‘ISIS smuggles $1mn of oil daily in water-tanks, fire-trucks’- refinery worker to RT

AFP Photo / Ahmad AL-Rubaye

Dozens of vehicles carrying oil leave Syria’s petroleum capital, Raqqa, currently under IS control, every hour, earning the extremist group a million dollars daily, according to an oil refinery employee in the occupied city, who has spoken to RT.

The man, Abu Al-Hakam, would not agree to a video call for fear of the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL), and said he himself was not part of the extremist group.

Part of the Raqqa oil, according to Al-Hakam, stays in the region, which is currently cut off from governmental supplies. Another bigger portion finds its way to the black market.

“It is being pushed through underground pipes towards Turkey and remote areas where no one can see them,” the whistleblower told RT’s Maria Finoshina. “Part of it is distributed by IS through brokers. Most of it is raw, but there’s diesel and benzene as well”.

With an estimated net worth of $2 billion, the Islamic State is believed to be the world’s richest terrorist organization. The bulk of the group’s wealth comes from oilfields in Syria and Iraq that are under IS control.

The US Treasury has said it believes oil sales earned by the Islamic State are “approximately $1 million a day.”

The Islamic State’s oil revenues are huge despite below-the-market prices.

“The Islamic State is using converted water tanks to transport the petrol. They even use fire-trucks,” Al-Hakam said. “They are using normal routes in front everyone because they are not afraid of anything as IS protects the trucks.”

Abu Al-Hakam doesn’t know where the oil goes exactly and whether the Turkish government is involved in the black market deals.

He believes the US-led campaign against IS in Syria could have been more successful if airstrike targets had been different.

“They only targeted a few IS bases, and most of them were empty,” he said. “It’s an embarrassing position for the Americans because it’s well known where the oil refineries are, even a child in Syria knows. I cannot see anything more shameful than that, because Syrian oil is the main source of money and weapons for IS.”

With oil profits currently steadily flowing in, the Islamic State has even announced plans for minting its own currency to challenge the global monetary system.

The extremist group has been busy looking for ways to boost its revenues. It is reportedly offering a Refineries Manager position - salary $225,000 for the person ready to try and increase the group’s oil earnings.

Comments

Why States Still Use Barrel Bombs

Smoke ascends after a Syrian military helicopter allegedly dropped a barrel bomb over the city of Daraya on Jan. 31.(FADI DIRANI/AFP/Getty Images) Summary Barrel bombs are not especially effective weapons. They are often poorly constructed; they fail to detonate more often than other devices constructed for a similar purpose; and their lack of precision means they can have a disproportionate effect on civilian populations. However, combatants continue to use barrel bombs in conflicts, including in recent and ongoing conflicts in Africa and the Middle East, and they are ideally suited to the requirements of resource-poor states. Analysis Barrel bombs are improvised devices that contain explosive filling and shrapnel packed into a container, often in a cylindrical shape such as a barrel. The devices continue to be dropped on towns all over Syria . Indeed, there have been several documented cases of their use in Iraq over the past months, and residents of the city of Mosul, which was re...

Russia Looks East for New Oil Markets

Click to Enlarge In the final years of the Soviet Union, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev began orienting his foreign policy toward Asia in response to a rising Japan. Putin has also piloted a much-touted pivot to Asia, coinciding with renewed U.S. interest in the area. A good expression of intent was Russia's hosting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in 2012 in Vladivostok, near Russia's borders with China and North Korea. Although its efforts in Asia have been limited by more direct interests in Russia's periphery and in Europe, Moscow recently has been able to look more to the east. Part of this renewed interest involves finding new export markets for Russian hydrocarbons. Russia's economy relies on energy exports, particularly crude oil and natural gas exported via pipeline to the West. However, Western Europe is diversifying its energy sources as new supplies come online out of a desire to reduce its dependence on Russian energy supplies . This has ...

LONDON POLICE INDIRECTLY ENCOURAGE CRIMINALS TO ATTACK RUSSIAN DIPLOMATIC PROPERTY

ILLUSTRATIVE IMAGE A few days ago an unknown perpetrator trespassed on the territory of the Russian Trade Delegation in London, causing damage to the property and the vehicles belonging to the trade delegation , Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said during the September 12 press briefing. The diplomat revealed the response by the London police was discouraging. Police told that the case does not have any prospects and is likely to be closed. This was made despite the fact that the British law enforcement was provided with video surveillance tapes and detailed information shedding light on the incident. By this byehavior, British law inforcements indirectly encourage criminals to continue attacks on Russian diplomatic property in the UK. Zakharova’s statement on “Trespassing on the Russian Trade Mission premises in London” ( source ): During our briefings, we have repeatedly discussed compliance with the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, sp...

ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

Search This Blog