Islamic State lost 22% of territory in past 15 months due to declining oil revenues

 “The Islamic State is increasingly isolated, and being perceived as in decline.” – IHS report on ISIS

A new report says the Islamic State is rapidly losing territory, partly because much of the Islamic fundamentalist group’s oil revenue dried up as a result of US-led Coalition and Russian airstrikes during 2015.

According to IHS Inc., between Jan. and Dec. 2015, the Islamic State lost control of 14 per cent of its territory.

New analysis carried out by the team that runs the IHS Conflict Monitor indicates that in the last three months, the Islamic State has lost a further 8 per cent of its territory.

“Following the loss of Tal Abyad, IHS began picking up indicators that the Islamic State was struggling financially, which included various tax hikes, increases in the cost of state-run services, and significant cuts of up to 50 per cent in the salaries paid to Islamic State fighters,” said Columb Strack, senior analyst at IHS.

“These financial difficulties have been exacerbated further by both US-led Coalition and Russian airstrikes on the group’s sources of oil revenue since late 2015.”

US airstrikes on ISIS oil facilities.

The Islamic State’s last major territorial advance into Palmyra and Ramadi in June 2015 came at the expense of losing large swathes of territory in northern Syria.

These included the strategically important Tal Abyad border crossing, which was the group’s main crossing point between Turkey and the so-called Caliphate’s de-facto capital city of Raqqa.

“In 2016, we have seen major losses in the north-east extend south towards Raqqa and Deir al-Zour as the mixed-sectarian Kurdish and Sunni Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) advance under the cover of US and Russian airstrikes,” said Strack.

“The Syrian government has also made gains in the West. They now stand just five kilometres outside the ancient city of Palmyra, which was overrun by the jihadists in mid-2015.”

The loss of access points to the Turkish border, and heightened border security on the Turkish side, have significantly reduced the flow of goods and potential recruits into the Caliphate.

Although local smuggling channels still operate, the risk of detection, and therefore the associated cost have skyrocketed.

“The Islamic State is increasingly isolated, and being perceived as in decline,” Strack said. “This plays into the hands of its main rival, al-Qaeda’s Jabhat al-Nusra, which despite sharing the same ultimate goal of establishing an Islamic caliphate, has criticised the Islamic State for prematurely declaring it. Isolation and further military defeats will make it harder for the Islamic State to attract new recruits to Syria from the pool of foreign jihadis.”