The oil output \u2013 which generates around \u00a31million a day in revenue \u2013 highlights a stark failure of the year-long coalition air strikes which have repeatedly targeted the group’s refineries and pipelines<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nAccidentally bombing these targets would risk creating a ‘family of jihadis’ and ‘radicalising the population’, the European official added.<\/p>\n
One option now being considered involves an attempt to supplying cheaper oil to group’s fighting ISIS or flooding the northern Iraqi market with cheap crude to undercut the terrorists, the FT reports.<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, a group of anti-ISIS activists based in the terror group’s Syrian stronghold of Raqqa, revealed how ISIS had found ways to diversify their income streams.<\/p>\n
Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently (RIBSS) claimed secret deals had been struck with the Assad regime to sell the government electricity and gas from dams controlled by the militants.<\/p>\n
It also outlined ten ways the militants fund their crusade to create a Muslim caliphate.<\/p>\n
Even though the citizens of Raqqa and Islamic State live under strict sharia law, ISIS leaders appear to have no qualms about growing and selling illegal drugs to others, with cannabis being grown on the outskirts of the city to be sold on to Turkey.<\/p>\n
The report also reveals details of the of taxes and fines imposed on citizens of Raqqa, ISIS’s ‘de facto’ capital.<\/p>\n
This includes flat-rate taxes on electricity, ‘hygiene services’ and use of the telephone network, paid in cash to ISIS’s very own revenue agency, called Al Hisba, as well as customs on imported and exported goods.<\/p>\n
Another source of income is Internet cafes, which RBSS calls ‘one of the most profitable trades for ISIS’.<\/p>\n
The number of internet cafes in Raqqa has increased from 20 to 500 since the Islamic State came to power, according to the group.<\/p>\n
Yesterday, the Iraqi army and volunteer militia fighters made their latest attempt to retake the\u00a0city of Baiji in northern Iraq which houses the country’s largest oil refinery.<\/p>\n
Baiji is only 90 miles away from Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city which fell to the hardline Sunni militants in June last year.<\/p>\n
An officer at the regional military command center revealed in July that crude oil storage tanks and pipelines at the refinery had been damaged beyond repair.<\/p>\n
Natural gas tanks and processing facilities, as well as the power station providing electricity to the refinery, had also suffered damage.<\/p>\n
It was not immediately clear whether the yesterday’s fighting had further damaged the refinery.<\/span><\/p>\n\n
![\"ISIS](\"http:\/\/www.raqqa-sl.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/088E522100000514-3273687-image-a-1_1444898043076.jpg\" "\\"ISIS")
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