ISISU.S. new strategy: Take out ISIS-controlled oil fields in Syria

In an effort to disrupt ISIS’ main source of income, U.S. and allied forces have significantly intensified their airstrikes against the oil fields that the militant group controls in eastern Syria.

ISIS’ oil production earns the about $40 million a month, or nearly $500 million a year, according to Treasury Department estimates.

The New York Times reports that the U.S.-led air campaign has included periodic airstrikes against oil refineries and other production facilities in eastern Syria, but that the organization’s engineers have been able to repair damage quickly and keep the oil production going. The Times notes that there was also a reluctance by the Obama administration to attack the Islamic State’s fleet of tanker trucks for fear of civilian casualties.

The administration has now decided to increase and intensify the attacks on ISIS’ oil production and distribution assets, focusing on inflicting damage which would require specially ordered parts to fix.

The new strategy was first demonstrated on 21 October, when B-1 bombers and other allied warplanes attacked twenty-six targets in the Omar oil field, one of the two largest oil-production sites in all of Syria. American military analysts estimate the Omar field generates between $1.7 million to $5.1 million per month for ISIS. French warplanes struck another oil field nearby earlier this week.

Military officials told the Times that the goal of the operation over the next several weeks is to cripple eight major oil fields, about two-thirds of the refineries, and other oil-production sites controlled by ISIS.

“We intend to shut it all down,” Col. Steven H. Warren, a military spokesman in Baghdad, told the Times in an e-mail on Thursday.

The goal of the new campaign is to paralyze the group’s oil-production capability not for days, but for six months to a year. Officials told the Times that the revised plan for attacking the oil-production sites was put together after weeks of intense study of eight major fields — Omar, Tanak, El Isbah, Sijan, Jafra, Azraq, Barghooth, and Abu Hardan — to determine how to inflict more financial hardship on the Islamic State.

In the first phase of the new air campaign, U.S.-led attacks damaged or destroyed more than two dozen smaller mobile refineries and about twice as many collection points where drivers dump their crude oil to be hauled to refineries.

Now that targeting is being intensified. “The art we had of building target sets and doing deep studies on adversaries, in some cases was a lost art,” Lt. Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., the head of that campaign, told the Times. “What targets are we not striking that we could go strike? How do we bring all the intelligence together?”

American commanders noted that it may take some time to assess the impact of the new targeting, given the financial reserves the militant group has built up.

Unlike measuring the immediate impact of bombing tanks or soldiers, “it might be longer to feel the effect of oil fields,” General Brown said.