On October 5, AFPC hosted the latest installment of its periodic luncheon briefing series on radical Islam for Congressional staff. Mrs. Katherine Bauer, a former Treasury Department official, who now serves as a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, served as the event’s featured speaker.
during her October Congressional staff briefing.
Mrs. Bauer outlined the changing economic footprint of the Islamic State terrorist group (ISIS), and how the United States and its allies are attempting to combat the terrorist group on the financial front. ISIS, Bauer noted, is a challenge to the prevailing economic warfare regime erected by the United States and its allies since the start of the “Global War on Terror. This is because, unlike its progenitor, al-Qaeda, the Islamic State funds itself differently -- something that has forced Washington and foreign capitals to adapt their responses.
Since its takeover of parts of Iraq and Syria, ISIS has leveraged abundant natural resources and existing financial networks to become the most well-resourced threat group in history.Today, the economic warfare methods utilized by the United States and its allies have helped to substantially erode the group’s fortunes. Coalition efforts have, among other things, targeted the Islamic State’s oil convoys and cash depots, as well as constricting the revenue available to ISIS from taxation by ceasing the payment of salaries for those living under its sway. At the same time, territorial losses suffered by the group in recent months have reduced its capacity to tax and extort its
captive population.
These steps, however, are part of an ongoing process. As its traditional sources of financing begin to dry up, Bauer warned, the group is increasingly exploring other sources of revenue - and other territorial arenas - where it can regain lost strategic and economic ground. This makes continued vigilance on the economic front imperative as the United States and its allies press their advantage.
