MEASURING AND UNDERSTANDING THE IMPACT OF TERRORISM

EXPERT
CONTRIBUTIONS
ISIL INC.: A PORTRAIT OF A MODERN TERRORIST ENTERPRISE
Dr Christina Schori Liang, Senior Programme Advisor and Senior Fellow,
Emerging Security Challenges Programme, Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP)
INTRODUCTION
In the past year the world became fixated on
the rise of the Islamic State (ISIL), the richest
and most violent terrorist group in modern
history. It is gathering extremist fighters from
around the globe to support its goal of
establishing a “lasting and expanding”
caliphate. ISIL has eclipsed all other terrorist
groups on the world stage by transforming
terror from a regional to a global security
threat. This is due to its ability to establish
and govern a semi-functioning autonomous
territory, its use of 21st century marketing
tools to create an international brand, and its
strategy of attracting foreign fighters. ISIL’s
power is also due to its unprecedented
wealth, which is based on diverse and
sophisticated financing strategies.
The West’s reaction to ISIL has been driven
largely by a desire for regional stability and
fears that ISIL-fuelled terrorism will spread to
its borders. So far the US and its 60 member
coalition in 2014-2015 have spent most of
their war chest on kinetic power. The
coalition claims to have targeted some 13,781
assets ranging from armored vehicles to oil
facilities. The cost of the campaign from
August 2014 to October 2015 had an average
cost of US$11 million per day, or a total of
US$4.75 billion. 1
Despite this investment, ISIL has proven to be
resilient. Indeed, its reach has been
spreading far beyond the Levant and
Mesopotamia. ISIL has been engaging in
attacks in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Yemen.
It has received support or affiliation from 42
international groups, of which 30 have
pledged formal affiliation, and 12 have
pledged support. Groups such as Ansar
al-Sharia in Libya, the Okba Ibn Nafaa
Battalion in Tunisia and Ansar Beit al-Maqdis
in the Egyptian Sinai have carried out attacks,
and pro-ISIL factions have begun to emerge
in Algeria and Gaza while splinter factions
from Afghanistan and Pakistan have sent
fighters to the Syria-Iraqi battlefields. The
Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU)
declared its support to ISIL, and in 2014, the
Indonesian Abu Sayyaf Group announced its
allegiance as well. 2
The West’s inability to contain ISIL stems
from its singular perception that it is a rogue
state and nothing more. ISIL is indeed now a
real, if nascent and unrecognised, state actor.
ISIL does not operate out of a safe haven
within a sponsor state; it has become a de
facto state that provides a safe haven for
terrorists, ruthlessly and mercilessly
administrating a territory. However ISIL has
become much more than a hostile state
entity; it is also a successful criminal
enterprise. The West has so far failed to
impede the ISIL’s financial gains which are
marked by a fluidity and wealth never seen
before. ISIL’s diverse financial portfolio makes
it the richest terrorist organisation in history,
with an estimated wealth of 2 billion US$. The
aim of this paper is to examine the business
side of ISIL and to put forward that the West’s
strategy to fight ISIL should take a much
broader and more holistic approach.
THE ISIL BUSINESS STRATEGY
ISIL is effective because it runs its criminal/
terrorist enterprise with a business acumen
that has no historical precedent. The
predecessor of ISIL, the Islamic State of
Iraq, compiled a list of ‘lessons learned’
based on what it perceived as al-Qa’ida’s
failure in effectively using its financial
resources. Among these were the failure to
distribute funds among local cells and the
inability to acquire a regular funding
source. 3 Based on al-Qa’ida’s failures, ISIL
redesigned a modern business strategy to
run its terrorist enterprise.
ISIL also has a corporate plan which
originates from a blueprint designed by
Samir Abd Muhammad al-Khifani, a former
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