ISIS Told Oppressed Mosul Inhabitants Collection of Islamic Tax Payments Were 'Forced by God'
After ransacking and destroying priceless antiquities, it has emerged that the Islamic State (ISIS) used the Mosul museum as its tax office.
Iraqi troops reclaimed the museum last month in their campaign to retake the Old City. Repairs still cannot be done to the building as fighting continues just a few hundred meters away.
After overrunning Mosul in 2015, ISIS released a video showing militants taking sledgehammers to the precious Mesopotamian relics, some dating back more than 2,000 years. The extremist group destroyed statues it considered to be idolatrous, sparking international condemnation.
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The jihadists knocked a hole in the ground in one portion of the museum in search of vaults. Items that were spared were smuggled out and sold in the black market, a source of revenue for ISIS along with oil and kidnap-for-ransom.
But according to findings at the museum, another lucrative venture of the group was taxation.
The terrorists turned the artifact warehouse into the "Diwan Zakat" or Islamic tax department, according to Reuters. A stamped message on an envelope found in the makeshift office reads, "The Islamic State...seeks to levy your duties which were forced by God on the rich people's money."
ISIS earned millions of dollars from a religious tithe called zakat 'that it imposed on citizens in its controlled territories, Financial Times reported. The publication estimated that in 2015, the group netted $23 million in taxes for government salaries in Mosul, as Baghdad continued to pay state employees even in areas held by the militants that time.
The report further revealed that ISIS would take 2.5 percent of capital tax from all kinds of businesses, big or small. The terror group imposed the same rate for income taxes. Farmers were levied more — five percent from irrigated crops and 10 percent from rain-fed crops. They also taxed the transportation of the products.
ISIS further earned $140 million annually by collecting customs duties from products that entered its territories, based on truckers' testimonies. Ice cream truck driver Mohammad al-Kirayfawai said he paid $300 for every delivery he made from Jordan to Iraq.
"If I do not, they either arrest me or burn my truck," he said.
