Financing Jihad: Why ISIL is richer than Al-Qaeda

As violence escalates outside Iraq's largest northern oil refinery in Baiji, fighters from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant are trying to add to the oil fields and facilities the group controls in Syria and are also eyeing factories and power plants. With assets and territory, ISIL's leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, has financial strength that al-Qaeda never managed to have under Osama bin Laden, who relied mainly on supporters living in the Gulf Cooperation Council nations. "ISIL is not out in the economic boondocks of Afghanistan or hidden in deserts and caves," Paul Sullivan, a Middle East specialist at Georgetown University in Washington, said by e-mail.

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