In our new and original report, the SPI World Future Guide 2016, SPI Fellow Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi scooped the world with the revelation of how Islamic State is funded and run.
According to exceptionally rare and unseen documents obtained and translated by Dr. Jawad Al-Tamimi, less than half (44.7%) of Islamic State’s budget comes from criminally confiscating the wealth of others. The remainder come from their operations as a pseudo-government, with 23.7% from taxes, 27.7% from providing oil and gas, and 3.9% from providing electricity. And its militants are not so ideologically committed that they will fight for free. Some 63.4% of IS’s income goes to military operations (salaries 43.6% and bases 19.8%), with a surprising amount (33.8%) going to governmental services including police and financial aid.
Previous estimates said that Islamic State raised $3 million in US dollars per day from oil and gas revenues, but the real average turns out to be $66,433 USD, far lower than believed, even when including the damage to IS operations done by coalition bombing.
See the report in the SPI World Future Guide 2016 and the original documents at www.aymennjawad.org.