According to Pentagon officials, a series of Saturday airstrikes against ISIS-held territory in the Hasakeh and Deir Ezzor Provinces in eastern Syria destroyed 283 fuel tankers, which were being used to transport oil around the territory.
This is the second major series of attacks on fuel tankers there in less than a week, as on the previous Sunday US offiicals claimed to have destroyed 116 other tankers, claiming they were being used the facilitate ISIS oil smuggling operations.
Despite the claims, the tankers were not owned by ISIS, but by private operators. The Pentagon said it had previously avoided the fuel trucks over fears of civilian casualties, and said it dropped leaflets ahead of these recent attacks to warn drivers to abandon their trucks ahead of the bombings. It’s unclear how many were killed in the strikes.
Though US officials are presenting the attacks as meant to stop ISIS profiting off of oil exports, so far the destruction has simply reduced the amount of available supply for smugglers and meant rising prices in the areas served by the smuggling operations.
After pussy-footing for more than a year, all of a sudden, according to the pentagon, they blow away 283 oil tankers? I don't believe a word of it. Face-saving propaganda trying to neutralize the progress of Russian air-power.
This of course has absolutely nothing to do with Putin telling the G20 the other day that Russian satellite images show oil tankers loading up as far as the eye can see. So the Russians take out the tankers and the U.S. Pretends it was they who took out the tankers once the tankers were taken out.
forget isis. this is all about assad. since he no longer "has to go" (at least not yet),
what's left of syria's economy must be destroyed in order to increase pain and suffering
of the people, in hopes of fomenting a real rebellion, not one conducted by cia mercs.
why should it be necessary to destroy tankers? weren't we successful in shutting
down iran's oil/gas exports without bombing. (sorry, mr. mccain.)
Can't believe a word of it. And is there any "evidence", propaganda or otherwise, to back up these lies? It took Russia to finally throw the mask down on these lying jokers. And even then they can't pull it together.