The UN Security Council unanimously voted on a resolution Thursday to choke off ISIS (Daesh) funding and assets, the AFP and Reuters reported — banning all antiquities trading from Syria, threatening sanctions on states that buy oil from Daesh and strongly discouraging random payments.
The resolution was passed unanimously by the 15-nation council. It also gained support from more than 35 other countries, who co-sponsored the resolution, to show international resolve for the end of the terrorism group. The document is "legally binding," according to Reuters, and gives the council authority to enforce economic sanctions but not military force.
Daesh and the al-Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front are believed to receive support from countries, like Turkey, that buy their smuggled oil. While the resolution was originally focused on ending the cash flowers from the group's oil preserves, it expanded to include other ways Daesh has received its financing.
The UN estimated in November that Daesh receives anywhere from $846,000 to $1.6 million from oil a day, according to Reuters. But the Pentagon told Reuters Daesh is no longer getting their main source of income from oil, after airstrikes successfully targeting the group's oil installations and a dip in oil prices.
Daesh still receives $96,000 to $123,000 a day on average in kidnap ransom payments, the UN report said.
Reuters reported Samantha Power, US Ambassador to the UN, said the council should have shown the same unity to end the four-year Syrian civil war, attributing Daesh's uprising to the conflict with the regime.
"Just as we condemn the monstrosities perpetrated by [Daesh] we must also continue to condemn the brutality of [Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's] regime, which has long since lost the legitimacy to lead," Power said to the council.
