Two U.S. counter-terrorism officials tell NBC News that new intelligence reveals ISIS rakes in millions of dollars more each month from smuggling oil and gas than previously assumed.
"The more time on target, the better the estimate," a senior U.S. official told NBC News. U.S. intelligence agencies have spent a lot of "time on target" since the target, ISIS, emerged just over a year ago. As a result, their understanding of the group's workings is becoming more intimate.
From 2014, U.S. intelligence officials and analysts estimated that ISIS pulls in roughly $3 million a month smuggling oil and gas, much of it into Turkey where it is sold on the black market.
The oil smuggling is a key source of income for ISIS, which the group uses in part to pay its fighters monthly salaries and provide stipends to their families. ISIS, unlike al-Qaeda, sees itself as a state, providing an education and welfare system, which means the group has high running costs. Two U.S. counter-terrorism officials now tell NBC News that the amount of money ISIS earns from selling and smuggling oil and gas is closer to 8 to 10 million dollars a month.
"We have learned more about the internal market. ISIS sells oil and gas everywhere. It sells within Syria, and to the Syrian regime. It sells in Iraq. It is a more extensive and complex market than we assumed," a senior counter-terrorism official said.
Much of the new intelligence about ISIS finances was gathered during a U.S. commando raid into Syria two months ago. In the raid, Abu Sayyaf, considered by U.S. intelligence at the time to be the ISIS "money man," was killed. His wife, known as Umm Sayyaf, was taken into U.S. custody. Computers were also seized from the compound during the raid.
Coalition airstrikes have targeted ISIS controlled oil facilities, but ISIS's ability to raise money from what is in effect an internal market within areas it controls or influences presents a further challenge to cutting the group's finances.
Oil is only one of two major sources of income for the so-called Islamic State. The group also seized the tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars when it took over Mosul a year ago. The estimate of how much was seized from Iraqi banks has jumped in recent months.
The group also continues to make money from traditional gangland-style methods: extortion, robbery and ransom. But as one U.S. counter terrorism official put it, "those are 'mature'," meaning ISIS has wrung about as much as they can from them.
ISIS taking high casualties, but replenishing its numbers
The U.S.-led coalition is inflicting heavy causalities against ISIS though airstrikes and local partners, but the group continues to replace its losses with new recruits.
"They're taking a beating. They're getting killed in high numbers. Forty to 90 a day are getting killed. That's heavy losses, but they are still able to keep up the numbers," a counter-terrorism official told NBC News.
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