The Islamic State Is The World's Newest Petrostate

ISIS has captured large swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq, including all of oil-rich Deir Ezzor. (File photo: Reuters)

The Islamic State Is The Newest Petrostate -- Keith Johnson, Stars and Stripes/Foreign Policy

WASHINGTON — The Islamic State, like many shady and not-so-shady groups before it, are apparently getting into the oil business. And it seems to suit them as they reportedly are making millions of dollars a day off of it.

The militants, who have conquered broad swaths of Iraq and Syria, are turning to good old-fashioned crime -- oil smuggling, in this case -- to underwrite its main line of work. The money it can earn from illicit oil sales further bolsters the group's status as one of the richest self-funded terrorist outfits in the world, dependent not on foreign governments for financial support but on the money its reaped from kidnappings and bank robberies. The group has also managed to steal expensive weaponry that the United States had left for the Iraqi military, freeing it from the need to spend its own money to buy such armaments.

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More News On The Islamic State And The Oil Fields That It Controls

UN threatens sanctions on anyone trading oil with ISIS terrorists -- RT
U.N. warns against oil trading with ISIS -- Al Arabiya/Reuters
After ISIS advance, Kurds win back important control over northern Iraq's oil -- PRI
Kurdish security service takes aim at ISIS oil smuggling -- Asharq Al-Awsat
ISIS grabs oil and gas fields in Syria and Iraq, but challenges remain -- Daily Star
NGO: Jihadists sell Syrian oil to Iraqi businessmen -- Al Arabiya
ISIS raises $1 million a day selling crude oil from captured Iraqi oilfields -- Daily Mail
ISIS Makes Up To $3 Million a Day Selling Oil, Analysts Say -- Syria Deeply
The 'oil curse' just became more real: how oil smuggling in financing the ISIS’ operations -- Al Bawaba