Goods being imported include food items, vegetables, livestock and cigarettes, among other things. The goods end up being bought and sold all over Iraq, and certainly in Baghdad. Important sources of income for the Islamic State group are “the smuggling of sheep, drugs, antiquities and petrol products,” the same, anonymous security sources told NIQASH. “This trade is prolonging the IS group’s life and strengthening its presence in Iraq,” warned the source, who could not be named because he was not authorised to comment on the matter.
In the past, local man Muwaffaq al-Murawi, 46, says he used to work as a customs official at one of the government-controlled border crossings. “The crossings have been closed but our work hasn’t stopped,” al-Murawi says. “Today we act as middlemen for local businessmen; we use our good relationships with the extremists to make sure their goods get through. And everyone is making a profit,” he claims. “It’s not just the extremists. It is everyone.”
There is a sort of tacit agreement between all parties involved that business must go on. “There’s a lot of coordination between the different groups too,” al-Murawi notes. “The evidence for this is the fact that goods always get through and that supply has never been interrupted.”
Some of the locals say that it is because of the IS group that business is so good; they revived the trade going over the Syrian border. Some of the young local men have even joined the organisation because of this, working for the IS group as guards.
After the IS group took control of Rutba and areas around the district, locals were able to start transporting goods with the IS fighters’ permission, says Sheikh Abdullah al- Qubaisi, an older local man in Rutba. Depending on what was in the truck, each vehicle passing through the IS-held territory had to pay between US$150 and US$500 in “tax”.
Comments are closed.