U.S.-led strikes hit Islamic State-held oil sites in Syria

"as more families of militants left their key stronghold"

Are these family members classified as civilians?

No, they are not civilians. Kill them all!

Yea! Another war for the land of the fee! Peace was threatening to bloom but now the US military industrial complex is secure.

@yuri

Peace? Where?

So the US-led airstrikes have officially bombed 12 refineries, yet the IS only control six of them. I guess we are also bombing Syrian refineries, it looks like the US is using the IS as an excuses to bomb Syrian necessities as well.

Remember Obama two years ago? Al Quaeda is on the run, the war on terrorism can wind down, Iraq is stable, democracy is spreading all over the Middle East.... now it is just "never mind".

Just image the press feeding frenzy if GWB was caught flat-footed like this.

it all comes back to oil,

the USA only got in to the fight when the Kurdish oil fields were in danger, and now they strike the syrian held ones- i have no doubt there will be a small "independent force" installed to keep the pumps going but not for Assad.

the Islamic State held no danger to the US or EU, to that area maybe - but Iraq gave them most of their arms just to remove a government without an election.

and please don;t point to the hostages- the USA lost points when they refused to negotiate- they did for Bergdahl- a soldier who decided to go native, and then left those poor reporters go to their deaths- if the US was such a good policeman it would be helping the Ukraine instead of fighting camel herders

WilliB: "Just image the press feeding frenzy if GWB was caught flat footed like this" GWB WAS caught flat footed, "mission acomplished?" Though I agree that Obama already made mistakes (in regards to this subject) and is making more mistakes now. It appears he has both parties on his side, at the moment. That's probably why he isn't getting as much negative attention.

Annnnnnnd the Syria thread is officially political. Took about 5 minutes.

||The strikes aimed to knock out one of the militants main revenue streams, black market oil sales that the U.S. says earn up to $2 million a day for the group. That funding, along with a further estimated $1 million a day from other smuggling, theft and extortion, has been crucial in enabling the extremists to overrun much of Syria and neighboring Iraq.||

Do not believe it for a second. ISIL is not dependent on raising petty cash like this. The entire stock explanation about smuggling, theft and extortion is just a canned cover story feed to all the benighted press corps scribes. Two objectives are at play. One is cutting back on fuel availability to run militant vehicles. The second is to preempt anyone setting these facilities alight and reducing air to ground visibility. Now that the facilities are no longer assets in terms of fuel supply they will be torched. That wreaks havoc with satellite imaging. It also turns the sand black and the air sour forcing more reluctant and bedraggled refugees north into Turkey.

Horizon360: agreed, but you forgot to mention that we are also using this as an excuse to attack Syrian oil refineries. We bombed six IS controlled refineries and six more controlled by Syria. This was their loophole to attack Syria without negative publicity.