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ISIS is on the path to poverty, according to a new joint study, Caliphate in Decline: An Estimate of Islamic States Financial Fortunes, from the London-based International Center for the Study of Radicalization and Ernst & Young.

The terror group is apparently suffering from financial difficulties, to put it mildly. Facts and figures show that over the last two years, revenues for ISIS have fallen by more than 50 percent.

Still, study authors have concluded that its not yet time to breathe easy about the groups dismantling.

The decline in revenues may not have an immediate effect on the groups ability to carry out terrorist attacks outside its territory, the study said, Breitbart reported. While hurting Islamic State finances puts pressure on the organization and its state-building project, wider efforts will continue to be necessary to ultimately defeat it.

The authors also point to the fact ISIS is continually recruiting, and reaching out to other sources of potential income.

Read Isis Rising: Prelude to a neo-Ottoman Caliphate to find out what the terror camp leaders really want to do.

One looming possibility?

Afghanistan.

The countrys rich with opium, and ISIS could tap further into that drug trade, which includes the derivative heroin, to bolster its income. In fact, some estimates say ISIS can derive up to $50 billion annually from sales of Afghan-tied opium and heroin.

From the report, as cited by Breitbart:

The groups most significant sources of revenue are closely tied to its territory. They are: (1) taxes and fees; (2) oil; and (3) looting, confiscations, and fines. We have found no hard evidence that foreign donations continue to be significant. Similarly, revenues from the sale of antiquities and kidnap for ransom, while difficult to quantify, are unlikely to have been major sources of income.

There are no signs yet that the group has created significant new funding streams that would make up for recent losses. With current trends continuing, the Islamic States business model will soon fail, the study continued.

The study authors say the reason ISIS is currently facing financial trouble is that members constantly rely too heavily on the populations and territories they take over as sources of money.

According to figures provided by the Global Coalition, by November 2016 Islamic State had lost 62 percent of its mid-2014 peak territory in Iraq, and 30 per cent in Syria. From a revenue perspective, this means fewer people and businesses to tax and less control over natural resources such as oil fields, the report stated. There are good reasons to believe that Islamic State revenues will further decline. In particular, capturing Mosul, the caliphates commercial capital, will have a significant detrimental effect on Islamic State finances.

Read Isis Rising: Prelude to a neo-Ottoman Caliphate to find out what the terror camp leaders really want to do.

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ISIS 'poised to go broke in Iraq, Syria' - WND.com

New York Times

Jim Mattis to Baghdad: 'We're Not in Iraq to Seize Anybody's Oil' New York Times BAGHDAD Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, on the first visit by a senior Trump administration official to Iraq, worked on Monday to repair breaches of trust with Iraq's leaders caused by his boss just as the two sides began a major offensive to oust the ... Iraq Is a Huge Opportunity for TrumpWall Street Journal (subscription) Trump's defense chief, in Iraq, says: We're not here for your oilCNBC Defense Chief Contradicts Trump on Iraq and OilNewsweek Washington Post -Chicago Tribune all 385 news articles »

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Jim Mattis to Baghdad: 'We're Not in Iraq to Seize Anybody's Oil' - New York Times

Baghdad (ICRC) As fighting intensifies around the Iraqi city of Mosul, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is increasing its presence in the field, in order to respond swiftly to new humanitarian needs. Two additional surgical teams are in the process of being deployed to hospitals receiving wounded from the front lines, while stocks of food and other essentials are ready to be distributed to people displaced by violence.

"When people start to flee the western side of Mosul, we are expecting that many will arrive in bad shape. Supply routes have been cut from that side of the city and people have been facing shortages of food, water, fuel, and medicine. We can only imagine the state people will be in," said the ICRC's field coordinator in Erbil, Dany Merhy. The western side of the city is densely populated, and the ICRC is extremely worried about the safety and welfare of hundreds of thousands there who chose to stay or are currently unable to leave.

The ICRC is sending additional medical staff surgeons, trauma nurses, anaesthetists to hospitals receiving wounded from the front lines, to ensure medical facilities can cope with rising demands for emergency treatment and care. This deployment is being supported by Red Cross National Societies from Finland, Norway and Germany. An ICRC surgical team has already been working at Sheikhan hospital near Mosul since October 2016.

"All sides must do everything in their power to protect civilians who stay in Mosul, just as they must ensure safe passage for those who leave the city," said the ICRC's head of delegation in Iraq, Katharina Ritz. "They must also do their utmost to minimize the damage to civilian homes as well as to infrastructure essential for their survival and, given the extensive damage they cause, avoid the use of explosive weapons in populated areas."

Since the start of the Mosul offensive, the ICRC has provided food, clean water and essential relief items to over 130,000 people. It has set-up operating theatres and provided war-wounded kits and other medical supplies to health structures that can help treat more than 280,000 patients. The ICRC has also helped train emergency staff.

For further information, please contact:

Sara Alzawqari (English/Arabic), ICRC Baghdad, tel: +964 790 191 69 27Iolanda Jaquemet, ICRC Geneva, + 41 79 447 37 26

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Iraq: the ICRC steps up its humanitarian response around Mosul - ICRC (press release)

about 10 hours ago Updated: about an hour ago

Battlefield defeats in Iraq and Syria continued to splinter the so-called Islamic States hold on both countries on Thursday, with Mosul airport seized by advancing Iraqi forces and the town of al-Bab finally falling to Syrian rebels.

Backed heavily by Turkey, rebels said they had recaptured nearly all of al-Bab, which had remained Isiss westernmost stronghold throughout five months of intensive fighting and a key target of the war against the terror group.

The seizure of al-Bab came as the airfield on the western outskirts of Iraqs second city fell to Iraqi troops after a brief, but intense, battle. Its capture allows advancing government forces to consolidate a stronghold close to Mosul before launching an all-out push to retake it a move that would strip Isis of its last urban stronghold in Iraq.

By nightfall, troops were moving into the sprawling airfield to launch operations into the fortified western suburbs, where several thousand of Isiss most seasoned fighters have prepared for a last stand.

If the west of the city falls, the extremists presence in Iraq will be confined to a border area in the countrys northwest, which spills towards its last remaining centre of gravity, the Syrian city of Raqqa.

Backed by US jets and drones, national police forces were first into the Mosul airfield and had secured most of the runway by noon local time. Militants had laid mines throughout the disused complex and were clashing heavily with advancing forces, before capitulating late in the afternoon.

A spokesman for the Iraqi counter-terrorism forces, Sabah al-Numan, said: Our forces started a major operation this morning to storm the Ghazlani airport base and I can confirm that it is only a matter of time before we control the whole area.

The seizure of the base will give the forces and their US backers control of two large airfields near Mosul, the other one being the Qayyarah military base, to the south of the city.

In al-Bab, a Syrian rebel spokesman said mines had been laid every square metre throughout the centre of the city, which had been home to Isiss external operations arm that part of the organisation responsible for plotting a series of spectacular terror attacks in Europe.

Rebels advanced cautiously through central neighbourhoods as Isis members retreated to the west, where a series of towns and villages spreading towards Raqqa offer one of its last redoubts in Syria.

Outnumbered and outgunned in Syria and Iraq, Isis is expected to intensify the guerrilla campaigns that became its signature acts in both countries over the past 2 years, in which it ran rampant over a large swath of the region.

Mines, barricades, trenches and tunnels were littered throughout eastern Mosul, making heavy going for Iraqi forces, which eventually retook the area earlier this year after a three-month battle.

However, the west of the city is a more difficult landscape to take militarily. West Mosuls narrow streets will make the going tough for armoured vehicles, meaning a lot of the fighting will need to be done house to house.

Isis is known to have deployed dozens of suicide bombers along approaches.

A British jihadi, Jamal al-Harith, born Ronald Fiddler, is thought to have been among them and to have blown himself up in an area known as Abu Saif on Monday.

Aid organisations say as many as 750,000 civilians may still be in western Mosul. Mercy Corpss country director, Suad Jarbawi, said: We need to be nimble and ready to respond to the needs of the people wherever and however we find them.

In the battle for the eastern half of the city of Mosul we saw the overwhelming majority of civilians staying in their homes rather than fleeing. This was a marked departure from what weve seen in previous battles. However, we dont yet know what civilians in the western side of the city will choose to do.

As many as half of Mosuls remaining residents are thought to be under 18, and 160,000 have already fled the west of the city for newly erected refugee camps to the south. Iraqi forces have detained hundreds of military-aged men as they have fled, in an attempt to weed out any Isis members among them.

Iraqs prime minister Haider al-Abadi has demanded that troops be held accountable for any abuses. In the fight for the east of the city, relatively few allegations of abuse arose, with national police and soldiers winning the cautious trust of communities who, before the Isis takeover of Mosul in mid-2014, had been deeply wary of a security order imposed by Baghdad.

Guardian service

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Isis suffers strategic reversals in Iraq and Syria - Irish Times

By Ayat Basma | ERBIL, Iraq

ERBIL, Iraq With their waxed moustaches, precision-clipped beards and dapper clothes, members of the Mr. Erbil gentleman's club look like the smarter residents of Brooklyn or Shoreditch.

But rather than the hipster neighborhoods of New York or London, this is Erbil, the capital of Iraq's Kurdish region - just 100 kilometers (60 miles) from the grim battle to drive Islamic State fighters from their last bastion in the country.

Although an oasis of calm in a country torn apart by war since the U.S.-led invasion of 2003, Erbil has been unable to provide its young people with the opportunities they crave, say the men who set up their club last year to change that.

"When we started we were in a bad situation, economic crisis and then an expected war against ISIS (Islamic State)," said Goran Pshtiwan, 26, wearing a three-piece suit and custom-made moccasins decorated with the club's logo - without socks, naturally.

"There was no business activity so we started with the idea to gather and make something different and unique and change the look of the people and the way that they are thinking."

As well as regular meetings where they dress in different styles, from smart casual to black tie and traditional Ottoman-time attire, the club aims to support local tailors and craftsmen who help make their outfits.

Accessorized with purple-trimmed handkerchiefs, pocket watch chains and selfie-sticks, the men, in their 20s and 30s, hold photoshoots at local beauty spots, posting the results on Instagram where they have more than 60,000 followers.

The buzz has surprised co-founder Omer Nihad, a 28-year-old former stock trader, who said Star Trek actor George Takei, who has more than 2 million Twitter followers, had mentioned the club.

A recent video they shot received 5 million views, he said.

While a boy's only club, Mr. Erbil uses its internet platform to promote women who are working to improve rights and opportunities for girls.

The group has about 40 members and is receiving so many requests that the founders are considering toughening the admission requirements which already set demanding standards for fashion taste.

Nihad said the club aimed to launch its own clothing brand, set up a shop and collaborate with fashion houses. And he would love to see Mr. Erbil featured in a high fashion magazine.

"Of course, we don't want to be on the front page," he said. "It is okay if we were in the middle!"

(Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

RIYADH A comic show and a recent pop concert have drawn rebuke from powerful religious figures and social media users in Saudi Arabia this week, highlighting the sensitivity of cultural reforms underway in the conservative kingdom.

MILAN Milan's fashion elite strolled down an elegant street in "Rome" on Thursday, sporting subtle and elegant creations that recalled the timeless movie scenes of yesteryear.

JERUSALEM Forgoing the provocative and risque, a group of designers in Jerusalem on Thursday held Israel's first major fashion show for Orthodox Jewish women, whose tradition requires they dress in conservative outfits.

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Far from Brooklyn, Iraq's hipsters declare war on poor dress sense - Reuters