
However, there is still significant concern on the part of U.S. officials regarding the private financing networks in Persian Gulf countries for al Qaeda and other terrorist groups that still exist.
Glaser noted in his testimony that all Gulf countries have passed “counter-terrorism laws that criminalize terrorist financing” and have also established controls to ensure that money within the charitable sector is not diverted for terrorist funding.
He also noted that Saudi Arabia, whose government has come under intense scrutiny over whether it offered support to some of the 9/11 hijackers, has “emerged as a regional leader” in the area of cracking down on terrorist financing.
Texas Republican Rep. Ted Poe, who chaired the committee hearing, questioned whether the pace of going after charities that support terror was fast enough.
He also questioned whether there was enough information-sharing between government agencies to better target terror finance networks.
“There are resource restraints in terms of people and intelligence collection assets,” said Theresa Whelan, the Pentagon’s acting assistant secretary for special operations. “We have made progress in the last couple years.”

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