US-led Coalition Strikes Destroy More ISIS Oil Assets in Syria

U.S. and coalition military forces have conducted air strikes and destroyed ISIS oil pump jacks and oil tanker trucks in Syria, the U.S. Department of Defense said on Tuesday. 

The coalition strikes destroyed two oil pump jacks, an oil tank and a headquarters building near Raqqa, the Islamic State militants’ de facto capital in Syria. Three other strikes near Deir Ezzor, close to the border with Iraq, destroyed 13 ISIS oil tanker trucks and a tractor trailer, and strikes near Manbij destroyed an ISIS fighting position.

The coalition forces, supported by Iraq’s government, also destroyed ISIS military equipment in Iraq, the Department of Defense said.

“Other airstrikes targeted ISIS oil facilities, causing huge explosions and a state of alert among ISIS ranks,” the ARA News agency quoted media activist Omar Rihawi as saying about the Raqqa strikes.

Last month, a coalition forces air strike in the province of Deir Ezzor destroyed 83 oil tank trucks used by ISIS to transport crude, the group’s major source of funding. The air strike was part of the larger Tidal Wave II operation whose ultimate goal is to destroy ISIS’ oil-smuggling activities, depriving the terrorist organization of its main means of supporting itself.

Apart from the coalition forces, the Syrian army has also been conducting military operations, and earlier this month, the army carried out a series of air strikes across the country, which killed scores of militants and destroyed various vehicles, including a caravan of oil tanks in the southern province of Sweida.

In August, the Syrian armed forces bombed a fuel convoy in Sweida, destroying at least four tankers, and hit ISIS in oil-rich Homs, to the east of the ancient town of Palmyra that had been destroyed by the terrorist group. In late July, the Syrian Army retook strategic points along a major oil pipeline in Al-Badia in western Syria from ISIS, after several days of fighting.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

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