© Mike Segar / Reuters



The UN Security Council has passed a resolution strengthening legal measures against those doing business with terrorist groups. It targets mainly Islamic State militants (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL).The resolution is the result of a joint effort by Russia and the US, which are both leading anti-IS campaigns in Syria.It stems from a UNSC action taken in February against illegal trafficking of antiquities from Syria, which threatened sanctions on anyone buying oil from IS or the Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Nusra Front and urged that kidnap ransoms not be paid.Before the Council meeting on Thursday, Russian UN envoy Vitaly Churkin told reporters that one of the main objectives of the new resolution is to "circle IS as a separate, most vital terrorist threat.""Formerly... the Security Council's documents referred to IS as one of Al Qaeda's divisions," he said. "Now the document offers expanded criteria of listing, which makes it possible to impose limitations on any individuals or corporates smudged by relations with IS."The key objective of the new resolution, according to Churkin, is the "enforcement of a framework to reveal and disrupt illegal financing of IS and groups related to it by means of trade in oil, artifacts, and other illegal sources.""The countries did have respective obligations well before this, but, unfortunately, those obligations have not been observed by everyone and constantly," he said.Under the revised document, UN monitoring and sanction mechanisms "will be focused clearly on eradication of those developments."The document, which is based on UN Charter Article VII and takes effect immediately, calls for members to "move vigorously and decisively to cut the flow of funds" to IS.It says that governments must prevent its citizens from funding or providing services to "terrorist organizations or individual terrorists for any purpose, including but not limited to recruitment, training, or travel, even in the absence of a link to a specific terrorist act."