Mosul: no petrol, no salaries and only two hours of electricity a day – ‘we are dying a slow death’

Lamia Al Gailani Werr has shared more news from Mosul. Eleanor Robson (@Eleanor_Robson) has already tweeted the key points, and the news is fully archived on the Iraq Crisis listserv, but that is unreadable to machines, so I’m going to summarise it here and add some notes. The most important thing is that, so far, all of the archaeologists are “okay” (although, obviously, definitions of “okay” may vary…).

a tip of my hat to AsSpiralsInMyHead

Redditor AsSpiralsInMyHead has proposed an inspired way of wrecking the Islamic State’s illicit economy: ‘Let’s pay them in bitcoins for antiques, sell them outdated guns for bitcoins, and buy more antiques, thus driving up the value of bitcoins and increasing their faith in the currency as a way of doing business. Then, when they are bitcoin heavy, we crash the currency, bankrupt the fuckers, buy the coins back and then let them starve.’

the Islamic State is profiting from looting, dealing and smuggling of antiquities from Syria and Iraq

The Syrian Heritage Task Force’s Prof. Salam Al Kuntar and Prof. Amr Al Azm (@alazmamr) have revealed to the Sunday Times that the Islamic State is ‘imposing a “tax” on looted antiquities‘ in Iraq and Syria. Its local ’emirs determine the tax rates and anyone refusing to pay is killed’.