The ugly truth we are facing is that ISIS is the best-funded terrorist organization the world confronts, and its principal source of finance is still derived from its control and sale of oil, which is assessed to bring it one million dollars a day. Additional funds come from kidnap for ransom, extortion networks, other criminal activities, and donations from individuals elsewhere, the latter being of least significance in terms of scale. In order to counter this broad base of financial support, the international community should focus on disrupting ISIS revenue streams, restricting ISIS access to the international financial system, and targeting ISIS leaders, facilitators and supporters with sanctions. It is now more important than ever to focus on existing ISIS donors abroad in order to diminish their potential to expand in scale when the need may arise. Initiatives in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates appear to have made some headway, while in Qatar, despite new legislation aimed at countering terrorist financing, this country remains permissive for such activities. Extortion and illicit taxation systems are also a significant source of income for ISIS, and potentially one of the most sustainable. Prior to capturing Mosul, ISIS was already earning $12 million a month in the city alone. Countering terrorist finance is an intensely complex and challenging effort. In the short-term, it can bring a combination of positive and negative consequences, but in the long-term, if done correctly, it can cripple a terrorist organization capacity to operate and grow. ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra are two entirely different beasts in this regard, and they should be treated as such. Disrupting ISIS' oil income seems to be more of a challenge. Thus far, much of the focus has been on an erroneous assessment that ISIS is heavily reliant on selling its oil to foreign customers (in Turkey, Iraqi Kurdistan, Jordan and elsewhere). But, while this market does exist, it is decreasing. And ISIS has been increasingly focused on establishing a durable internal market for its oil, thereby ensuring a reliable source of fuel for its own fleets of vehicles while crucially creating a source of dependence among civilians on its ability to provide them with cheap oil. In this respect, the fact that recent coalition strikes have targeted oil at its source — rather than its means of transport or sale, for example — may prove deeply damaging to the international community's efforts to counter ISIS. According to rebels in Idlib, Hama, and Aleppo, Nusra is currently selling off heavy weapons in northern Syria, both to earn much needed income as well as to transform itself into more of a light, rapid reaction force capable of redeploying to other battle areas with ease. Its senior leadership is becoming less Syrian and the influence of veteran Al-Qaeda commanders is increasing. Foreign fighters are receiving a heightened public profile, while an overt emphasis on the group's ‘Syrian-ness' has reduced notably. While Nusra has dedicated provincial commands in Aleppo, Hama, Idlib, Homs, the Qalamoun, Damascus and Deraa (the latter incorporates Quneitra), its presence in its Idlib stronghold and to some extent also in Deraa is becoming increasingly self-interested and unilateral in nature. In controlling such vast amounts of territory and resources, ISIS is more vulnerable in the immediate term, but its potential capacity to shift blame onto the international community for its reduced capacity to provide must be borne in mind. It remains extremely difficult, well-nigh impossible, for external actors to totally defeat terrorist organizations. Such groups tend eventually to destroy themselves from within. Countering their sources of finance can expedite this process, but only when done gradually and when based on a genuinely accurate assessment of the organization and its surrounding dynamics.
