The British daily Independent says millions of pounds of aid is sent to areas completely ruled by the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) in Syria.
The report comes as Syrians in many towns and villages are suffering from lack of basic humanitarian supplies, while calls by the UN refugee center for more aid to millions of refugees in Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey have remained unanswered.
The aid, which is paid for by the UK, European and US governments, consists of food, medicine and hygiene kits. It is brought into the country through the war-torn north from the two last remaining border posts open with Turkey in Reyhanli and Kilis, the paper wrote.
Western groups such as Mercy Corps International, the Norwegian Refugee Council, World Vision, the International Rescue Committee and the United Nations World Food Program provide supplies to hundreds of thousands of people every month across the self-proclaimed state, the radical group says has formed in parts of Syria and Iraq.
This includes towns such as Raqqa, Manbij and Jarablus, which have witnessed beheadings, crucifixions and other tortures since ISIL took over early this year.
“We have lots of direct shipments into ISIL-held areas. Nearly all of our trucks go through the Turkish border post near Kilis. Sometimes they get stuck en route, and we have to wait two or three weeks for them to get there if they get held up by fighting or another opposition group which isn’t happy that we’re sending aid through an ISIL checkpoint,” said a Western aid worker.
Aid groups say their aim is to help vulnerable people, not to support the rule of ISIL.
The aid goes to ISIL-held areas while the Syrian people suffer from not only the extremist-marked war in their country, but also from the Western economic sanctions slapped to their country in support to the war.
ISIL uses social media to demonstrate the brutality with which it treats its enemies and those who break its laws. But it uses the same media to show it distributing aid and administering healthcare to people under its rule.
Its ability to deliver free aid and free fuel has been a major factor in persuading residents of recently conquered towns such as Mosul to accept its rule. And this aid is fueled by Western government.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who was sworn in for a third term today, said states that have supported terrorism will pay the price and that he would fight militants until security was restored to the country.
“Soon we will see that the Arab, regional and Western states that supported terrorism will pay a high price,” he told his supporters at the presidential palace.
In addition to international aid, ISIL-controlled areas of Raqqa and Deir Ezzour are very fertile and produce a vast amount of the region’s wheat.
Deir Ezzour also has some of the biggest oilfields in Syria.
ISIL is also luring doctors and nurses with large salaries in return for their loyalty, a Syrian doctor working for a Norwegian medical NGO in Raqqa told The Independent.
“They are buying people one by one – they are offering doctors up to 100,000 Syrian pounds a month (£390), which is a fortune there now.
“At the beginning they would take any aid they didn’t have to pay for, but since they announced the establishment of the caliphate, they are running their own services so that it can become more like a state.”