Monday, November 10, 2014

Red Bull gives you jihad: How truck-loads of the energy drink are crossing the border into Syria where ISIS fighters 'make a fortune extorting fees'


Fighters from ISIS
ISIS militants (right) in Syria are believed to be profiting from shipments of Red Bull, the energy drink. A Turkish haulage company claims to ship five truckloads a day into the warzone. File pictures
ISIS militants control many border crossing points between the two countries. State control by the Damascus government is now non-existent is and transporters pay tolls and fees to whoever controls the crossing.
While Turkey imposed sanctions on Assad three years ago, the cross-border trade is legal and shows up in Turkish customs data, reports Bloomberg.
More than £163million in goods this year crossed via the the Turkish border towns of Cilvegozu and Oncupinar, the figures show.
They are close to towns which are controlled by the Islamic Front, a coalition of militants fighting both the Assad regime and ISIS.
Meanwhile, £201million in goods crossed into Syria from nearby Gaziantep.
Cement, vegetable oil, bulgur wheat, flour, salt and tinned fruit are popular goods, as is Red Bull.
'Every day we have four or five trucks carrying Red Bulls to Syria,' Mustafa Yilmaz, owner of Turkish trucking company Cem-Ay Transport told Bloomberg.
He added that buyers on the Syrian side don’t identify themselves to the transporters.
A man holds up a knife as he rides on the back of a motorcycle touring the streets of Tabqa city with others in celebration after Islamic State militants took over Tabqa air base, in nearby Raqqa cit, Syria
A man holds up a knife as he rides on the back of a motorcycle touring the streets of Tabqa city with others in celebration after Islamic State militants took over Tabqa air base, in nearby Raqqa cit, Syria
In September alone the Red Bull consignments made up, along with the other goods, trade with Syria worth an estimated £800million.
America and European NATO allies of Turkey are putting increasing pressure on the Ankara government to do more to squeeze the financial arteries of ISIS but so far the Turkish state has done little except allow in some Kurdish fighters into the besieged border town of Kobane.
There is evidence to suggest ISIS fighters take speed to heighten their combat skills and stave off exhaustion, while the drug khat is used by jihadists in Yemen and Somalia.

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