U.S.-led Coalition Strikes ISIS Oil Facilities in Syria
ABC News reports that U.S. and Arab coalition members conducted a second round of airstrikes in Syria on Wednesday, targeting oil facilities held by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Illicit oil sales are one of the Sunni militant group’s key means of funding.
“I can confirm that U.S. military and Arab partner forces are undertaking additional strikes today against ISIL terrorists in Syria,” Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby told ABC. Kirby also said 12 targets in remote areas of eastern Syria were hit in Wednesday’s strikes, which targeted on modular oil refineries – and that the strikes were meant to hit ISIS’s finances.
Meanwhile, Brookings Doha fellow Luay al-Khatteeb, writing on CNN.com, says that ISIS “is now handling 60 percent of the country’s oil assets and producing 50,000 barrels a day.
“This is not full capacity: pre-conflict, the assets would have produced around 220,000 barrels a day out of the country’s 385,000, according to Iraq Energy Institute figures. However, ISIS do control key oil fields including Al Omar, Tanak and Shadadi. ISIS also handle at least 25,000 barrels of oil a day in north and mid-west Iraq, but that is only a small slice of the country’s total production.
“This oil has found its way to the global economy through Turkey’s southern corridor. This black-economy zone is known for its oil trades, smuggling antiquities from Iraq and Syria’s ancient sites, and funneling thousands of jihadists to both countries.”
And Reuters reports that despite U.S. aerial strikes against ISIS in Syria, the group has continued to make gains.
In a separate story, Kurdish officials told the wire that their forces in northern Syria had pushed back an ISIS advance near the border town of Kobani in overnight clashes Thursday.
ISIS “launched a fresh offensive to try to capture Kobani more than a week ago after months of fighting. More than 100,000 Kurds have fled the town and surrounding villages, crossing over the nearby border into Turkey,” Reuters says.
“Officials said the Islamic State had concentrated their fighters south of Kobani late on Wednesday and had pushed towards the town but Kurdish YPG forces repelled them.”
Meanwhile, Lebanon is cracking down on Islamist militants who have been operating in its northern border cities – namely the town of Arsal – detaining 450 near over the past two weeks.
“Arsal was the scene last month of the deadliest spillover of fighting in the three-year civil war in Syria, and during clashes that killed dozens, militants captured a group of Lebanese soldiers and have since killed at least three of them,” Reuters reports. “They are believed to be holding more than a dozen others.”
Speaking at UNGA, Obama, Cameron Vow to Contain ISIS
The New York Times reports that President Obama, speaking at the U.N. General Assembly Wednesday, “charted a muscular new course for the United States in a turbulent world, telling the United Nations General Assembly in a bluntly worded speech that the American military would work with allies to dismantle the Islamic State’s ‘network of death’ and warning Russia that it would pay for its bullying of Ukraine.
Obama is looking to anchor a global coalition that would be responsible for training troops – likely moderate Syrian rebels – to fight ISIS and halt the flow of foreign recruits to its ranks. “Today, I ask the world to join in this effort,” the paper quotes him as saying.
Meanwhile, the Independent reports that British Prime Minister David Cameron, also speaking at the UNGA, said that ISIS has “murderous plans to expand its borders well beyond Iraq and Syria … and to carry out terrorist atrocities right across the world.” He vowed effort by the U.K. – which has seen hundreds of nationals join ISIS – in fighting it.
“The U.N. Security Council has now received a clear request from the Iraqi government to support it in its military action,” the paper quotes him as saying. “We have a clear basis in international law for action.”
“Cameron confirmed he will seek approval from parliament for Britain to join coalition countries, led by the United States, unleashing aerial strikes against ISIS inside Iraq.”
Syrian Woman Films Daily Life in Raqqa
The Telegraph reports that a woman from Raqqa carried a hidden camera in order to document what life is like for women inside the eastern city that has become ISIS’s de facto capital. The video aired this week on the channel France 2.
“Filmed in February and April this year, the footage shows men and women carrying weapons as they go about their business in busy streets. A veiled woman with an AK-47 slung over her shoulder can be seen holding a child’s hand as they enter a playground. At one point a man in a car pulls up and beckons to the undercover videographer to come forward before berating her for not sufficiently hiding her face under her veil.”
The video also shows French nationals talking with relatives at home via the internet, telling them they are happy and do not plan to return to France.