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Islamic State accumulating gold, silver and copper to mint its own currency

Nov 21, 2014 4:53 pm By Robert Spencer

Islamic State coinsThe Islamic State is not a state and not Islamic, Obama tells us. But it grounds all its actions in explicit statements of the Qur’an and Sunnah, and is busy accumulating all the ordinary features of a state. Does anyone have the will to stop it in its tracks?

An update on this story. “Islamic State reportedly buying silver, gold as it prepares to issue currency,” by Mitchell Prothero, McClatchy, November 20, 2014 (thanks to Jerk Chicken):

IRBIL, Iraq — The Islamic State is accumulating gold, silver and copper in markets throughout northern and western Iraq, dealers report, in an apparent effort to stockpile enough precious metal to follow through on a pledge to mint its own currency.

On Nov. 11, the Islamic State’s Beit al Mal, an ancient Islamic term akin to “Department of Treasury,” announced that the group would reintroduce the dinar currency of the Umayyad Caliphate, which ruled an empire that stretched from modern Iran to Spain for much of the seventh and eighth centuries. The announcement – which included images of three types of coins in gold, copper and silver – drew skepticism from experts, who doubted that the Islamic State could arrange a system to mint and issue a modern currency.

But interviews with dealers in precious metals indicate that the Islamic State has begun the complex process of issuing the currency, a reminder that as the best-financed non-state actor in history – with a revenue stream from oil sales and aggressive taxation – it’s been able to install bureaucratic controls over the large swath of territory it’s claimed in Iraq and Syria.

Hajj Samir, a gold trader in the city of Fallujah who asked that his full name not be used for security reasons, said that since the announcement, foreign jihadists had been buying all of the gold and silver in the city’s markets.

He said he alone had sold more than 15 pounds of gold to foreigners who were members of the Islamic State. “They said it was for gifts for their wives, but now I know why, and all the traders say the same thing,” he said. “We’ve been making trips to Baghdad to get more, and they buy all of it.”

Osman Ahmed, a 37-year-old gold trader in Mosul, said he’d been selling large amounts of gold and silver in the city, even though he now spent most of his time in Irbil, the capital of Iraq’s Kurdish region.

“We don’t ask why they’re buying so much,” he said. “But even silver in small shops outside the city is sold out.”

The purchases have reached the point that traders like Ahmed have been traveling between Mosul and the Kurdish cities of Irbil and Suleimaniyah to renew their stocks. The Islamic State buys it all, he said.

Zakaria Ahmed, 33, a Mosul resident who’s no relation to Osman Ahmed and whose brother is an Islamic State official, said he’d been told that the currency project was encountering difficulties because U.S.-led coalition airstrikes had made moving valuables more difficult. The airstrikes also have added to worries that any minting facility could be destroyed from the air.

But he said his understanding was that planning for the currency was proceeding apace. “It is still in an ongoing process to be released,” he said by phone.

The Islamic State’s plans also may be behind a new zeal among the group’s fighters to salvage copper on the battlefield. Marwan al Obeidi, speaking by phone from the Iraqi city of al Qaim, said the need for copper for coins had led to the looting of the copper wiring used in electric transmission cables.

The gold and silver purchases are strange enough, he said. “But what is striking is how elements of the organization have seized power transmission cables and other copper components,” Obeidi said. The fighters are burning the insulation off the cables and harvesting the copper, he said.

Zakaria Ahmed said it was uncertain that residents of Islamic State-controlled areas would embrace the currency. He said residents who were tired of their sons being killed in fighting and already were facing economic uncertainty didn’t see much benefit from the reintroduction of a currency that was last in circulation more than 1,000 years ago.

With doubts high among some people that the Islamic State can outlast the international coalition arrayed against it, Ahmed predicted that “no one will use” the new currency, “even if we assume that it enters the market.”

Still, the accumulation of so much gold, silver and copper has a benefit, he said. It provides a valuable asset “for use by the Islamic State.”

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/11/20/247584_islamic-state-reportedly-buying.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy

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Filed Under: Islamic State (aka ISIS, ISIL, Daesh) Tagged With: featured


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Comments

  1. Don McKellar says

    Nov 21, 2014 at 4:59 pm

    I still say the best gag for this would be to see a counterfeit Islamic State coin with a picture of Muhammad on it. That would be funny, and probably cause riots across the moslem world.

    • Georg says

      Nov 21, 2014 at 5:14 pm

      Thank you, that’s funny.

    • Don McKellar says

      Nov 21, 2014 at 5:15 pm

      Here’s a quick prototype for the new Islamic State coin with Muhammad’s image:

      http://s14.postimg.org/xw3khy23l/The_New_Islamic_State_Coin.jpg

      • jihad3tracker says

        Nov 21, 2014 at 6:59 pm

        Great work Don ! ! !

        But you are giving Ibrahim Hooper at CAIR gigantic ineradicable headaches.

        He sends everything we post here ( on Jihad Watch ) in microfilm by carrier pigeon to the Islamic State’s bird coop.

        Cell phones these days are SUCH loose cannons . . .

      • Salah says

        Nov 21, 2014 at 11:40 pm

        Try it again, Don. This time with this more realistic image:

        http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BzSYwxi26W8/UJLRuYavFZI/AAAAAAAACBM/fS2rigd2j6w/s1600/Diapositive23.JPG

        • Don McKellar says

          Nov 22, 2014 at 1:57 am

          Now that’s an image for the paper money!

  2. Diane Harvey says

    Nov 21, 2014 at 5:04 pm

    So when one side of a new ISIS coin has a depiction of a decapitation scene, and the other side has the Koran reference, there still will be denial by May, Cameron, the MSM, Kerry that ISIS is Islamic. Maybe the authentic, Big-Mo inspired Muslims will use their paper money notes to further make this point which will then be dutifully ignored.

  3. ElderlyZionist says

    Nov 21, 2014 at 5:09 pm

    THIS IS GREAT NEWS! They’re buying precious metal at JEWELRY prices, and they’re going to melt it all down into BULLION COINS. They’re melting all the copper in their Caliphate into PENNIES. Please, please, no one bomb the smelters, no one bomb the mints. Let the simpletons run with this.

    I’m going to have a drink with Mayer Rothschild’s ghost.

    • duh_swami says

      Nov 21, 2014 at 5:58 pm

      Haha…Mayer had it figured out…Since this Caliphate is probably going to be short lived, their coins may become collectors items…

      • David, Thailand says

        Nov 21, 2014 at 6:35 pm

        You really, I mean like honestly and sincerely believe the Caliphate is a flash in the pan, and that Obama et all, its parents, are going to kill it?

        Bridges, cheap bridges, get ’em now, bridges, fresh and cheap, get ’em here…

        • duh_swami says

          Nov 21, 2014 at 6:55 pm

          Nothing lasts forever…short lived is a variable…Also, please have some manners…

    • jihad3tracker says

      Nov 21, 2014 at 6:46 pm

      Yes, my friend, this development will be VERY interesting.. I am not an expert on the challenges of currency creation via coinage — especially one which includes certified weights of precious metals ( gold / silver ).

      Such a joyride seems attached to market variances, regional economics, trader confidence. David Stockman (remember him ?) could come out of retirement to give ISIS advice for the adventure ahead — but he probably charges by the minute.

      • jihad3tracker says

        Nov 21, 2014 at 6:52 pm

        For clarity — My comment is for ElderlyZionist (above) & I will join him in a toast to Rothschild’s specter.

        The magnum of champagne is open — let the glasses fill ! ! !

  4. R Cole says

    Nov 21, 2014 at 6:48 pm

    Not only are we being told its not a real state – even CNN reporters know – that IS is desperate – just how they came to that conclusion is unclear – there is an official state name, an emblem and a pledge to mint their own coins.

    But we are winning ~ I tell you!!

    ::

    What we are witnessing today!

    Down the line – it may be that the Arab states will come to some sort of deal with IS – do we pull out when they make their Islamic peace.

    If IS is successful – it is very likely that – that their currency will become a part of Sharia finance. Albeit with gold so expensive – there might be more copper coins in circulation.

    We can see how the Islamic world looks shamelessly on at converts forcibly brought to Islam – likely – if this becomes established – they will too count each one of those coins as theirs.

    How this will all develop – we don’t know.

  5. Tommy Guns says

    Nov 21, 2014 at 9:24 pm

    That’s great that ISIS is minting it’s own coins. The problem is, who’s going to honor them? Ummmmm, maybe just a bit of a premature idea?????
    Dumb-ass arabs, LOLOL!!!!

    • Know Thy Enemy says

      Nov 22, 2014 at 9:12 pm

      Who’s going to honor them? Muslims…. who else! If you are a regular reader of JW then you know how many Muslim groups have sworn allegiance to Islamic State. Add to that the individual Muslims who recognize the IS, and the caliphate will have a successfully large acceptance for their coins.

  6. ElderlyZionist says

    Nov 22, 2014 at 8:34 am

    Tommy Guns, the point of a bullion currency is that it has inherent worth. Everyone, theoretically, should take the Caliph’s dinars for the value of the metal in the coins, regardless whose face is stamped on the front.

    The problem is that there isn’t enough physical bullion in existence to sustain the currency of a modern economy.

    The classic answer to ‘not enough bullion’ is, as Jason suggests, to debase the currency, to reduce the amount of metal in the coin below it’s face value, “The aspers (silver coins) have become as small as olives and as thin as leaves. Even the tax collector won’t take them. But the government inspectors demand that they pass in the market at full value, on pain of death.” You read this sort of lament over and over from the written record of the declining days of the Ottomans.

    Anyway, the Caliph’s dinars could have an interesting effect on spot metal prices, in the short run, for a while. I wouldn’t bet the rent money, but if you have a few dollars you could afford to lose, it might be fun to roll the dice.

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