Air strike on Islamic State-run refinery in Syria kills 30

[BEIRUT] A US-led coalition air strike in Syria hit an oil refinery run by the Islamic State militant group near the border with Turkey on Sunday, killing 30 people, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.

Rami Abdulrahman, who runs the Observatory, said the dead were refinery workers and Islamic State militants. The targeted refinery was just northeast of the town of Tel Abyad near the Turkish border, he said.

The Islamic State group has seized wide areas of Syria and Iraq, declaring them part of a cross-border "caliphate". The territories it controls in northern and eastern Syria include oil-producing regions that have financed the group's activities.

In November the United Nations estimated Islamic State's revenue from oil ranged between US$846,000 to $1.6 million a day.

However, the Pentagon has assessed that oil was no longer the main source of revenue for Islamic State. Western diplomats have said this was due to air strikes on oil installations and a plunge in global oil prices that has affected black market prices as well.

REUTERS