Bills fill the air after US strike on IS cash stockpile

The US Defense Department has released a video showing the American bombing of an Islamic State cash stockpile in Mosul, Iraq, on Monday.

The 47-second, black-and-white video begins with an overhead shot of the building in Mosul, a city that is the militants’ main stronghold in Iraq. The facility is then hit with two 2,000-pound (907-kilogram) bombs.

Clouds of paper the Pentagon says is money are seen floating above the bombing site after the airstrikes.

Officials said the amount of cash destroyed was believed to be in the millions of dollars, but the exact amount is unknown.

CNN, which first reported the Monday strike, said the US military believed between five and seven civilians had been killed.

The US-led coalition carrying out plane and drone strikes against the IS group in Iraq and Syria has been increasingly targeting the jihadists’ money-making capabilities, including by bombing trucks that ferry illicit oil across Syria.

Under pressure from critics who say the campaign is moving too slowly, the Pentagon has indicated it would consider a wider array of targets even if these might cause civilian deaths, provided these attacks yield significant gains against the jihadists.

The defense official said the coalition had targeted cash-holding facilities once or twice in the past year, but the most recent action was “probably” the biggest to date.

It was at least the second time the US has bombed the Islamic State’s cash stockpiles. Combined with attacking the militants’ oil resources, it is part of an effort to sap their financial strength.