Jim Michaels

USA TODAY

Airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition blew up a warehouse in Iraq where the Islamic State had stored millions of dollars in cash, the U.S. military disclosed Tuesday.

Coalition aircraft targeted a "cash distribution center" near Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, which is under control of the extremist group, the U.S military said in a daily report on details of airstrikes.

The coalition struck the facility Monday as part of intensified efforts to destroy funding sources of the Islamic State, also known as ISIL or ISIS.

A senior Defense official said the coalition has targeted similar facilities in the past. The official, who is not authorized to discuss the strikes publicly, said coalition aircraft dropped two 2,000-pound bombs on the building. Mosul has been under Islamic State control since 2014, when the militants swept into Iraq from Syria.

In recent months, coalition airstrikes have targeted oil production and distribution centers in territory the Islamic State controls in Syria, reducing the group's daily oil revenue to less than $1 million from a peak of about $1.3 million.

Airstrikes reduce Islamic State oil revenue

Unlike al-Qaeda, the predecessor militant force in Iraq, the Islamic State controls large swaths of territory, allowing it to generate revenue from oil sales and extortion from businesses and families in areas it holds. Such control has made the group's oil facilities and distribution networks vulnerable to coalition airstrikes.

The coalition was able to get a clearer picture of how the Islamic State earns revenue from intelligence it gleaned from a U.S. special operations raid in May against Abu Sayyaf, a top Islamic State leader in Syria. U.S. forces killed Abu Sayyaf and captured his wife and computers with a huge trove of data.