Loading ...ISIL finally showing the strain of coalition attacks: More taxes, shuttered hospitals, pay cuts for jihadis
SANLIURFA, Turkey — After the Syrian government stopped paying him, a technician who had spent two decades pumping the country’s oil received an enticing offer: do the same work for the jihadis of the Islamic State — starting at three times the salary.
He was soon helping to fill tanker trucks with crude oil to fund ISIL. But frequent executions of those suspected of spying and deadly airstrikes by government jets made life hard, and he grew angry that the country’s resources were financing the jihadis while schools and hospitals were being shut down
“We thought they wanted to get rid of the regime, but they turned out to be thieves,” the technician said after fleeing to this city in southern Turkey.