ERBIL, IRAQ - JUNE 15: Currency is exchanged in the Qaysari Market on June 15, 2014 in Erbil, Iraq. In Iraq's capital city of Baghdad and other towns and cities effected by the recent conflict, people who can afford to do so have begun to stockpile essential items of food, which has increased prices dramatically. The US dollar which is normally a relatively stable currency in Iraq, rose about 5 percent in one day making many household items more expensive. Potatoes increased approximately sixfold, to about $4.50 USD a pound. People continue to leave Iraq's second city of Mosul after it was overrun by ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) militants. Many have been temporarily housed at various IDP (internally displaced persons) camps around the region including the area close to Erbil, as they hope to enter the safety of the nearby Kurdish region. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

Private donors in the Gulf are flocking to support the al-Qaeda splinter group that has spearheaded the insurgency in Iraq, pledging millions of dollars to inflame the crisis.

The success of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (Isis), which has seized large swathes of northern and central Iraq, has captured the imagination of radical clerics, religious groups, charities and officials in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait.

Defying efforts by their governments to crack down on terrorist financing, backers have rallied to the Isis cause, spurred on by their hatred of the sectarianism of Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister. The funds slowed slightly when news of atrocities broke, but are flowing again.

“That support in the Gulf has never really gone away. There was