The UN Security Council today urged countries to deny the Islamic State and other extremist groups their sources of money and fighters by shutting down oil trade, refusing ransom payments, tightening security checks and more.
The council statement followed a new UN report that estimates the Islamic State's potential revenue from crude oil ranges from USD 846,000 to USD 1.645 million per day and that it raised an estimated USD 35 million to USD 45 million in a 12-month period from ransom payments.
The report recommends new sanctions but warns that sanctions alone are insufficient to counter the global terror threat.
Council members in an open debate expressed alarm that the new wave of fighters is younger, more diverse and skilled in using social media to attract more than 15,000 foreigners from more than 80 countries.
Australian Ambassador Gary Quinlan warned that a significant number have European passports.
Council members stressed that more must be done to combat the terrorist narrative and change the economic and other circumstances that might make that narrative attractive. "Looking at these challenges solely through a military lens has shown its limits," UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the meeting.
The council statement urges more effort by UN member states to restrict the flow of foreign fighters, but the chair of the council committee on counterterrorism, Lithuania Ambassador Raimonda Murmokaite, laid out multiple and "significant" gaps in border and other controls that might keep citizens from traveling to fight.
