In his State of the Union address on January 12th, the last he will deliver before leaving the White House, President Barack Obama spoke of the ongoing coalition campaign against the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and the threat the caliphate poses for global security. As he explained in his speech, the people we are now fighting in Iraq and Syria are “killers and fanatics who have to be rooted out, hunted down, and destroyed.” Very few people outside of ISIL will disagree with the first part of that statement, even though the jury is still out on whether yet another bombing campaign in the Middle East can accomplish more than just pushing the pseudo-caliphate back to the boundaries of its Sunni Arab heartland. Interestingly, however, the first item the President mentioned when it came to defeating ISIL was not stopping the influx of foreign fighters or destroying the weapons it has seized. Instead, he started with the group’s financing, which adds up to millions of dollars a day in oil sold, funds extorted from civilians and businesses, and theshameless looting of World Heritage sites.
The air strikes being conducted by the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq and Syria are targeting ISIL’s financing as much as they are its fighters and equipment, with a bombing on January 12th destroying one of the main banks being used by the group and eviscerating millions of dollars they had stockpiled. Like many other terrorist groups, however, ISIL’s funding and finances have two prongs: alongside the oil money, extortion, and pillaging that feeds the central group’s coffers, clandestine cells operating in France, Belgium, and here in the United States derive their funds from petty crime that can more easily slip under the radar of counterterrorism efforts. The Paris attackers of January and November 2015, at least some of whom had backgrounds as juvenile delinquents, were well versed in the art of peddling drugs, cigarettes, stolen goods, and counterfeits to raise cash. This marks a contrast from the money transfers and donations groups like al-Qaeda traditionally relied upon to finance attacks on Western soil, demonstrating a far more “locally sourced” approach to paying for terror.
Cigarette smuggling in particular is increasingly used by wannabe terrorists for its high returns and relatively low risk, giving it the allure of a “victimless crime”. Back in the early 2000s, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) already cracked down on several illicit cigarette rings that were using proceeds to funnel cash to al-Qaeda and Hezbollah. While police departments would be hard pressed to justify to the public reallocating personnel away from the fight against violent crime and putting them on “smokes duty” by prosecuting corner dealers, it is precisely this weakness in the system that has been most adeptly speculated by homegrown jihadists.
ISIL’s sympathizers and perpetrators overseas are far from the first terrorists to use these sources of financing. The illegal drug trade, for one, is claimed by experts like Loretta Napoleoni to be the top source for terrorist funding. South American groups like Colombia’s FARC are well-known for using cocaine to pay for their operations, but even Islamists like the ones responsible for the 2004 Madrid attacks have used drug trafficking to raise money. Terrorists operating overseas are often perfectly happy to turn to more mundane sources of funding as well. The plotters behind the 1993 World Trade Center attacks allegedly sold counterfeit T-shirts, for example.
Even the most ideologically “pure” terrorist groups aren’t above putting their convictions to the side when it comes to generating cash. Back when the Taliban first took control of Afghanistan, they eradicated vineyards and went after anyone smoking hashish while making the opium industry essentially legal. Ironically, this clear violation of their own prohibitions on drugs and alcohol helped ingratiate them with locals, since poppy farming has long been the most reliable source of income for Afghan farmers and helps prop up other industries through the harvesting, processing, and transport of opium and heroin. The Taliban is hardly alone in brutally punishing some vices while profiting from others. Not too far north of Nigeria, the equally radical and ideologically similar al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) was once led by Mokhtar Belmokhtar, who raised the funds to become an executive in the jihadist world by building a transnational cigarette smuggling route.
In the latter portion of the President’s address, after he had moved on from discussing foreign policy in general and terrorism in particular, one statement laid out a challenge not just to the members of Congress sitting in the chamber but to all of us listening:
“Our collective future depends on your willingness to uphold your obligations as a citizen. To vote. To speak out. To stand up for others, especially the weak, especially the vulnerable, knowing that each of us is only here because somebody, somewhere, stood up for us.”
This is not just a call to civic duty but also a reminder that we, as private citizens, do not need to stand on the sidelines in the fight against the forces making our world a worse place to live. When we hear people like Donald Trump glibly recite Islamophobic screeds that alienate our Muslim neighbors and offer fodder for ISIL recruiting videos, we can speak out and show just how many Americans reject close-minded ignorance. When offered the chance to buy counterfeit products of any kind and wonder who or where our money has just gone to, we can quite simply say no. These may seem like small acts, but even one dollar denied a terrorist group is a victory in and of itself.