UN Security Council adopts resolution to cut off ISIS funding

Resolution call for sanctions such as asset freeze, travel ban and arms embargo against terror group.

By REUTERS
Updated: DECEMBER 18, 2015 11:05
ISIS (photo credit: ISLAMIC SOCIAL MEDIA)
ISIS
(photo credit: ISLAMIC SOCIAL MEDIA)
The UN Security Council on Thursday unanimously adopted a resolution to cut off funds for the Islamic State, an extremist group, in a firmer move by the international community to fight terrorism.
Measures such as asset freeze, travel ban and arms embargo will be taken against the Islamic State, also known as the IS, ISIS and Daesh that controls large swaths of Syria and Iraq, including oil and gas fields, according to the resolution.
The resolution was adopted by the 15-nation UN body at an open meeting chaired by US Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew, whose country holds the rotating council presidency for December.
The resolution decided to "freeze without delay the funds and other financial assets or economic resources of these individual groups, undertaking and entities, including funds derived from property owned or controlled directly or indirectly, by them or by persons acting on their behalf or at their direction, and ensure that neither these nor other funds, financial assets or economic resources are made available, directly or indirectly for such persons' benefit, by their nationals or by persons within their territory."
The resolution also noted that IS is a splinter group of al-Qaida and said that "terrorism can only be defeated by a sustained and comprehensive approach involving the active participation and collaboration of all States and international and regional organizations to impede, impair, and incapacitate the terrorist threat."
The international community must join forces to prevent them from acquiring and deploying resources to do further harm, said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
Ban said, Daesh terrorists raise money through the oil trade, extortion, undetected cash couriers, kidnapping for ransom, trafficking of humans and arms and racketeering, They loot and sell precious cultural property, shamelessly profiting from the destruction of humanity's common heritage.
Social media outreach is exploited by Daesh, not just for radicalization and recruiting, but also for fund-raising, Ban added.
Syria's Permanent Representative to the UN, Dr. Bashar Al-Jafari, said, "We expect after the adoption of this resolution the Security Council to carry out its responsibilities as required and to tolerate no more the fact that some well-known governments support and finance terrorism that targets the Syrian state and the Syrian people. Those well-known governments also bring and facilitated the passage of foreign terrorist fighters into Syria and trained and armed them as well as their involvement in direct and indirect trafficking of oil and loot Syrian cultural property with terrorists."