US bombs pile of Islamic State cash in Iraq

The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) published a video on Monday (Jan 11) purporting to show the destruction from an air strike on a bank in its northern Iraqi stronghold which the United States-led coalition said had been aimed at disrupting the group’s financing activities.

The US-led coalition started attacking oil trucks used to smuggle stolen crude oil and other non-military targets with the goal of undermining IS resources.

The defense official said the coalition had targeted cash-holding facilities once or twice in the past year, but Sunday’s action was “probably” the biggest to date.

Two 2,000-pound (900-kilogram) bombs struck the facility, destroying “millions” of dollars worth of cash, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

CNN reported that the strike was carried out in a civilian area and that U.S. commanders were prepared to consider up to 50 civilian casualties “due to the importance of the target”. But after getting intelligence about the so-called “cash collection and distribution point”, USA aircraft and drones watched the site for days trying to determine when the fewest number of civilians would be in the area.

The Islamic State generates around $80 million a month, mainly from oil revenues, according to findings focusing on late 2015 from UK’s defence consultancy IHS.

Stringer/ReutersSmoke rose from a Shiite mosque after it was destroyed in a bomb attack by militants of the Islamic State in Mosul, Iraq, in 2014.