(U.S. Defense Department) Rear Adm. Bill Byrne said Thursday, "The military mission in Syria continues. It is the defeat of ISIS, like it has been since 2014, shoulder-to-shoulder with our SDF [Syrian Democratic Forces] partners....The securing of the oil fields is a subordinate task to that mission, and the purpose of that task is to deny ISIS the revenues from that oil infrastructure....Back in 2015 when they [ISIS] were in control of that infrastructure, it was pumping out 45,000 barrels per day, to the tune of $1.5 million a day, to support their operations, and we're just not going to let that happen again." Jonathan Hoffman, Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, said control of the oil fields will "provide the Kurds in the area and the SDF forces to actually have a revenue stream and an ability to work on building up their strength for the D-ISIS [Defeat-ISIS] campaign. So it's preventing ISIS from getting it [and] allowing the Kurds and the SDF in there to have control of it, as well."
2019-11-08 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive