‘2 others in ISIS finance network also killed in Nov.’
‘2 others in ISIS finance network also killed in Nov.’
A coalition airstrike killed ISIS’ finance chief in Iraq in November, the US military said on Thursday, hailing it as another scalp in its bid to blow apart the extremists’ financial network.
Abu Saleh was killed in late November, US military spokesperson Colonel Steve Warren said in a videoconference from Baghdad, calling him “one of the most senior and experienced members” of the group’s nefarious financial system.
“Abu Saleh was the third member of the finance network that we have killed” recently, Colonel Warren added, likening him to a finance minister for the extremist group, which grabbed swathes of Iraq and Syria in a brutal offensive of beheadings and forced religious conversions.
Saleh was killed along with two associates as part of the US-led coalition’s campaign to destroy the extremists’ financial infrastructure, Brett McGurk, Washington’s envoy for the anti-ISIS fight, said on Twitter.
Saleh’s real name is Muwaffaq Mustafa Muhammad al-Karmush, and the US state department’s terrorist blacklist describes him as a 42-year-old Iraqi.
“Killing him and his predecessors exhausts the knowledge and talent needed to coordinate funding within the organisation,” Colonel Warren said, adding that two other henchmen in ISIS fundraising networks also were killed in coalition airstrikes in Iraq in late November.
They were identified as Abu Mariam, an enforcer and senior leader in ISIS group extortion networks, and Abu Rahman al-Tunisi, who Colonel Warren said coordinated ISIS’ transfer of people, weapons and information.
Mariam appears on the state department terrorist list as Mounir Ben Dhaou Ben Brahim Ben Helal, a 32-year-old Tunisian.
“These strikes are an example of how we are able to decimate networks,” Colonel Warren said.
The coalition has been targeting ISIS leaders in Syria and Iraq with airstrikes to try to pick apart its command structure.
After the attacks in Paris in November, the United States said it was deploying a special operations unit in Iraq that will be able to mount raids into Syria to capture or kill ISIS leaders.
“We want this expeditionary targeting force to make ISIS and its leaders wonder when they go to bed at night: who’s going to be coming in the window,” US defence secretary Ashton Carter told a Senate hearing.
In London, the US treasury’s acting undersecretary for terrorism and financial crimes, Adam Szubin, said the ISIS group derives most of its funding from economic activity in the territory it controls and has declared a caliphate.
It has reaped more than $500 million in black market oil sales, looted bank vaults captured in Iraq and Syria, and raised millions more through extortion.
But to run what amounts to a mini-state, it needs steady and renewable sources of funding, and to do that it needs access to the international financial system to move money and import supplies, according to Mr Szubin.
