US-led strikes hit oil sites

Associated Press

BEIRUT

U.S.-led airstrikes targeted Syrian oil installations held by the extremist Islamic State group Wednesday night and early Thursday, killing at least 19 people as more families of militants left their key stronghold, fearing further raids, activists said.

The strikes aimed to knock out one of the militants’ main revenue streams — black-market oil sales that the U.S. says earn up to $2 million a day for the group. That funding, along with a further estimated $1 million a day from other smuggling, theft and extortion, has been crucial in enabling the extremists to overrun much of Syria and neighboring Iraq.

The United States and its Arab allies have been carrying out strikes in Syria for the past three days, trying to uproot the group, which has carved out a self-declared state straddling the border, imposed a harsh version of Islamic law and massacred opponents. The U.S. has been conducting air raids against the group in neighboring Iraq for more than a month.

On the ground, Syria’s civil war raged on unabated, with government forces taking back an important industrial area near Damascus from the rebels, according to Syrian activists and state media. Activists also accused President Bashar Assad’s troops of using an unspecified deadly chemical substance.

The Islamic State group is believed to control 11 oil fields in Iraq and Syria. The new strikes involved six U.S. warplanes and 10 more from the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, mainly hitting small-scale refineries used by the militants in eastern Syria, Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby said.

At least 14 militants were killed, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the Syrian conflict through a network of activists on the ground.