Islamic State's Money Is the Target of Finance Ministers at UN
- 8 years ago
In the first meeting of its kind, top finance ministers will preside over a United Nations Security Council vote to dismantle the financial network of Islamic State and choke off the extremist group's access to money from oil and looting.
The presence of Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew as chair, flanked by his British and French counterparts, lends urgency to a resolution co-authored by the U.S. and Russia to tackle the revenue stream of a terrorist group that has extended its territorial reach beyond Syria and Iraq with recent deadly attacks on Beirut and Paris.
"There is merit to the concern and the critique that financial regulators and institutions don't have an excellent handle on all the ways that Islamic State affiliated people are using the international financial system," said Elizabeth Rosenberg, senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security who served as a senior adviser to the U.S. as undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence 2009-2013.
The presence of Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew as chair, flanked by his British and French counterparts, lends urgency to a resolution co-authored by the U.S. and Russia to tackle the revenue stream of a terrorist group that has extended its territorial reach beyond Syria and Iraq with recent deadly attacks on Beirut and Paris.
"There is merit to the concern and the critique that financial regulators and institutions don't have an excellent handle on all the ways that Islamic State affiliated people are using the international financial system," said Elizabeth Rosenberg, senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security who served as a senior adviser to the U.S. as undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence 2009-2013.