Islamic State militants seize Syria's largest oil field, eastern towns

PanARMENIAN.Net - Militants from the Islamic State group seized control of Syria's largest oil field from rival Islamist fighters on Thursday, July 3 strengthening its advance across the eastern Deir al-Zor province, an opposition monitoring group said, according to Reuters.

The capture of the al-Omar oil field gives Islamic State control of crude reserves which could be useful to its advancing fighters, and underlines how the al Qaeda offshoot has eclipsed its militant rivals by capturing territory and assets across Syria and Iraq in the past few weeks.

It has declared an Islamic 'caliphate' on lands it has seized in both countries, and urged Muslims worldwide to flock there and wage holy war.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the Islamic State "took leadership" of the oil field from Nusra Front, the official wing of al Qaeda in Syria.

A video posted on the Internet showed a group of armed men dressed in black outside what they said was the entrance to al-Omar oil field. One fighter said they had not faced any resistance from Nusra Front and that they had captured the field on the fifth day of Ramadan, or Thursday.

Nusra Front, which had captured the oil field from the Syrian government in November, had claimed to be producing around 10,000 barrels of oil a day from the field, which has a capacity of 75,000.

Syria is not a significant oil producer and has not exported any oil since late 2011, when international sanctions took effect to raise pressure on President Bashar al-Assad.

Before sanctions, Syria exported 370,000 barrels per day, mainly to Europe.