WASHINGTON — The Department of Defense has released declassified video from its January 11 bombing of an ISIS cash depot in Mosul, Iraq, which was first reported exclusively by CNN.
The video, which has no sound, begins moments before a pair of 2,000-pound bomb strikes the building. After the explosion, clouds of cash are seen fluttering in the air and later scatter on top of the roofs of nearby buildings.
Officials did not say exactly how much money was there or in what currency, but it was described as “millions.”
“It was a good strike. And we estimate that it served to deprive ISIL of millions of dollars,” said Gen. Lloyd Austin, head of the U.S. Central Command, using another name for ISIS. “And combined with all of the other strikes that we’ve done on ISIL’s gas and oil production and distribution capabilities and strikes against his economic infrastructure and the various sources of revenue, you can bet that (it) is feeling the strain on his checkbook.”
Austin said that this is not the first strike on an ISIS cash storage site.
“ISIL needs those funds to pay their fighters, to recruit new fighters and to conduct their various maligned activities,” Austin said about the money. “You know, we said from the outset of this campaign that to defeat ISIL, we’re going to have to take away its ability to resource” itself.
