With an estimated daily income of $3 million, the Islamic State (ISIS) is reportedly planning to set aside a whopping $250 million in its budgetary allocation for 2015 to be spend on 'terror' campaigns in the West.
According to a report published in a Qatar-based news publication, the ISIS has announced its first budget predictions for 2015, as part of a broad development programme through which the group aims to legitimise its claims in the territories under its occupation.
Sheikh Abu Saad al-Ansari, a senior religious figure in Mosul, told Al Araby that ISIS' budget for 2015 also includes 'welfare' funds from which it plans to give out monthly wages to the poor and disabled, orphans, widows and families of individuals killed in the airstrikes carried out by Iraqi and US-led coalition forces.
Ansari said the budget contained up to $2 billion of expenditure, covering all areas of the "caliphate" in Iraq and Syria. The group plans to divert the expected surplus of $250 million to its war effort, the Iraqi tribal leader noted.
ISIS reportedly has also setup an Islamic bank in Mosul that offers loans and exchanges damaged currency notes.
It now remains to be seen to what extend will the Islamic State militants carry forward its war agenda against the West.
ISIS, which is an offshoot of the al-Qaeda -- the group that carried out the 9/11 attacks, was banned by its parent body as it found its methods too 'brutal'.
ISIS - The Richest Terrorist Organisation in History
In November, a Forbes Israel report named ISIS as the 'richest terrorist' organisation ever in the world. It noted that the Islamist terror group, also known by the acronyms ISIS or ISIL, has an annual income of $2 billion. A large portion of ISIS money comes from the oil wells captured by the group in Syria and Iraq. According to the estimates by the US Treasury, ISIS earns $1 million a day by selling crude oil from captured oil-fields in Syria and Iraq in the black market.
ISIS reportedly was able to acquire a large sum of money -- $500 million -- after it took the Mosul Bank under its control in June.
Besides, the group also has seen steady income from drug trafficking, robberies and extortion. Recent reports from Mosul found that assisted by surgeons and doctors from Saudi Arabia, ISIS was operating an organ racket.The report stated that the group was selling the organs of its dead fighters.
The Islamic State had recently revealed its plan for establishing a gold-backed currency in Iraq and Syria. It had stated that it would release a total of seven gold-backed currency units --1 and 5 gold dinar; 1, 5, and 10 silver dirham and copper 10 and 20 fills.
