Islamic State: US-led airstrikes target oil assets in Syria
Warplanes and drones from the US and two Gulf Arab allies pounded militant sites in Syria, seeking to degrade oil refining and smuggling operations. Islamic State is estimated to control oil refineries generating steady income.
Warplanes and drones from the US and two Gulf Arab allies pounded militant sites in Syria, seeking to degrade oil refining and smuggling operations. Islamic State is estimated to control oil refineries generating steady income.
US-led jet fighters launched new airstrikes overnight, targeting Syrian oilfields under the control of the self-declared Islamic State, in an effort to degrade the group's financial assets.
The Pentagon said in a statement that US planes and drones, alongside Saudi and United Arab Emirates forces, hit about a dozen oil refineries in eastern Syria that were estimated to earn about $2 million per day for IS, the Los Angeles Times reports. The US Treasury has designated several IS-connected individuals and one charity as terrorists, in a coordinated effort to cut off IS's financial supply lines.
Retired US Army Col. Peter Mansoor warned that throttling IS's finances would be a long, difficult project, and that airstrikes were only a part of the effort. "Even if we stop their oil flow today, they still have about a billion dollars in the bank," he told CNN.
In July, the Financial Times challenged the claim, which Mansoor repeated, that IS had looted hundreds of millions of dollars in cash from banks in Mosul. It cited Iraqi bankers as saying that the robberies never happened and money was still in vaults.聽
Reuters reports that according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a London-based watchdog organization, the oilfield airstrikes killed 14 IS fighters and five civilians.
According to the Observatory, airstrikes were also launched Wednesday night against IS forces in northern Syria, near the border with Turkey. Rami Abdulrahman, who runs the Observatory, told Reuters that the strikes took place about 20 miles west of Kobane, which has been under siege by IS forces. Reuters couldn't independently confirm the strikes, and the aircraft's country of origin is unknown, though Mr. Abdulrahman says they came from the direction of Turkey and did not appear to be Syrian Air Force.
海角大神 reports that fighting in northern Syria between Kurdish forces and IS militants has driven tens of thousands of Syrian refugees into Turkey. 鈥淭his number of people in such a short period of time is the highest we have seen鈥� in Turkey, a spokeswoman for the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees told the Monitor.