Revelation 6:3-4 NCV When the Lamb opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, "Come!" Then another horse came out, a red one. Its rider was given power to take away peace (prosperity, rest) from the earth and to make people kill each other (butcher, slaughter, to maim violently, in streets), and he was given a big sword (assassins sword, terrorist, loud, mighty, sore afraid).
The United Nations Security Council took another step toward bankrupting the Islamic State on Thursday, voting to approve several measures aimed at cutting off the group’s funding sources.
The vote, which was unanimous, calls for United Nations members to do more to ensure that funds don’t find their way to the terrorist organization. A U.S. treasury official has publicly said the Islamic State has acquired roughly $1.5 billion by selling oil on the black market and looting bank vaults, as well as extorting millions more from people living in cities that it has captured.
The new resolution calls for U.N. members to improve cooperation between themselves, as well as work more closely with the private sector, to snuff out suspicious transactions. It also calls for putting a stop to all ransom payments to anyone on the Islamic State or Al-Qaida sanctions list, along with updating those lists. The council also called for U.N. members to do more to “detect any diversion” of the components terrorists could use to make explosive or chemical weapons.
According to a news release, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said an increasing number of member states had ratified the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism, a U.N. treaty that criminalizes financing terrorism, but more needed to be done.
“They are agile and have been far too successful in attaining resources for their heinous acts,” Ban said of the terrorist groups in his opening remarks, noting that terrorists have exploited financial loopholes and forged destructive links with criminal and drug syndicates for income.
Ban noted that the Islamic State was running a multimillion-dollar economy in the territory it controlled, bringing in money through oil smuggling, extortion, kidnapping, racketeering and human and arms trafficking. The Islamic State also looted and sold cultural property for cash, Ban said, and other terrorist groups like Boko Haram, Al-Shabaab and the Taliban followed suit.
Ban also told the Security Council that terrorists are constantly finding new ways to diversify and conceal income, making it imperative the U.N. act to prevent them from doing more harm.
“Just as terrorist groups are innovating and diversifying, the international community must stay ahead of the curve to combat money-laundering and the financing of terrorism,” Ban said.
