For those willing to try their luck — and test their fate — there are new deals to be had in the Isis oilfields of eastern Syria. In recent weeks the jihadi group has offered traders a licence to buy up to 1,000 barrels of oil at a time at the lucrative al-Omar oilfield — a deal that would have been unheard of before a US-led coalition launched an aggressive air campaign against its financial assets late last year. “It’s you and your luck — if the coalition doesn’t come out, you’ve made it. It’s a gamble,” says one Syrian oil trucker in an online interview. The coalition campaign has dealt a serious blow to Isis finances in recent months, leading it to cut employee salaries and reduce charity handouts to impoverished locals. But when it comes to oil, Isis is determined to stay in business. From tempting traders with preferential treatment to imposing strict fuel rationing on its own members, locals say the world’s most notorious jihadi force is finding new ways to squeeze every ounce of profit from the oilfields that once netted it $1.5m a day. Syrian oil truckers and owners of makeshift refineries say that the group’s main fields are still functioning despite frequent air strikes — though often with hours-long pauses as workers and fuel trucks flee bombardment. “Production continues as it has, the prices stay as they were, and the coalition keeps striking just like it has. When the strikes hit, the selling stops for a while . . . then people get back to work,” another oil trucker in Syria’s oil-rich Deir Ezzor province said. Like others speaking from Isis-controlled Syria, he asked not to be named.