ISIS top terror rich list – but how are they blowing all the dough?

ISIS is three times richer than Palestinian group Hamas, whose militant wing is deemed a terrorist organisation by the UK, and make 20 times more than al-Qaida, the sick cult from which it was formed.

The group's billions overshadow some other deadly terror groups on the list.

Nigerian militants Boko Haram makes just £6.6m a year according to Mr Keatinge, while Somalian fanatics Al Shabab makes £47m and the Real IRA reportedly earns £33m.

ISIS has shot to the top of the terror rich list mainly through its oil sales, which account for 40 per cent of its income.

Taxation, also used by other groups such as the Taliban and Hamas, is responsible for another 40 per cent.

But under fire from air strikes, with millions fleeing its territory, and the cost of paying its fighters, ISIS might not have much cash left to sit in the bank.

These income streams made the crucial difference from other less wealthy terror cells – al-Qaida earns a paltry £100m a year, according to Forbes Israel, and gets its money from kidnappings, donations and drug trafficking.

Tom Keatinge, a terror financing expert from the Royal United Services, said ISIS is over-taxing its people to boost earnings.

He told Daily Star Online: "ISIS is certainly the wealthiest terror group now.

"In Islam there is this concept of paying 2.5 per cent of your wealth to charity.

"They are trying to impose an Islamic state so raising tax by that payment would be an expected way to raise funds.

"It seems pretty clear that people are paying a lot more than 2.5 per cent in tax."

However, Mr Keatinge said running the territory is sapping the terrorists' resources.

ISIS hopes to impose a state, and reportedly already has a police force, while papers that emerged this week indicating it is planning to bring in a health service.

Mr Keatinge added: "It hit a number of jackpots when it first got into Iraq and Syria, looting banks that were stashed with money.

"Unless they expand further they won't get that income again.

"And Iraq had budgeted for the region taken by ISIS for $2bn a year to run services in it.

"Now they are unlikely to provide the level of services that were planned, but it is not cheap to run this territory."

France yesterday called on the EU to do more to cut off ISIS' financing – to stop them paying for acts of terror like those in Paris on Friday thre 13th which killed 130 people.

And the UK has joined allies in bombing ISIS oilfields after passing a Commons vote last week to strike at ISIS in its Syrian heartlands.

A key argument put forward by David Cameron to persuade MPs to back his motion was hitting its financial infrastructure.

(dailystar.co.uk)