Thread by @gwupoe

NEW REPORT with Bridgeway Foundation from @caleb_weiss7, @ryanmofarrell, Tara Candland, and @larenpoole for #nexusmonitor:

Fatal Transaction: The Funding Behind the Islamic State's Central Africa Province

Link: extremism.gwu.edu/fatal-transact…

At the height of its territorial caliphate in Iraq and Syria, roughly between 2014 and 2016, the Islamic State largely provided direct funding to its global wings from its own coffers in the Middle East.

Forced decentralization of the Islamic State’s funding mechanisms as a result of territorial losses, the authors argue, forced the Islamic State to transition to a “regionally pooled” funding approach.

Regionally pooled financing relies on regional “offices” to oversee local revenue generation and to use a complex web of networks distribution to move money across the vast geographic regions.

The manner in which the Islamic State’s Central Africa Province (ISCAP) is now funded and supported acts as the quintessential model for how the Islamic State is both administratively structured and finances its global wings.

Overseen by the Islamic State’s Somalia Province and its Al-Karrar Office –one of many of the Islamic State’s so-called “regional offices” – financial networks and cells have helped pool resources and funds to support ISCAP inside Congo.

The authors conclude that it is primarily through the Islamic State’s money and support that ISCAP has transformed itself from a relatively obscure Ugandan rebel group in Congo to a regional threat.