RT, AP, Buisiness Insider — Intensifying pressure on the Islamic State, United States warplanes for the first time attacked hundreds of trucks on Monday that the extremist group has been using to smuggle the crude oil it has been producing in Syria, American officials said.
According to an initial assessment, 116 trucks were destroyed in the attack, which took place near Deir al-Zour, an area in eastern Syria that is controlled by the Islamic State.
The airstrikes were carried out by four A-10 attack planes and two AC-130 gunships based in Turkey.
The issue of IS revenues from oil sales was also raised by president Putin at the G20 summit:
“I’ve shown our colleagues photos taken from space and from aircraft which clearly demonstrate the scale of the illegal trade in oil and petroleum products,”
“The motorcade of refueling vehicles stretched for dozens of kilometers, so that from a height of 4,000 to 5,000 meters they stretch beyond the horizon,” Putin said.
Prior to Monday, the United States had refused to strike the over 1,000 ISIS controlled tanker trucks out of a stated concern about causing civilian casualties.
An article published last month in Business Insider claimed that the Islamic State rakes in up to $50 million a month from selling crude from oilfields under its control in Iraq and Syria.
Oil sales are a key reason the extremists have been able to maintain their rule over their self-declared “caliphate” stretching across large parts of Syria and Iraq. With the funds to rebuild infrastructure and provide the largesse that shore up its fighters’ loyalty, it has been able to withstand ground fighting against its opponents and more than a year of bombardment in the U.S.-led air campaign.
The group has even been able to bring in equipment and technical experts from abroad to keep the industry running.
Washington has been talking to regional governments, including Turkey, about its concerns over the importing of energy infrastructure into IS-run territory in Syria, including equipment for extraction, refinement, transport and energy production, according to a senior U.S. official with firsthand knowledge of the IS oil sector.
Speaking to The Associated Press in Washington, he said international actors in the region were intentionally or unintentionally aiding this effort and called IS’ management of its oil fields “increasingly sophisticated,” something that has helped the group slow down the degradation of its infrastructure from U.S. bombing raids. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the press.
IS sells the crude to smugglers for discounted prices, sometimes $35 per barrel but as low as $10 a barrel in some cases, compared to just under $50 a barrel on international markets, four Iraqi intelligence officials told the AP in separate interviews. The smugglers in turn sell to middlemen in Turkey, they said. The oil used to be smuggled in fleets of giant tankers but, fearing airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition, smaller tankers are being used now.
The Islamic State group is believed to be extracting about 30,000 barrels per day from Syria, smuggled to middlemen in neighboring Turkey. In Iraq, they produce around 10,000-20,000 barrels per day, mostly from two oilfields outside Mosul, Ibrahim Bahr al-Oloum, a member of Iraq’s parliamentary energy committee and a former oil minister, told the AP. But he said much of the Iraqi production is not sold and instead sent to Syria to makeshift refineries the group has set up to produce fuel products.
In total, the group is believed to make $40-$50 million a month from sales, the Iraqi officials said. A report by the Islamic State’s Diwan al-Rakaaez — its version of a Finance Ministry — seen by the AP in Baghdad shows that revenues from oil sales from Syria alone last April totaled $46.7 million. The IS “finance ministry” report put at 253 the number of oil wells under IS control in Syria, saying 161 of them were operational. Running the wells were 275 engineers and 1,107 workers, it said.
