U.S. Warplanes Strike ISIS Oil Trucks in Syria
By MICHAEL R. GORDON

ISTANBUL — Intensifying pressure on the Islamic State, United States warplanes for the first time attacked hundreds of trucks on Monday that the extremist group has been using to smuggle the crude oil it has been producing in Syria, American officials said.

According to an initial assessment, 116 trucks were destroyed in the attack, which took place near Deir al-Zour, an area in eastern Syria that is controlled by the Islamic State.

The airstrikes were carried out by four A-10 attack planes and two AC-130 gunships based in Turkey.

Plans for the strike were developed well before the terrorist attacks in and around Paris on Friday, officials familiar with the operation said, part of a broader operation to disrupt the ability of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, to generate revenue to support its military operations and govern its territory.

American officials have long been frustrated by ability of ISIS to generate tens of million of dollars a month by producing and exporting oil.

To disrupt that source of revenue, American officials said last week that the United States had sharply stepped up its airstrikes against infrastructure that allows ISIS to pump oil in Syria.

Until Monday, the United States had refrained from striking the fleet used to transport oil, believed to include more than 1,000 tanker trucks, because of concerns about causing civilian casualties. As a result, the Islamic State’s distribution system for exporting oil had remained largely intact.

The new campaign is called Tidal Wave II. It is named after the World War II effort to counter Nazi Germany by striking Romania’s oil industry. Lt. Gen. Sean B. MacFarland, who in September assumed command of the international coalition’s campaign in Iraq and Syria, suggested the name.

To reduce the risk of harming civilians, two F-15 warplanes dropped leaflets about an hour before the attack warning drivers to abandon their vehicles, and strafing runs were conducted to reinforce the message.

The area where the trucks assemble in Syria has been closely monitored by reconnaissance drones. As many as 1,000 trucks have been observed there, waiting to receive their cargo of illicit oil.

On Monday, 295 trucks were in the area, and more than a third of them were destroyed, United States officials said. The A-10s dropped two dozen 500-pound bombs and conducted strafing runs with 30-millimeter Gatling guns. The AC-130s attacked with 30-millimeter Gatling guns and 105-millimeter cannons.

The pilots saw several drivers running to a nearby tent and did not attack them, an American official said, and there were no immediate reports of civilian casualties.

Col. Steven H. Warren, a Baghdad-based spokesman for the American-led coalition, confirmed that A-10s and AC-130s had been used in the attack and that 116 tanker trucks had been destroyed.

“This part of Tidal Wave II is designed to attack the distribution component of ISIL’s oil smuggling operation and degrade their capacity to fund their military operations,” Colonel Warren said.

The strike comes just days after Kurdish and Yazidi fighters, backed by American airstrikes, cut an important road, Highway 47, that ISIS has used to move supplies and fighters between Syria and Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, which was captured by the militant group last year.

That road was cut on Thursday, and Kurdish and Yazidi fighters retook the Iraqi city of Sinjar the next day.

The American operation against the oil trucks followed a French on raid Sunday on two Islamic State targets in Raqqa, Syria, which allied officials identified as a headquarters building and a training camp.

More than 20 bombs were dropped by French planes in the attack, an allied official said. It is not clear how much damage was caused, and no secondary explosions were observed.

斷金脈…美轟炸IS油罐車

美國16日增強打擊「伊斯蘭國」（IS）的力道，首度派出戰機空襲IS載運走私原油的數百輛油罐車。

紐約時報報導，初步統計共有116輛油罐車遭炸毀，攻擊發生地點為代爾祖爾附近。現為IS所控制的該地區位在敘利亞東側，與伊拉克相鄰。美軍從土耳其基地派出4架A-10攻擊機以及兩架AC-130空中砲艇機來執行此次空襲行動。

上周五法國巴黎發生恐怖攻擊前，美軍就已計畫好此次空襲行動，而這次的攻擊是要破壞IS利用石油收入來支持其軍事行動跟控制領土的能力。

IS透過石油生產及出口，每月收入達4000萬美元（約台幣13億元），這令長期以來試圖削弱IS財力的美國深感挫折。

為了切斷IS資金來源，美國官員上周表示，美軍已針對IS在敘利亞境內的抽油泵設施加大空襲力道。

由於擔心平民傷亡，美先前對於攻擊IS的油罐車車隊一直有所保留，而這也是IS的石油分送系統大部分仍完好無損的原因。估計IS擁有超過1000輛油罐車。

這場新空襲行動的名稱為「浪潮 II」，以二次世界大戰時攻擊羅馬尼亞石油工業反擊納粹德國的行動來命名。為降低傷害平民的風險，在空襲前約一個小時，美軍兩架F-15戰機投下傳單警告油罐車駕駛人棄車離開，並進行空中掃射來加強訊息的傳遞。

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/17/world/middleeast/us-strikes-syria-oil.html

2015-11-17．聯合報．A4．要聞．編譯陳韋廷