Category: Syria

Photo A United States Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle on Thursday in Lakenheath, England, before operations over Iraq and Syria. Credit Senior Airman Erin Trower/USAF ERBIL, Iraq — The United States and its allies have sharply increased their airstrikes against the sprawling oil fields that the Islamic State controls in eastern Syria in an effort to disrupt one of the terrorist group’s main sources of revenue, American officials said this week. For months, the United States has been frustrated by the Islamic State’s ability to keep producing and exporting oil — what Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter recently called “a critical pillar of the financial infrastructure” of the group — which generates about $40 million a month, or nearly $500 million a year, according to Treasury Department estimates. While the American-led air campaign has conducted periodic airstrikes against oil refineries and other production facilities in eastern Syria that the […]

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Image caption Syrian government forces launched an offensive in Aleppo province last month Government forces have broken a siege by Islamic State (IS) of an airbase in northern Syria, state media report. Army units had made contact with troops defending Kuwairis airbase, east of Aleppo, and eliminated large numbers of militants, the Sana news agency said. The facility had been under attack by the jihadists for nearly two years. Meanwhile, at least 22 people were killed and many more wounded by rebel shellfire in the Mediterranean city of Latakia, state media and activists say. The blasts hit two separate areas of the city, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. With many of the wounded in serious condition, the death toll is expected to rise, the Observatory said. Latakia, which lies in the heartland of President Bashar al-Assad’s minority Alawite sect, has largely escaped the conflict that […]

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Clashes over Syrian oil and gas assets continue as regime warplanes carry out raids on the country’s al-Izba oilfield, according to a statement from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Clashes over Syrian oil and gas assets continue as regime warplanes carry out raids on the country’s al-Izba oilfield, located north of Deir Ezzor, according to a statement from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), which monitors the conflict in Syria through a network of sources on the ground. The raids led to the outbreak of fire in the area, according to SOHR, which has recorded several violent encounters between the regime militia and Islamic State over the past year. Some of the most fought over fields in 2015 have been the Sha’er and Jazal assets , which both saw clashes at the end of September with casualties reported on both sides. SOHR reported further violent clashes around […]

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A man walks out of a crater caused by what activists said was a barrel bomb dropped by forces loyal to Syria’s President Bashar Al-Assad in the town of Dael, north of Deraa, Syria November 8, 2015. Syrian soldiers fought their way into an airbase in northern Syria on Tuesday, state television said, breaking a nearly two-year siege by Islamic State insurgents at the facility and freeing military personnel holed up inside. A military source close to the government said the army was working to secure the Kweires airbase in Aleppo province, where soldiers and officers have been under attack since 2013. State television broadcast live footage from the airbase of an emotional, fatigue-clad reporter announcing the news, played victory songs and ran archive footage of military exercises. "We, the heroes of Kweires, are now celebrating with our brothers this victory," one of the freed soldiers told state TV, […]

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Syrian rebels recaptured a village and surrounding areas in the west of the country on Friday, consolidating significant advances made the day before at the expense of pro-government forces, a monitoring group said. Fighters from the Ahrar al-Sham Islamist group and other rebel forces took over the village of Atshan in their latest gains in Hama province, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Syrian government forces and allied militia, backed by Russian air strikes and ground support by Iranian troops and Lebanese Hezbollah fighters, have been waging a fierce campaign that the United States says has mostly targeted foreign-backed or moderate insurgents. Moscow, which intervened more than a month ago, has said its campaign targets Islamic State. Atshan is close to the town of Morek, which rebels took in an assault led by Islamist insurgents of the Jund al-Aqsa group on Thursday. Syrian government forces had captured […]

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Rigzone highlights which Syrian oil and gas fields have been fought over most in 2015, highlighting the country’s current production levels and the potential future of Syria’s petroleum industry. The Syrian civil war began in early 2011 as part of the Arab Spring protests, which originated in Tunisia in December 2010 and quickly spread to neighbouring countries such as Egypt, Libya and Yemen. In July 2014, Syria’s oil minister stated that the country’s oil sector had lost around $23.5 billion due to damage to facilities and pipelines, looting and production delays since the start of the country’s crisis. As of July of last year, Islamist militants and other rebel groups were in control over most of Syria’s oil producing regions and were showing no signs of slowing down the pace of their assault on the country’s oil and gas fields. According to BP’s Statistical Review of World Energy, Syria’s […]

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Syrian refugees walk at Al Zaatari refugee camp in the Jordanian city of Mafraq, near the border with Syria, November 1, 2015. Syrian government officials and members of the country’s splintered opposition could meet in Moscow next week as Russia pushes to broker a political solution to the crisis, a senior official said on Tuesday. "Next week, we will invite opposition representatives to a consultation in Moscow," Interfax news agency quoted Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov as saying. "The meeting … will possibly be with the participation of government representatives," Bogdanov said. He did not say which opposition members could attend. After initially dismissing Syrian opposition groups fighting its regional ally President Bashar al-Assad, Moscow has shown increasing flexibility as it steps up diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict that has killed some 250,000 and displaced millions. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will meet U.N. Syria envoy Staffan […]

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Two days after Syrian government forces shelled a rebel-held suburb of the capital, Damascus, killing at least 40 people in a market, according to antigovernment activists , Islamist rebels in the area unveiled a plan to use caged prisoners as human shields to prevent further bombardment. Continue reading the main story Video of caged prisoners being paraded through the Damascus suburbs posted online by Syrian opposition activists. ShaamNetwork, via YouTube The threat was accompanied by video clips and photographs posted on social networks under the hashtag “ Cages of Protection ,” which offered the macabre spectacle of male and female prisoners being driven through the streets of Douma, in the Eastern Ghouta region outside Damascus. Continue reading the main story Interviews with caged prisoners in a rebel-held suburb of Damascus posted online Sunday by a Syrian satellite channel. Orient News, via YouTube According to Baraa Abdulrahman, a media activist […]

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WASHINGTON — President Obama announced on Friday that he had ordered several dozen Special Operations troops into Kurdish-controlled territory in northern Syria to assist local fighters battling the Islamic State, authorizing the first open-ended mission by American ground forces into the country. While the deployment was small in scale, it was large in import for a president who until now had refused to send American ground troops for any sustained operations into a country devastated by more than four years of civil war. But with the fight against the Islamic State stalled, Mr. Obama concluded that a change was needed. The White House said the troops would number “fewer than 50” and insisted that they would only train and advise the local forces, not play a direct combat role against the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. But administration officials acknowledged that Americans operating closer to the […]

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