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WND
WASHINGTON – Engineers, especially petroleum engineers, may want to double-check who a prospective employer may be – it could be the Islamic State.
The Islamic State, or ISIS, is now doing headhunting of a different kind, looking for engineers to help run the oilfields they’ve taken over in their conquests, especially in Syria and Iraq, according to former U.S. intelligence officer James Powell.
An expert on the Middle East with experience in the nuclear security industry, Powell said that ISIS’ recent capture of Syria’s oil-rich province of Deir Ezzor has resulted in “help wanted” ads for petroleum engineers who could make as much as $225,000 a year with such added benefits as a car, weapons and other sweeteners.
Candidates, however, must be “ideologically suitable” and display an “ethos based on being administratively competent,” according to Firas Abi Ali, who heads Middle East and North Africa forecasting at IHS Country Risk in London.
As ISIS has taken over new territory, professional staffs tend to disappear. At first, ISIS threatened to kill the families of staff if they didn’t stay, but now are resorting to offering the carrot of a salary and benefits to keep them.
While the U.S. and its Arab allies bomb various ISIS-held locations in Iraq and Syria that include oil fields it has taken over, ISIS still manages to make some $3 million a day from oil sales.