United States warplanes for the first time attacked hundreds of
trucks on November 16 that Daesh also known as ISIS or ISIL has been
using to smuggle the crude oil it has been producing in Syria in an
effort to curtail the extremist group’s income.
Reconnaissance drones have closely monitored the area where the
trucks assemble in Syria. 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 Daesh, American officials
said. The airstrikes were carried out by four A-10 attack planes and two
AC-130 gunships based in Turkey.
Plans for the strike were reportedly developed well before the terrorist attacks in and around Paris on November 13.
“Why the US has not done before, I don’t get it,” Fadel Gheit,
managing director and senior analyst at Oppenheimer in New York, told
New Europe on November 16. “Shame on us for not totally obliterating
their energy infrastructure in the area of Iraq and Syria that they
occupy because at the end of the day they cannot move without gasoline
and diesel,” he said.
The new campaign is called Tidal Wave II. It is named after the World
War II effort to counter Nazi Germany by striking Romania’s oil
industry. “This part of Tidal Wave II is designed to attack the
distribution component of ISIL’s oil smuggling operation and degrade
their capacity to fund their military operations,” said Colonel Steven
H. Warren, a Baghdad-based spokesman for the American-led coalition.
Daesh is reported to be in control of certain oil fields in the
Middle East and have been selling the resource on the international
market. Currently, the extremists’ group reportedly pulls in around $50
million a month in revenue from oil and is forced to sell product at a
deeply discounted price. Estimates place the number at approximately $35
per barrel, but Daesh does manage to extract 30,000 barrels a day. It
uses oil revenues to fund its welfare state, which offers a cash benefit
to those who pledge allegiance to the extremists.
The self-proclaimed Islamic State emerged from a group of militants
in Iraq to take over large portions of Iraq and Syria, and now threatens
other countries in Europe and elsewhere.
The anti-ISIS airstrikes came after the jihadist group took credit
for the devastating terrorist attacks in Paris on November 13 that
killed 129 people and left 352 injured. The American operation against
the oil trucks followed a French on raid on November 15 on two ISIS
targets in Raqqa, Syria, which allied officials identified as a
headquarters building and a training camp. French planes dropped more
than 20 bombs in the attack. The Paris attacks are now triggering a more
coordinated response against Daesh.
“They have to eradicated like cancer,” Gheit said. “This is not
temporary. Unfortunately the West ignored it completely because they do
not want to deal with this mess. But they created one – six-seven
million refugees,” he added.
“Poor leadership. There is no one carrying the fight to these thugs.
These are criminals, they are not state; they have nothing to do with
religion. People do not realise that ISIS killed more Muslims than
non-Muslims,” Gheit said.
Oil prices rose earlier on November 16 after France escalated its air
campaign against Daesh. However, ample production of crude oil around
the world and a huge overhang of supplies limited price gains.
Meanwhile, portfolio managers are buying oil stocks as an insurance
policy, Gheit said. “People are saying oil prices have bottomed so we
better buy oil stocks,” he said.
http://neurope.eu/article/us-warplanes-strike-daesh-oil-trucks/