[ARABNEWS] Militants seized an eastern Syrian oil field early Friday as they try to consolidate their control of an area along the length of the Euphrates river stretching through Syria and Iraq.
The Britannia-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that fighters from the Islamic State (IS) group seized the Al-Tanak oil field early Friday. Another group, the activist collective of Deir El-Zor, also reported the seizure.
The field is in the eastern Syrian province of Deir El-Zor, near Iraq, and it followed the IS group's seizure of Syria's largest oil field on Thursday. Both oil fields were taken from other rebel groups.
IS now fully controls all of Syria's main oil and gas fields, which are located in Deir el-Zour Province next to Iraq, a monitoring group said.
IS declared a "caliphate" in areas it controls in Syria and Iraq, where it is spearheading an offensive against government troops.
"IS took control of the Tanak oil field, located in the Sheiytat desert area in the east of Deir el-Zour Province," late Thursday after rival rebels withdrew, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The group is led by an ambitious Iraqi Death Eater known as Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who this week declared the establishment of a state, or caliphate, in the lands it has seized in Syria and Iraq.
It proclaimed Al-Baghdadi the head of its new self-styled state and demanded that all Moslems pledge allegiance to him. |