UN Proposes Sanctions Against ISIS, Nusra Front, And Seizing Their Oil Tankers

A report released late Monday by the United Nations has proposed that the world's governments should implement sanctions against jihadist groups, and seize all the oil coming from or headed to regions held by the Islamist State group or the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front in Iraq and Syria. The report also proposed a moratorium on trading antiquities from the two countries, where ISIS has sought to erase existing borders and create an Islamic caliphate.

The report urged countries to deny aircraft permissions to land or take off from rebel-held regions, and called for more information to be shared among countries to counter the sale of arms and clamp down on recruitment by the militant groups, according to The Associated Press (AP). The report was in response to a request from the Security Council in August to assess the threat from the Islamic State group and the Nusra Front. ISIS currently has over 30,000 fighters, according to estimates, from more than 80 countries.

“The most significant source of continuing revenue for ISIL comes from oil sales and its ability to leverage established smuggling networks,” the panel said, in the report, according to Bloomberg.

The report estimates that the Islamic State earns between $846,000 and $1.645 million a day in oil revenues, The New York Times reported, adding that the U.N. panel also asked for sanctions to be implemented against the main recruiters and propagandists in these groups. The U.N. also urged authorities to increase efforts to curb violence in the region.

The panel said that both groups were using the Syrian conflict, "as a pretext to seek international donations and volunteers, generating multimillion-dollar financial resources and attracting thousands of foreign terrorist fighters,” AP reported, adding that seizing trucks transporting oil would "disrupt crude oil smuggling that generates revenue for these groups."

The Islamic State group, which is headed by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, also earned up to $45 million in ransom payments over a period of 12 months, the report said, according to AP, adding that the Nusra Front’s earnings were “more opaque.”

According to a report last week, the Islamic State group will soon launch its own currency, using gold, silver and copper, to break free from the "tyrannical monetary system that was imposed on the Muslims and was a reason for their enslavement and impoverishment."