Syria: USallied forces take major oilfield from IS
KEY REVENUE SOURCE AlOmar fields produced 9,000 barrels a day in 2014 BEIRUT/MOSCOW:
US-allied forces said on Sunday they have captured Syria’s largest oil field from the Islamic State group.
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, who are in a race with Russian-backed Syrian troops to seize parts of the oil-rich Deir el-Zour province, said they are in full control of the Al-Omar field.
The SDF has already driven IS from Deir el-Zour’s main natural gas field and smaller oil fields. It says government forces are 3 km away from the fields.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says pro- government forces retreated from the area around Al-Omar field after coming under heavy fire from IS militants.
IS captured Al-Omar in 2014, when the group swept across large areas in Syria and Iraq. The field was estimated to produce around 9,000 barrels a day, making it a key source of revenue for the extremists. Its current potential is unknown, following a series of strikes on IS-held oil facilities by the US-led coalition.
Al-Manar TV, operated by Hezbollah, said the fight for Al-Omar was still underway and denied the SDF’s claim to have captured it. The militant group is fighting alongside Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces.
RUSSIA:RAQQA BOMBING LIKE WW2 DRESDEN
Russia on Sunday accused the US-led coalition in Syria of having flattened Raqqa with a Dresden-like bombing campaign and masking the destruction with a rush of humanitarian aid.
In a statement, the defence ministry said that Raqqa — the capital of the Islamic State ’s selfproclaimed caliphate — “inherited the fate of Dresden in 1945, razed to the ground by AngloAmerican bombings.”
SDF forces last week recaptured Raqqa, the capital of IS’s self-proclaimed caliphate and its last major stronghold in Syria.
US officials hailed the event, led by President Donald Trump who, using another acronym for IS, said “the end of the ISIS caliphate is in sight.”
“The bravura statements by official representatives of the US administration about the ‘outstanding victory’ over IS in Raqqa prompt bafflement,” the Russian ministry said.
The US is overplaying the strategic significance of the fall of Raqqa, it charged.