Category Archives: ISIS

ISIS Profits from Illegal Sale of Antiquities as Oil Revenues Decline

The looting and illegal sale of antiquities has become a new profit centre for ISIS. In early December, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon stated that the looting of cultural property and antiquities, particularly in Iraq and Syria, has become a matter of international security. Ban told a UNESCO-hosted conference on threats to cultural heritage and diversity, “The protection of cultural heritage is a security imperative.”

Gangs of looters have taken advantage of the upheaval in Iraq and Syria, and have hired people, sometimes numbering in the hundreds, to carry out illegal excavations in search of historic or religions artefacts. The newly found pieces are then immediately to middlemen or antiquities smugglers. This instant profit has become a significant source of funding for ISIS, which uses the revenues for the purchase of weapons and other items. Analysts speculate that the trafficking of such antiquities is increasing as the fighting between ISIS and coalition forces continues. US Secretary of State John Kerry said, “Ancient treasures in Iraq and in Syria have now become the casualties of continuing warfare and looting.”

Since their rapid expansion over the summer, the primary source of income for ISIS has been oil. The group controls as many as eight oil fields in Syria; in October, it was estimated that ISIS was gaining between one and two million dollars a day in black market oil revenue, making it the most well funded and richest terrorist organisation in history. The US-led coalition strikes have conducted targeted strikes on ISIS-controlled energy infrastructure, including refineries and distribution centres, in an attempt to dwindle this source of funding. Recent reports from Washington suggest these efforts have been successful. Further, the strikes have reportedly scared would-be smugglers who would transport black market oil through the region. Transport of black market oil is also being halted by ground forces which have increased the monitoring of oil smuggling routes into Turkey and Kurdistan. The combined efforts have reportedly cut sharply into ISIS revenues.

Apart from oil, ISIS has profited from other avenues, including kidnap for ransom, extortion, donations, and imposing heavy taxes in the regions which they control. However the looting and immediate sale of black market antiquities has become an increasingly lucrative source of revenue. UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova, said, “There can be no purely military solution to this crisis. To fight fanaticism, we also need to reinforce education, a defence against hatred, and protect heritage, which helps forge collective identity.” UNESCO is promoting broad measures to stem the tide of loss and destruction, including the establishment of “protected cultural zones” which would be monitored by local and central governments, as well as international parties. Other measures include an international ban on the illicit trafficking or sale of antiquities from Syria, and the creation of a global registry of antiquities that are being placed on the market. The latter would force buyers to prove the item’s legitimacy and send “a strong message that artefacts with questionable origins will be subject to severe scrutiny and ethical conduct investigation.” The registry would drive down the value of ill-gotten antiquities.

A recent report revealed the annual income and its sources for ISIS as well as other terrorist groups. ISIS earns approximately $2 billion US from oil, tolls and taxes making it the richest terrorist group in the world. At a distant second, the Afghan Taliban profits from donations and drug sales to the tune of $400 million annually. Al-Shabaab revenues total $100 million from the sale of charcoal and the imposition of taxes; Boko Haram has raised approximately $10 million, predominantly from kidnap for ransom.

Meanwhile, a recent report also suggested that al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and other Sahel terrorist groups are working with Colombian drug cartels to transport drugs across North Africa and into Europe. Leaders of AQIM have reportedly met several times with representatives of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). “Narco-jihadists” transport cargo by road through a triangle that includes Libya, Niger, Algeria, Mali, and Mauritania. Statistics indicate that AQIM has received sums amounting to 15% of the total sold by smugglers. Who pay the terrorist groups to provide secure passage of their drug convoys, before the contraband is transported to Europe through organised crime networks. In June 2013, an Algerian security report warned of the growing ties between terrorist groups and drugs smuggling gangs, as authorities revealed a relation between drug smugglers and terror financing cells.

Syrian, Egyptian Electronic Armies take Aim at ISIS

The Syrian Electronic Army has returned, and a copycat army of hackers has sprung up in Egypt.

The Syrian Electronic Army (SEA) is a group of hacktivists that support the Syrian government and its president, Bashar al Assad. On 27 November, the group targeted Gigya, a company which manages online comment platforms and Identity and Access Management for nearly 700 clients. The SEA breached Gigya’s account and redirected visitors to an SEA website.

The hack impacted 21 major websites including media outlets Aljazeera, the Chicago Tribune, CNBC, CNN Money, the Evening Standard, the Los Angeles Times, Microsoft, National Geographic, NBC, the New York Daily News, the Guardian, and the Independent. The breach also impacted tech companies including Dell, DirecTV, Logitech, Microsoft, and Verizon Wireless. For three and a half hours, visitors to the hacked sites received a message stating, “You’ve been hacked by the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA),” and were then redirected to an image of the SEA’s logo and a Syrian flag.

In response to the attack, Gigya CEO Patrick Salyer said, “To be absolutely clear: neither Gigya’s platform itself, nor any user, administrator nor operational data has been compromised and was never at risk of being compromised.”

On the SEA’s website, the pro-Assad hacktivists said the attack was launched in response to reports that Syrian airstrikes in Raqqa hit civilians, “while the truth the strikes hit the ISIS terrorists.” Raqqa, a city in northern Syria, is the headquarters for terrorist group Islamic State in Iraq and the Sham. On Twitter, the group messaged, “Happy thanks giving, hope you didn’t miss us. The press: Please don’t pretend #ISIS are civilians.”

In a second Tweet, the SEA provided users with information on how to prevent hacking:  “We’re the good guys so this was harmless but just in case the bad guys copy us, use NoScript with Firefox: noscript.net.”

Since their emergence on the hactivist scene in 2011, the SEA has caused disruption to numerous websites, but they are best known for hacking Twitter account of the Associated Press’ in April 2013. The group posted a tweet claiming that Barack Obama had been injured, causing Dow Jones Industrial Average to immediately plunge 143 points in response.

Meanwhile in Egypt, a copycat group has risen and is targeting ISIS and its online propaganda. In late November, less than 24 hours after ISIS social media accounts posted a threatening message from the group’s leader, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, the Egyptian Electronic Army (EEA) replaced the audio recording with a song, and replaced the ISIS transcript with a logo resembling that of the Egyptian military, accompanied by a writing in Arabic that read “Egyptian Cyber Army.”

The modus-operandi was nearly identical to the methods used by the Syrian Electronic Army, which has inspired the group. However the hacktivists do not have any connection to one another.  According to a spokesman for the group, a man claiming to be a 37-year-old former Cairo police officer who goes by the name “Khaled Abubakr”, the EEA group’s members are all Egyptian. Many come from a military or police background, and all support the Egyptian government led by President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. It is unclear whether the group is state sanctioned.

The EEA seeks to defend al-Sisi’s governments against opponent such as the Muslim Brotherhood or ISIS. The broad anti-ISIS perspective in the nation has brought a mass of hacktivists to the group who want to counter the terrorist group’s influence on the Internet. The spokesman said that Baghdadi “was delivering a message to all extremists all over the Middle East and my country that you have to use your weapons in the faces of the government and our people, so we took it down and replaced it with a very popular song. All the people instead of hearing this pig heard our song and laughed.”

The group has also claimed to have infiltrated top ISIS web forums, and American pro-democracy websites including the Open Society Foundation and the U.S.-Middle East Partnership Initiative, however there is no solid evidence of these activities. A security researcher says that some of the EAA’s supporters appear to have highly capable technical background.

The EAA has refused to disclose how the attack was conducted. A spokesman for the Internet Archive said that no outside account “made any modifications” to the files other than the original uploader. But that doesn’t rule out the possibility that the account was taken over by the hackers. The group claims they will continue to conduct hacktivist activities. The EAA spokesman said, “We have our people spying on al-Furqan, [the media arm of ISIS] which is the media of the terrorists and this will not be the last thing we are going to do. They must expect us any time.”

ISIS declares Sinai as the new destination for young fighters

3  December- The Islamic State of Iraq and Levant and the Sham(ISIS) are conducting a marketing strategy which recommends the Sinai as a destination for young militant recruits. The move comes after Sinai-based terrorist group Ansar Beit al Maqdis (Ansar Jerusalem), swore allegiance to ISIS and its leader, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi on 10 November. Soon thereafter, Ansar Beit al Maqdis began to refer to itself as “the Islamic State’s province in the Sinai”. ISIS has envisioned a caliphate stretching from Iraq to the Mediterranean. While ISIS does not have any actual control in the Sinai, the announcement is an attempt to marginalise other militants, perhaps to convince them to pledge allegiance to Baghdadi as well. ISIS supporters are calling on fighters globally to help Baghdadi’s organization build up its presence in the Sinai even further.

ISIS has made use of the Al Battar Media Establishment and the Media Front in Support of the Islamic State, two radicalised publishing establishments that deliver propaganda through social media. Each has posted a six-page article on Twitter written by a fighter known as “Abu Musab al Gharib”, who argues that the establishment of the Islamic State’s province in the Sinai will lead to greater unification of ISIS groups across the Middle East and North Africa. In November, ISIS gained total administrative control over Derna in the Eastern Province of Libya, and has set up training facilities in the mountainous regions in order to train North African fighters. By creating a unified front, Gharib ominously states, it will become easier for the jihadists to advance on Jerusalem and engage in the “liquidating” of the Jews in Egypt, Golan, Jordan, and Lebanon.

ISIS’s expansion has increased already existing tensions with other militant organisations. Al Qaeda has appeared to be at odds with the group and has competed for militants in “recruitment drives”, even opening a branch in Southeast Asia. Baghdadi and ISIS claim that their “caliphate” has usurped the authority of terrorist organisations in Egypt, Libya, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen. However the most organised and strong among these groups have not given over to Baghdadi. However despite the hindrance of competing terrorist organisations, reports indicate that ISIS’s campaign has been successful. Foreign fighters from the Levant, North Africa, Yemen, and elsewhere have travelled to the Sinai for training and other purposes.

Worryingly, the Sinai group appears to be increasingly active. Over the last weekend of November, Ansar Beit al Maqdis, under their new moniker, claimed to have killed an American oil worker. On Sunday, the group published an image on Twitter of a passport and two identification cards belonging to William Henderson, a 58-year-old employee of the Apache Corporation and Qarun Petroluem Co. Henderson was thought to have been killed in a carjacking incident in August.

It is uncertain whether Ansar Beit al Maqdis was actually responsible for the killing or just claiming it; the US State department is still investigating Henderson’s death and the US Embassy in Cairo has not disclosed any information. However the claim raises international concern that Sinai based radicals may begin to expand their targets beyond Egyptian military and security forces, or may even begin seeking Westerners for kidnap for ransom, or to send a visible political message.

ISIS attempts to Penetrate Jordanian Borders

25 November– ISIS has released photographs of a vehicle-borne IED (VBIED) being detonated at the Trebil border complex, near the Karameh border crossing with Jordan. The explosion took place in the Trebil, a village on the in the Anbar province in Iraq.  The attack is believed to have killed four and wounded four members of the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF). ISIS overtook the Trebil crossing on 22 June, but was retaken by the Iraqi military two days later. The crossing has remained a contested area.

In Jordan, the momentum of ISIS, coupled with supporters and sleeper cells believed to be inside the kingdom have sparked concerns that the group could enter the borders through “back door” channels. Thus far, it does not appear that ISIS has gained momentum. Jordanian leadership and security forces have developed military, diplomatic, and psychological tactics to repel or halt actions taken by ISIS supporters or fighters.

The Jordanian military is tasked with protecting the Hashemite Kingdom at any cost, and can act to protect national security without the approval of the King. In the past week, over 100 members of the Jordanian military and Special Operation Forces (SOF) have entered Iraq to prevent a forward advance by ISIS. The teams have conducted precision strikes and interrupted ISIS momentum. Inside Jordan’s borders, it is known that there are ISIS sleeper cells in the regions of Zarqa and Ma’an. Jordanian forces have tracked, detained, released, and released suspects, and they remain under watch for collaboration with the terrorist group.

The military has also employed foreign help. Israel is providing overhead imagery to Jordan to use in its fight against ISIS on its borders. On Thursday, the French government deployed six Mirage fighter jets to assist in the ongoing battle. French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said that the deployment would “strengthen our presence in this theater of operations.” The French fighters are expected to join the Jordanian forces at the end of the month.

Diplomatically, Jordanian leadership is working with Chechen leaders in Grozny to seek and capture ISIS fighters. In mid-November, King Abdullah II went to met with Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov to discuss counterterrorism issues. A Jordanian official revealed that the leaders reached an agreement: Jordan will invest in Chechnya’s infrastructure, and in exchange, the Chechens will provide information on Chechens and North Caucasians tied to ISIS and other groups in the Syrian battle space. Captured fighters will be returned to Chechnya for prosecution.

Finally, the Jordanian government is developing a counter narrative campaign against ISIS. The nation has employed two powerful clerics, Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, also known as Isam Mohammad Taher al-Barqawi, and Abu Qatada, aka Omar Othman. Maqdisi, who was released from Jordanian prison in mid-November, inspired Abu Musab al-Zarqawi , the al-Qaeda leader during the height of the Iraq War. Qatada was transferred from the UK to Jordan in 2013 in order to stand trial for terrorism acts in Jordan. Both clerics have spoken out against the conflict and will likely be used, along with others in an information campaign. However, they will be watched carefully to ensure that the counter narrative does not impose an additional threat vector.

ISIS is attempting to destabilise current governments in order to capture infrastructure and territory, while simultaneously playing on sectarian battles in the region. Jordan’s three pronged approach is likely to keep ISIS at bay in the immediate to mid-term range, but will rely heavily on actions taken by Kurdish, Iraqi, and coalition forces to reduce the threat.