Chapter 145: ISIS on the Brink of Economic Collapse

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After Iraq cut off all sources of income from the state-owned enterprises in the occupied areas, the Islamic State also tried to find ways to generate electricity and supply water at the beginning.

But it is only a drop in the bucket, the water supply time is less than one hour a day, and the water volume is pitifully small.

Power generation is similar. In the first few days, there were still five or six hours of power supply every day.

In less than ten days, the power supply was reduced to less than an hour a day.

After persisting for less than three days, they simply asked people in the occupied area to buy generators out of their own pockets.

A diesel engine costs around sixty dollars, so fuel is pretty cheap.

However, considering that most families in the occupied area only have an income of one hundred dollars a month, a family of four can only eat three meals a day, and the most economical time is sixty dollars a month.

This was followed by the Iraqi government's total business bureaucracy against ISIS, almost to the point of allowing free movement only to those Silk Road trading tribes that no one could afford to offend.

One of the inevitable effects of the increasing shortage of daily necessities is that prices are inflated, and merchants take the opportunity to hoard them for sale.

This is inevitable, and there is no place or age where businessmen don't do this.

The same is true in the areas occupied by the Islamic State. The local people not only have no water and electricity, but also cannot afford three meals a day with the wages earned through hard work.

In just a few months, the Islamic State's occupied areas in Iraq have undergone earth-shaking results.

And the Islamic State has also taken decisive measures to increase the number of soldiers. Anyone who serves as a soldier in the Islamic State armed organization can not only receive an absolute high salary of 600 US dollars every month.

Families of military personnel can also receive a subsidy of 50 US dollars per month, can go to school for free, and have sufficient running water and electricity supply every day.

This has led to a large number of young people flocking to recruitment sites, which has brought about the rapid expansion of the armed forces of the Islamic State.

But what followed was a sharp increase in the cost of recruiting and maintaining soldiers. The rigid expenditure that was originally at least one billion U.S. dollars a year would increase by at least four to five hundred million U.S. dollars.

It's the same topic as before.

That is the source of income for the Islamic State. Thoroughly entered into living beyond our means.

The first is the lack of taxation from the Iraqi government, which receives a large sum of wages for workers in state-owned enterprises each year.

There is also a rapid decline in tax revenue due to the weak economy in the occupied areas.

In the beginning, the Islamic State implemented a policy of low taxes almost in the occupied areas to gain popular support.

Now. Taxes have returned to normal and everything is taxed.

Although it has not yet reached the point of fishing in the dry lake. But it also made the local people complain a lot.

But for the Islamic State, the real disaster is that they cannot make ends meet, investing in basic social life services in the occupied areas every year. It requires a large amount of expenditure, which is also a rigid expenditure.

People without basic living security. There is no need to wait for the Iraqi government forces, and armed resistance will be brewed directly.

Moreover, the Islamic State did not dare to offend the tribes on the Silk Road.

To know in the Middle East. The most fierce is not those government troops, nor the troops of various countries. But these tribes on the ancient Silk Road.

Even Saddam Hussein, who was the toughest back then, treated these bloggers politely and treated them with the lowest tax.

After the U.S. occupation of Iraq. I have never stepped into these tribal areas, and I have never made a business convoy for the tribal areas. The air force also avoids the sky over these tribal areas as much as possible.

No power in the Middle East will be hostile to the people in these Silk Road tribal areas.

Because this is a group of lunatics who cannot be provoked, everyone carries a gun, and they are absolutely a real fighting nation.

Whoever affects the normal business operations of the tribes will be attacked by all tribes.

Therefore, the Islamic State also uses the minimum tax model to get along with these tribes on the Silk Road.

In terms of taxation, the Islamic State has entered into a serious income and expenditure imbalance, and the investment in basic social life guarantees cannot be stopped.

As a result, the daily expenditure, plus military expenditure, requires at least three billion U.S. dollars.

In terms of income, the tax revenue is about one billion, and the crude oil revenue is about five or six billion a year, which is less than half.

In the first year of the Islamic State's prosperity, between income and expenditure, it made a profit of more than one billion.

There is also a large amount of overseas financial support, even now there are almost 100 million foreign forces' financial support every year.

Coupled with the crazy expansion of the Islamic State at that time, the smuggling of Iraqi cultural relics, and the occupation and seizure of property, banks, and large arsenals of government forces.

With all kinds of kidnapping and extortion, the income at that time was indeed very rich.

But now, because Russia's various air strikes have not stopped every day, and even bombers join the bombing ranks every day.

The armed forces of the Islamic State have lost a large number of heavy weapons.

At that time, the Islamic State also quickly adjusted its strategy, but it adjusted a path of strategic shift that made the situation worse.

That is to carry out terrorist attacks abroad, and the Paris attack in France is the best representative.

But it also attracted the counterattack of the NATO group. The United States, which had turned a blind eye to the Islamic State's oil smuggling routes before, directly took the lead in bombing the convoys of those international oil dealers.

As a result, Russia happily kept up. In just a few days, the largest source of income for the Islamic State was severely damaged.

Even the oil smuggling route in Turkey has been warned by the United States to make the Turks restrain themselves.

The Islamic State, whose economy has fallen into a severe winter, has not stopped creating terrorist incidents around the world in order to obtain more international economic assistance. On the other hand, it has to really find ways to ease the economic pressure.

Because Syria has also begun to learn from the Iraqi government, stopping all wage payments to the occupied areas and blocking normal business exchanges.

It is an eternal truth that wars are fought against the economy.

Now what the Islamic State has to do is to use war and plunder again to ease economic pressure.

I dare not really increase the tax revenue in the occupied areas, for fear of causing armed resistance among the people, and dare not offend the Silk Road tribes, for fear of attracting armed attacks from the Silk tribes.

Rigid expenditure is absolutely indispensable, otherwise the huge Islamic State will die directly.

So the road to war lies before us. The wealth of a city, the foreign exchange reserves and gold in the bank, the smuggling of cultural relics, and the extortion of those rich people are all ways to get money in a short time.

The Islamic State, which has been working for several years, is also very familiar with this. (To be continued.) Enable new URL