Aimee Hanstein, CTG Regional Teams Manager
As the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (IS, ISIS, ISIL) loss it’s territory in Iraq and Syria, it expanded around the globe into regions such as AFRICOM and PACOM. The Islamic State created branches such as Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), Islamic State Central Africa Province (ISCAP), Islamic State East Asia (ISIS-EA), ISIS-Bangladesh and other affiliates throughout the AFRICOM and PACOM regions. The CENTCOM team, in collaboration with the PACOM team, AFRICOM team, and Illicit Financing and Economic Threats (IFET) team wrote a specialty report on the funding of Islamic State throughout the world to include methods, connections, and the current resurgence happening in Iraq and Syria, the organizations ‘homeland’.
From our research, we found that many of the Islamic States funding included oil exports/trafficking, antiquities trafficking, corruption, taxes and fees on business and individuals, profits from kidnapping ransoms, looting, arms trafficking, drug trafficking, internet fraud, hacking foreign trading platforms, and confiscations. These seem to be the overall funding methods for the Islamic State across the regions with some branches preferring some methods over others. During the COVID-19 pandemic, CTG found that the group took advantage of the pandemic to exploit economic and public health challenges and seemed to increase the use of illicit trafficking of goods and extortion during this time.
Without a concerted effort to preempt the funding tactics that enable this reemerging threat in 2021, ISIS is highly likely to exploit the pressing economic, public health, and security challenges and continue to expand until local and international actors are forced to address the problem, which will have worsened exponentially. As the Islamic State continues their resurgence in Iraq and Syria, as well as their expansion into other parts of the Middle East such as Afghanistan (ISIS-K), AFRICOM, and PACOM, the group is likely to expand their funding methods while also potentially making it harder to track down these methods. This assessment is based on the idea that ISIS is starting to operate more on the dark web and as these groups expand, they are relying less on the ‘core’ of IS (ISIS). As Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan continue to have a security vacuum and face civil wars and potential civil wars, the group is likely to take advantage of this opportunity to recruit and use more extortion tools against country forces. In Afghanistan specifically, the group is likely to connect with groups such as the Taliban and al-Qaeda in order to expand their goals. As the security situation throughout Africa, specifically in the areas of responsibility (AOR) for ISWAP and ISCAP, the group is likely to take advantage and expand its operations and funding.
For more information on the funding methods and resurgence of the Islamic State, find the full report done by the AFRICOM, CENTCOM, PACOM, and IFET teams at this link.
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