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Coalition targets source of IS cash
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US-LED coalition aircraft bombed oil installations and other facilities in territory controlled by Islamic State militants in eastern Syria yesterday, taking aim for a second consecutive day at a key source of financing for the extremist group.
The strikes hit two oil areas in Deir el-Zour province a day after the United States and its Arab allies pummeled a dozen makeshift oil producing facilities in the same area near Syria’s border with Iraq. The raids aim to cripple one of the militants’ primary sources of cash — black market oil sales the US says generate up to US$2 million a day.
While UK Prime Minister David Cameron was urging lawmakers yesterday to vote to join the air strikes, Denmark Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt said his country was to send seven F-16 fighter jets to help combat militants in Iraq.
The German government also offered its clear support for US-led air strikes, with an aide to Chancellor Angela Merkel pointing out that Damascus had not made any protest.
The US-led coalition, which began its aerial campaign against Islamic State fighters in Syria on Tuesday, aims to roll back and ultimately crush the extremist group that has created a proto-state spanning the Syria-Iraq border. Along the way, the militants have massacred captured Syrian and Iraqi troops, terrorized minorities in both countries and beheaded two American journalists and a British aid worker.
The air assault has taken aim at Islamic State checkpoints, training grounds, oil fields, vehicles and bases as well as buildings used as headquarters and offices.
Denmark’s decision to take part in the campaign in Iraq is expected to receive the support of a majority in parliament and the F-16s could be dispatched next week. They will be deployed for 12 months.
“The terror group IS is a terrible organization that Denmark should help battle,” Thorning-Schmidt said.
Germany looks unlikely to join the attacks in northern and eastern Syria, though it has sent weapons, trainers and equipment to Kurdish forces fighting in Iraq.
“The attacks in northern Syria are not about Syria itself or the Syrian government, it is about helping the Iraqi government to defend Iraq against attacks carried out by IS from Syria,” said Merkel’s spokesman Steffen Seibert.
“That is the point of this military operation. The Syrian government was advised beforehand and has made no protest,” he told a news conference.
The international operation targeting the Islamic State group adds another layer to Syria’s civil war, a conflict that has already killed more than 190,000 people since the revolt against President Bashar Assad began in March 2011.
The Islamic State group, meanwhile, continued to press its offensive near the Turkish border against Syrian Kurds, closing in on the border town of Ayn Arab, also known as Kobani. The militants have overrun dozens of villages the area in recent weeks as they look to clear out one of the few remaining pockets of resistance to their rule in northern Syria.
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