Iraq/Syria/Islamic State: The Water Wars Waged by Islamic State

Nov 25, 2015 | Ambika Vishwanath, Forbes
View Original

The Islamic State’s use of natural resources to achieve its strategic goals has been much discussed. Oil, one of the group’s biggest sources of funding, plays an especially important role in its calculations — something the countries fighting the Islamic State are increasingly coming to realize. And they have begun to adjust their target sets accordingly. The United States and France, for example, have begun to launch airstrikes against the group’s oil trucks and distribution centers, hoping to hamper its ability to pay for its military operations.