US Warplanes Strike Daesh Oil Trucks

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.