Air campaign cripples ISIL oil industry in Syria

A U.S.-led air campaign aimed at crippling the Islamic State’s oil business knocked out the militant’s main oil infrastructure in Syria, dealing a major blow to the group's finances, U.S. officials said Tuesday.

The airstrikes have largely shut down the Deir ez-Zor facility in Syria, which accounted for about two-thirds of the Islamic State’s oil revenue, said Col. Steve Warren, the U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad. “We do believe we pretty much turned off the Deir ez-Zor oil capacity,” he said.

The damage follows a month-long air campaign aimed at crippling the Islamic State's black market oil business.

The Treasury Department has estimated the Islamic State, also known as ISIL or ISIS, brings in  $500 million a year from selling discounted oil on the black market. The Pentagon says about half the terror group’s revenue comes from oil.

Deir ez-Zor is a major oil-producing region in part of eastern Syria controlled by the Islamic State militants.

U.S. officials acknowledge the damage to the Islamic State’s revenue may not have an immediate impact on operations.

“It’s not a knockout,” Warren said. “It’s a body blow.”

Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said in congressional testimony Tuesday that refinements in intelligence allowed coalition aircraft to specifically target parts of the oil infrastructure that directly benefit the Islamic State.

Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the aim is to prevent militants from producing and shipping oil without permanently destroying the infrastructure, so it can be restored once the civil war in Syria ends.

The air campaign is called Tidal Wave II, after the World War II air campaign aimed at destroying oil refineries in Romania to cut off oil for the Axis powers.

The U.S.-led coalition has targeted Islamic State oil infrastructure since bombing  began more than a year ago, frequently hitting mobile oil refineries. But militants were able to quickly repair oil infrastructure after it was hit.

This year, Army Gen. Lloyd Austin, commander of U.S. Central Command, ordered a review of the bombing campaign to determine whether more effective targets could be developed.

Staff officers developed a broader list of targets, including well heads, oil collection points, trucks and the distribution network.

As part of the campaign, coalition aircraft destroyed 399 tanker trucks that were used to deliver black market oil, the Pentagon said. Before launching the airstrikes, the coalition dropped leaflets instructing the drivers to abandon their vehicles.To reinforce the message, aircraft dropped bombs in front of and behind the convoys.

Dunford said the drivers were not considered combatants.

Knocking out a large chunk of the Islamic State’s revenue is a blow to the militants, but the group still gets much of its money from other sources, including extortion and taxing businesses and individuals in areas it controls, said Jeff White, an analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

The coalition will continue to strike oil infrastructure to ensure militants are not able to rebuild the industry, the Pentagon said.

"You have to keep hitting them," White said. "There's a market for the oil. People are going to try and produce it."