The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria just got extremely rich.
As insurgents rolled past Iraq’s second largest city, an oil hub at the vital intersection of Syria, Iraq and Turkey, and into Tikrit, several gunmen stopped at Mosul’s central bank.
The group made off with 500 billion Iraqi dinars — $425 million.
The provincial governor of Nineveh, Atheel al-Nujaifi, confirmed that the ISIS Islamists had lifted additional millions from numerous banks across Mosul, as well as a “large quantity of gold bullion.”
The Taliban, the New York Times reported, had a one-time annual operating budget of somewhere between $70 million and $400 million. Hezbollah was working with between $200 million and $500 million. FARC in Colombia had annual revenues of $80 to $350 million. Al-Shabab had between $70 and $100 million socked away. And Al-Qaeda, meanwhile, was working with a $30 million operating budget at the time of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.
http://m.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/06/12/isis-just-stole
