Airstrikes likely carried out by the US-led coalition yesterday struck an oil refinery in Syria held by the Islamic State group, shaking buildings and sending flames shooting into the air near the Turkish border, a witness and activists said.
Meanwhile, al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate warned that Muslims would attack countries taking part in the coalition air raids, which have targeted both the Islamic State group, previously known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant — with which al-Qaeda is at war — as well as hardline militants battling to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Explosions lit the sky for two hours at the refinery in the northern Syrian town of Tel Abyad about 2:30am, said Turkish businessman Mehmet Ozer, who lives in the nearby Turkish town of Akcakale.
“Our building was shaking and we saw fire, some 60 meters high, coming from the refinery,” he said.
The strikes were also reported by the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and Turkey’s Dogan news agency.
Dogan said the strikes targeted an oil refinery and the local headquarters of the Islamic State group.
US Central Command, which is overseeing the air campaign, did not immediately comment on the strikes.
The US-led coalition has been targeting oil installations across Syria controlled by the extremist group, aiming to cripple its finances. The group is believed to earn about US$3 million a day from selling smuggled oil on the black market as well as kidnapping and extortion.
On Saturday, the Pentagon said that it had conducted its first strikes against Islamic State targets in a besieged Kurdish area of Syria along the Turkish border, destroying two armored vehicles in an area that has been the subject of a week-long onslaught by the Islamic State.
The action around Kobani, where at least 150,000 refugees have crossed into Turkey, appeared to signify the opening of a new front for US airstrikes in Syria, and came on a day when several other strikes took place in Raqqa, the **de facto headquarters of the Islamic State’s forces, and other sites in the eastern part of the country.
Symbolically, the modest strikes around Kobani demonstrated some US and Arab commitment to the direct defense of the Kurds in an area that, village by village, has been falling to forces of the Islamic State.
After days of pleading for air cover, Kurds watching the fighting from across the Turkish border west of Kobani were gleeful as jets roared overhead and two columns of smoke could be seen from the eastern front kilometers away. They hoped it meant that US warplanes had finally come to their aid.
“Without [US] President [Barack] Obama, we would all lose our heads,” Syrian Kurd Sheik Mohammad Bozan said.
In a statement, the US Central Command said strikes around the country had been carried out with forces from Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates — it did not specify which aircraft hit which areas — and that “all aircraft exited the strike areas safely.”
Additional reporting by NY Times News Service
This story has been updated since it was first published.
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