Category: Syria

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Islamic State fighters in Syria said on Monday they had taken control of a gas field in the central province of Homs, the second gas field seized in a week after battles with government forces. The hardline Sunni Islamist group posted 18 photos on social media showing the Islamic State flag raised in the Jahar gas field as well as seized vehicles and weaponry, according to the SITE jihadist website monitoring service. Reuters could not independently confirm the events due to security restrictions. Islamic State fighters, who now hold up to a third of Syria as well as swathes of Iraq and have declared a ‘Caliphate’ on the territories they control, took the larger Sha’ar gas field on Oct. 30. "So after the (Sha’ar) company and the (positions) surrounding it became part of the land of the Caliphate, the soldiers advanced, conquering new areas, and all […]

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AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis BEIRUT (AP) — Activists say the U.S.-led coalition has launched airstrikes on an oil field in Syria’s eastern province of Deir el-Zour that borders Iraq. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the coalition launched four airstrikes on oil wells in the Jafra field late Wednesday. The Local Coordination Committees, an activist group, also reported the airstrikes on Thursday. The U.S.-led coalition has aggressively targeted IS-held oil facilities in Syria, which provide a key source of income for the militants. But such strikes also endanger civilians, which could undermine long-term efforts to destroy the militant group. The Observatory, which relies on a network of activists around the country, said that since the airstrikes on Syria began a month ago, 553 people have been killed including 32 civilians. The rest were mostly jihadis.

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U.S. includes Islamic State-controlled oil installations as strategic target objectives. (UPI/Matthew Bruch/USAF) WASHINGTON, Oct. 17 (UPI) — Striking fixed Islamic State targets in Syria, including oil facilities, is part of the strategic effort to cripple the group, a Pentagon official said. The group calling itself the Islamic State is said to be financing itself in part through a regional black market for crude oil. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said U.S. military effort to defeat the group is about hitting where they operate. "There’s been a lot of strikes in [the strategic border town of] Kobani, dynamic tactical strikes," he told reporters during a Thursday press briefing. "But there’s also been almost an equal number of total strikes against fixed facilities, command and control, finance centers, oil refineries [and] fixed sites." The spokesman countered that the U.S. effort was in support of national ground forces and not so much "about […]

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WASHINGTON — The United States has sharply increased the number of airstrikes against Islamic State militants in the besieged Syrian city of Kobani — aided by information provided by Kurdish fighters, American officials said Wednesday. A Pentagon spokesman said that the airstrikes had killed “several hundred” Islamic State fighters. Kurdish officials said the intensified attacks had allowed them to regain territory and push the militants back on several fronts, after fears rose last week that the city would be overrun. Yet in a sign of the perils of the intensified bombing campaign, five Kurdish fighters were killed late Tuesday — possibly because they had advanced too close to one of the airstrikes. A spokesman for the United States Central Command, Maj. Curtis J. Kellogg, said American officials had “no evidence indicating Kurdish fighters were killed in a coalition airstrike last night. Regardless, we take such reports seriously and will […]

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4580 Votes It’s been a month since President Obama announced that the U.S. would engage in a sustained campaign of airstrikes against Islamic State, the militant Sunni rebellion in Syria and Iraq. The idea was to bomb Islamic State into nonexistence, which has proved difficult. Not only is the movement well-armed, battle-hardened, and deeply entrenched in much of Syria and northern Iraq, it’s also very well-financed, thanks to oil wells and refineries it’s been able to capture. By late June, Islamic State was raising as much as $2 million a day refining and smuggling oil, making it one of history’s wealthiest terrorist groups. Though the airstrikes have failed to keep Islamic State from advancing in the field, they have apparently succeeded in dismantling its sophisticated oil network, reducing the movement’s ability to make gasoline and diesel for its tanks and trucks and cutting off a vital source of funding. […]

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Deadly clashes broke out across southeast Turkey as the region’s Kurds protested the government’s limited response to Islamic State militants threatening the town of Kobani just across the Syrian border. Demonstrators fought with police and, in some areas, with members of local Islamist groups, according to Turkish media. Haberturk website said at least 15 people were killed in the violence, most of them in Diyarbakir, Turkey’s largest Kurdish city. A curfew was imposed there at 10 p.m. local time yesterday, as well as in Mardin, Siirt, Batman and Van, according to Hurriyet newspaper, which put the death toll at 14. The outpouring of anger came as Syrian Kurdish fighters failed to stop Islamic State advancing through the outskirts of Kobani, a mainly Kurdish town that militants besieged three weeks ago. Kurds have blamed the Turkish government for not doing enough to help the town’s defenders and warned that the […]

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Who Is Buying The Islamic State’s Illegal Oil? In June 2014, computer files captured from a courier for the Islamic State shortly after the fall of Mosul revealed that the group had assets of $875 million , largely gained in the sacking and looting of Mosul and its central bank. The size of the group’s bank account has now risen to an estimated $2 billion dollars, thanks in part to revenues from ransom paid for kidnapped foreigners and more pillaging. However, oil remains the group’s primary source of income. The 11 oil fields that IS controls in Iraq and Syria have made it a largely independent financial machine. Reports show that IS-controlled fields in Iraq produce between 25,000 and 40,000 barrels of oil per day, at an estimated value of approximately $1.2 million, before being smuggled out to Iran, Kurdistan, Turkey and Syria. That doesn’t account for revenue from […]

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Gulfsands Petroleum says its interests in northeast Syria are secure amid the country’s ongoing civil war and recent U.S. and coalition air strikes against Islamic State terrorists in the country. Above, a pair of U.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagles fly over northern Iraq after conducting air strikes in Syria Sept. 23, 2014. UPI/Matthew Bruch/USAF LONDON, Sept. 30 (UPI) — Though operations in Syria are idled because of economic sanctions, Gulfsands Petroleum said Tuesday its assets in the northeast of the country are secured. Gulfsands Petroleum was one of the last energy companies operating in Syria to suspend operations amid ongoing civil war. In an interim statement on quarterly results, the company said economic sanctions on Syria mean operations at so-called Block 26 are shut down and not generating revenue for the company . "We are at least fortunate in being able to report that our facilities in Syria’s […]

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