ISIS is now the wealthiest terrorist organization on the planet, according to Foreign Policy. And the Al Qaeda offshoot has the ambition and perhaps even the organization needed to put its piles of oil and smuggling-related profits to work, as its several-hundred page-long annual report from this past March demonstrates.



For example, ISIS brings in nearly $12 million a month in revenues from extortion and other shady practices in the Iraqi city of Mosul alone in addition to $1 million to $3 million a day selling oil illegally .

Some experts believe that the group's power is virtually unprecedented, at least among jihadist organizations. According to Janine Davidson and Emerson Brookings of the Council on Foreign Relations, ISIS sits atop "a volume of resources and territory unmatched in the history of extremist organizations." T he group controls approximately 60% of Syria's oil fields and several oil producing assets in Iraq.



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Luay Al-Khatteeb, founder of the Iraq Energy Institute and visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, estimates ISIS's total revenue from oil production at approximately $2 million a day.

Oil Wealth

"Put simply, ISIS is in a position to smuggle over 30,000 barrels of crude oil a day to neighboring territories and countries at a price of between $25 to $60 per barrel depending on the number of middle-men involved," Khatteeb wrote for Brookings.

ISIS allegedly sells much of its oil production to intermediaries in Syria, who then transport it to refineries in Turkey, Iran, and Kurdistan, Foreign Policy reported.

Robin Mills, a director at Manaar Energy and author of The Myth Of The Oil Crisis, explained that individuals and nations involved in the sale of oil on the black market would be open to U.S. and EU sanctions as well as Iraqi legal action, if the state were ever to re-establish control over areas that ISIS now rules.

"T he practical impact of this may not be much given the small volumes and the difficulty of tracking buyers and sellers," Mills told Business Insider by email.

Control Of Water, Wheat, And Electricity

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A woman carries a bundle of newly harvested wheat stalks in Albu Efan village southwest of Falluja.

Oil isn't the only resource that ISIS has leveraged to its advantage. In a recent interview with Der Spiegel , Brookings Doha Center fellow Charles Lister explains how ISIS uses its control of food and water supplies to further its goals:

Money is key here. It is well-known that the IS is almost entirely self-financed. Its money comes from the control and illicit sale of oil and gas, agricultural products like wheat, the control of water and electricity and from imposing taxes within areas it controls. It is literally earning millions of dollars each week, and a great deal of this money is pumped into social services.

ISIS's advance throughout northern Iraq has put vast quantities of prime farmland under the control of the militant organization. Large portions of five of Iraq's most fertile provinces are currently under ISIS control.