Financial Futures of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant: Findings from a rand corporation Workshop

ISIL’s Finances    11

Reports of salaries have varied. One report held that in the summer of 2015, ISIL was 

paying members $100 per month, with $100 extra per parent and $40 per sibling.

25

 However, 

more recent documents have put those amounts at $50 per fighter, wife, and sex slave and $35 

for other dependents.

26

 Other reports indicated that skilled workers received more; for exam-

ple, in a December 2015 report, an oilfield technician reported receiving $675 per month, up 

from an initial $450—well above his $150 Syrian government salary.

27

At its peak of power in summer 2015, ISIL appeared to be conducting public works, such 

as fixing power lines, digging sewer systems, painting sidewalks, and running bus services 

from Syria to Iraq. The group also conducted regulatory functions, such as ensuring the safety 

of food in markets, and ran schools and hospitals, although the quality of those services was 

presumably low. In addition, ISIL has always provided its own justice system in its territories.

By December 2015 and into 2016, it appeared that many of these services had been cut 

back or eliminated; in addition, maintenance was not being done. The National Hospital in 

Raqqa was essentially closed because most doctors had fled. Fighter pay was reported to have 

been cut by 50 percent. People who had left ISIL territory said that the group’s promises had 

not been kept.

28

Change Over Time

Countering ISIL’s finances is one of several main lines of effort for the coalition. Under the 

auspices of Operation Tidal Wave II, coalition airstrikes have reduced ISIL oil revenues by 

between 30 to 50 percent. Before the operation, the group was making roughly $40 million 

per month.

29

 Within this line of effort, the focus has remained on directly targeting the oil and 

gas supply chain. Separate lines of effort include attacking bulk cash storage sites, eliminating 

high-value targets critical to ISIL financial and logistical operations, and capitalizing upon sev-

eral other important variables, including economic downturns in Syria and Iraq. The low price 

of oil globally might have some impact as well, in addition to ISIL’s continued loss of territory. 

In some areas where ISIL is losing territory, it has adopted a scorched-earth strategy, destroying 

gas field installations as it retreats.

30

 By June 2016, ISIL had lost approximately 47 percent of all 

the territory it once held.

31

 Iraqi forces liberated the northern city of Baiji and the Anbar cities 

of Ramadi and Fallujah, and as of late October 2016 were progressing toward the liberation of 

Mosul. Kurdish and Yazidi forces have driven ISIL fighters out of the northern city of Sinjar. 

In Syria, by fall 2016, Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces and Turkish-backed Free 

Syrian Army fighters had retaken the cities of Manbij and Jarabulus, foreshadowing an even-

tual advance on ISIL’s capital in Raqqa. 

25  

Hubbard, 2015a.

26  

Aymenn al-Tamimi, “A Caliphate Under Strain: The Documentary Evidence,” CTC Sentinel, Vol. 9, Issue 4, April 2016, 

pp. 1–8.

27  

Hubbard, 2015b.

28  

Denver Nicks, “ISIS Fighters Just Got a Huge Pay Cut,” Money, January 19, 2016.

29  

Johnston, 2016.

30  

James Burgess, “Scorched Earth Strategy? ISIS Blows Up Several Al Shaer Gas Field Installations,” Oilprice.com,  

May 17, 2016.

31  

John Hudson, “Top U.S. Official: Islamic State Has Lost 47 Percent of its Territory in Iraq,” Foreign Policy,  

June 28, 2016.

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12    Financial Futures of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant

Disruption of the Oil and Gas Supply Chain

The targeting of ISIL’s oil and natural gas supply chain includes airstrikes against oilfields, 

refineries, and tanker trucks—the entire ISIL oil and gas supply chain.

32

 The coalition has 

destroyed hundreds of trucks, disrupted fuel supply lines across and outside of ISIL territory, 

and hit key infrastructure at oilfields and other oil production sites. Overall, this has dimin-

ished ISIL’s capability to sell oil and the capacity of ISIL and purchasers to make and sell 

refined products, such as gasoline. 

Turkey has finally increased its efforts to stop the flow of men and materiel crossing its 

borders, thereby restricting ISIL’s access to the black market.

33

 Securing the border is a Her-

culean task, but one the Turks seem more firmly committed to in the wake of recent terrorist 

attacks in some of their major cities. While the border will likely never be fully secure, more 

earnest efforts to deploy military and police along the border have clearly helped deter smug-

glers from moving contraband back and forth. 

Bulk Cash Targeting

Airstrikes have also targeted ISIL cash storage sites in Iraq. Two airstrikes in January 2016 in 

Mosul destroyed an uncertain amount of money, while four more airstrikes in February hit 

cash storage and distribution facilities; estimates have ranged from tens of millions of dollars to 

a billion dollars, although all estimates are highly uncertain.

34

 Further attacks on cash storage 

sites have occurred since March 2016. In October 2016, the U.S. Treasury estimated that “at 

least tens of millions, and possibly more than a hundred million dollars” had been destroyed.

35

 

Airstrikes have successfully targeted important individuals, killing a number of high-

ranking financial officials, including two of the group’s finance ministers, Abu Saleh in 

November 2015 and Haji Imam in March 2016 (although Haji Imam was more of an opera-

tional official than a finance official), and an oil minister, Abu Sayyaf, in May 2015. The air-

strikes on bulk cash sites, finance distribution, and tax collection centers complement cyber 

reconnaissance and operations the United States is conducting against ISIL financial assets.

36

 

In turn, financial intelligence reveals nonfinancial information, such as relationships between 

ISIL personnel, patterns of life, foreign fighter movements, and sources of resource supply and 

resupply.

37

 The attacks on cash storage depots have caused the group to start selling off some 

of its valuable assets, including vehicles.

38

 For those vehicles it still does have, ISIL has been 

forced to ration fuel.

39

32  

Adam Szubin, “Remarks of Acting Under Secretary Adam Szubin on Countering the Financing of Terrorism at the Paul 

H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies,” U.S. Treasury, October 20, 2016.

33  

Ayla Albayrak and Dana Ballout, “U.S., Turkey Step Up Border Campaign Against Islamic State,” Wall Street Journal, 

April 26, 2016.

34  

Johnston, 2016.

35  

Szubin, 2016.

36  

David E. Sanger, “U.S. Cyberattacks Target ISIS in a New Line of Combat,” The New York Times, April 24, 2016.

37  

Robert Windrem and William M. Arkin, “How to Beat ISIS: Blow Up the Money,” NBC News, May 1, 2016. 

38  

Conor Gaffey, “Up to $800 Million of ISIS Cash Has Been Destroyed: U.S. Official,” Newsweek, April 27, 2016. See 

also BBC News, “Islamic State: Up to $800m of Funds ‘Destroyed by Strikes,’” April 26, 2016.

39  

Jim Michaels, “U.S.-Led Coalition Blows Up $500 Million in Islamic State Cash,” USA Today, April 21, 2016b.

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