The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria sprang from a largely self-funded, corporation-style prototype.Insurgent records suggest that the United States will find it difficult to rout an organization whose structure and attention to detail allowed it to prosper even during the toughest U.S. counterterrorism efforts of the last decade.In fact, intercepted documents show, outside donations amounted to only a tiny fraction _ no more than 5 percent _ of the group’s operating budgets from 2005 until 2010, when Baghdadi took over after the deaths of two superiors. Charles Lister, who researches extremist groups as a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Doha Center in Qatar, said there was no evidence that foreign donors such as Gulf nations became any more important to the group after 2010; he dismissed that idea as stemming from a political context of deep suspicion and paranoia. Lister said the Syrian conflict gave ISIS increased earning potential, but he added that Baghdadi oversaw “a far more impatient organization” with a new focus on grabbing land rather than setting up sustainable economic hubs like Mosul across the border. “Perhaps this was because Baghdadi re-evaluated his priorities,” Lister said of the tactical shift. “ISIS already had sufficient money behind it, so what was the need to focus only on earning more?”
Posted on: Sat, 09 Aug 2014 22:09:48 +0000
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