ISIL Dismantling, Selling Public Assets in Mosul

“The ISIL terrorists in oil workers suit started dismantling and stealing the railway tracks in the city of Mosul in a bid to sell them; they have already taken some of the tracks to Syria,” the Arabic-language Ara News quoted an unnamed source as saying.

The source said that the ISIL has also started dismantling and selling parts of the factories and workshops in all areas under its control.

ISIL was once described as the richest terrorist group in the world, but apparently those days are long since over.

The terrorist group’s finances have crumbled thanks to the Russian coalitions destroying the bulk of the group’s oil infrastructure, the global slide in oil prices and territorial losses in Iraq and Syria.

The self-proclaimed caliphate, unlike other terrorist groups, generates its income locally.

The militants mostly make money from taxes, extortion, kidnappings, oil smuggling and private donations.

These sources have recently been affected, with ISIL losing territories, fighters, civilians, hard cash, oil fields and smuggling routes.

Although many have warned against predicting ISIL’s swift financial demise, more reports have emerged pointing to the group’s major financial troubles. This might be indirect evidence, but it is nevertheless telling.

While senior ISIL commanders are said to have clashed over allegations of corruption, mismanagement and theft, some fighters have not been paid at all, the US media reported, citing US counterterrorism officials.

“Cash shortages already have forced the group to put many of its Iraqi and Syrian recruits on half-pay, and accounts from recent defectors suggest that some units haven’t received salaries in months,” the media outlet detailed.

Civilians and businesses living in cities under ISIL’s control “complain of being subjected to ever-higher taxes and fees to make up the shortfall.”

Conflict monitor groups painted the same picture in mid-March, saying that ISIL “was struggling financially.”

The trend manifested itself in “tax hikes, increases in the cost of state-run services and significant cuts of up to 50 percent in the salaries” paid to the fighters.