ISIS smuggles majority of oil via Turkey

A man stands on a truck near oil fields in Syria's
northeastern Qamshli province. (File photo: Reuters)

Iraq: ISIS smuggles majority of oil via Turkey Al Arabiya News Monday, 7 December 2015

Iraq’s premier Haider al-Abadi said Monday that most of the oil smuggled by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group goes through Turkey, joining a chorus of countries linking it with the militants’ financing. [...]  It is the latest in a series of accusations linking Turkey and oil smuggling by ISIS [...]  Russia accused Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his family of involvement in the IS oil trade, to which he responded that Russia was in fact involved. [...]  Mohsen Rezaie, secretary of Iran’s Expediency Council, said Iranian military advisors on the ground in Iraq and Syria had images of IS oil trucks going to Turkey. 

The archeologists say that it is collectors financing ISIS, when all the time it has been Turkey (where many archeologists seek excavation permits) which has been one of the main culprits.

Turkey receiving smuggled antiquities as payment for supplying weapons to terror groups in Syria

Syria army says Turkey increases arms shipments to rebels Reuters

The Syrian army said on Saturday that Turkey had recently increased supplies of weapons, ammunition and equipment to [...]  terrorists in Syria [...]. "We have certain information that the Turkish government has recently increased its support to the terrorists and the level of their supplies of weapons, ammunition and equipment necessary to continue their criminal acts," [...] The statement by the Syrian army command alleged that weapons were being delivered in shipments which Turkey claimed to be humanitarian assistance. It also alleged the weapons were supplied in exchange for looted Syrian and Iraqi antiquities and oil sold at low prices. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has denied accusations his country purchased oil from Islamic State, saying anyone making such claims must prove them.

Oil, not Antiquities

Cultural Property expert Peter Tompa also covers the ISIS debacle:

"ISIS Funding Narrative Begins Unraveling in Mainstream Media" The New Yorker has rightly questioned whether looted antiquities are really an important funding source for ISIS as our State Department and the archaeological lobby have claimed.  Hopefully, other mainstream media will follow.

John Howland from England notes that the English worked it out earlier than the federal government:

At last! Someone with the balls to question the 'academics'. ISIS get its money from what is termed 'hot oil' and that's why the UK's Royal Air Force is now bombing ISIS oil wells to oblivion. Were this not the case one suspects that the US and UK would be bombing the crap out of heritage sites, but ISIS has already done this. I expect any time soon to see the names of those in academe who proliferated the stolen collectables nonsense in the public domain, followed by a series of academic post becoming vacant. Ha Ha!

See "British airstrikes hit Islamic State oil fields, aim to deal 'real blow" Fox News December 03, 2015.

Significantly, another source gives the position of the "Omar Oilfield" mentioned as the targeted area as being right next to where that antiquities trader with his faked invoices lived. The anti-collecting story is being unravelled fast.

Common Sense reporting on "the real Value of the ISIS Antiquities Trade"

Finally, common sense reporting!

The Real Value of the ISIS Antiquities Trade - The New Yorker

New findings are shedding light on the Islamic State’s looting of cultural heritage, but they’re also raising more questions than they’re answering.

newyorker.com|By Ben Taub

US State Department Faking Link Between ISIS and the Antiquities Trade

Peter Tompa has expertly observed: 'Prominent Member of Archaeological Lobby Suggests US State Department Faking Link Between ISIS and the Antiquities Trade'.

Neil Brodie, a prominent member of the international archaeological lobby, has suggested that the US State Department has used forged documents to establish a link between ISIS and antiquity sales. Brodie also concedes that given what we know, antiquities must be a minor source for ISIS and that it's more likely that the Assad regime and the Free Syrian Army are profiting from antiquities sales. Nonetheless, Brodie, staying true to his anti-trade bias, remains all for "suppressing demand for antiquities" in order to save archaeological context.  

If it were true that the Federal government is trying to hoodwink us all, it would be a massive failure of government. But it would not be the first time....

The Reason Behind the Destruction

 Peter Tompa has expertly observed: 'Prominent Member of Archaeological Lobby Suggests US State Department Faking Link Between ISIS and the Antiquities Trade' that archeological hard-liners are

loath to consider possibility that the real problem may be that that the "State Owns Everything Old" model only associates antiquities with hated Middle Eastern dictators and devalues them so thoroughly that they are smuggled or even destroyed.

Depressing Numismatics

Coin of the Abbasids, Baghdad, Iraq, 765. The Abbasid Caliphate (Arabic: العبّاسيّون / ISO 233: al-'abbāsīyūn), was the third of the Islamic caliphates. Compared with the artistic glory of the numismatics of the Greeks and the historical grandour of the Roman coinage, this crude aniconic coinage with the repetitive and stereotypical 'La-La-Allah' legends is simply depressing. No wonder so few people collect them.