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Declaring an Islamic State, Running a Criminal Enterprise
When the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) stormed into Iraq and captured djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... , the largest city in northern Iraq, the group not only walked away with a tremendous amount of abandoned military hardware, but also raided the city's central bank and took off with some $425 million. Perhaps even more amazing is that the group was already one of the best-funded terrorist groups in the world. ISIS, which has renamed itself the Islamic State and unilaterally declared the reestablishment of an Islamic caliphate, has been financially self-sufficient for at least eight years, according to U.S. government estimates. Remember that before it renamed itself the Islamic State, the group was known as ISIS, as the Islamic State of Iraq, as al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), as Majlis Shura al-Mujahidin and as Jamaat al-Tawhid wa-l-Jihad. And unlike other groups, which are reliant on state sponsors, major donors or abuse of charity, the group now calling itself the Islamic State has been financially independent by virtue of engaging in tremendously successful criminal activity enterprises. By 2006, when the group was still known as AQI, it was already bringing in approximately $70 million through criminal activities. According to a November 2006 U.S. government assessment cited in The New York Times ...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize... , AQI and other groups had successfully created a self-sustaining insurgency in Iraq, raising from $70 million to $200 million a year from illegal activities alone. The assessment highlighted oil smuggling, kidnapping for ransom and political corruption as the most significant and profitable enterprises. Even during the height of the Iraq War — and in large part because of it — AQI had established an independent financial structure. Posted by: trailing wife 2014-07-09 |
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| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=395132 |