US-led coalition airstrikes hit four ISIS-held oil refineries in Syria

The US and Arab allies’ airstrikes have hit four makeshift oil refineries under Islamic State (ISIS) control in Syria, as well as a command centre.

Early indications were that the attacks by US, Saudi and UAE planes were successful, US Central Command said.

Explosions at a refinery at Tel Abyad, near the Turkish border, lit up the night sky, an eyewitness watching from across the frontier said.

Meanwhile further fighting was reported in the besieged border town of Kobane.

There was no repetition on Sunday of coalition airstrikes on ISIS positions in the area, where Syrian Kurd fighters have been holding out against the militants.

The ISIS advance in the area sent about 140,000 civilians fleeing towards Turkey.

An initial wave of coalition air attacks on Thursday, the third day of the air campaign against ISIS in Syria, targeted 12 refineries.

According to the Pentagon, small-scale mobile refineries used by IS in Syria generate up to $2 million per day in revenue for the militants.

The US-led coalition of about 40 countries, including Arab states, has vowed to destroy IS, which controls large parts of north-eastern Syria and northern Iraq.

The group’s brutal tactics, including mass killings, beheadings and abductions of members of religious and ethnic minorities, triggered the international intervention.

Al-Nusra Front, a fellow Islamist militant group in Syria, has denounced the air strikes as “a war against Islam” and called on jihadists around the world to target Western and Arab countries involved.

“Although we continue to assess the outcome of these attacks, initial indications are that they were successful,” US Central Command said after Sunday’s strikes.

Blasts at the Tel Abyad refinery around 02:30 local time sent flames soaring 200ft into the sky, Turkish businessman Mehmet Ozer, who lives in the nearby Turkish town of Akcakale, told AP news agency.

They continued for two hours, rocking the building from which he was watching, Mehmet Ozer said.

Both the refinery and the local ISIS headquarters were bombed, Turkey’s Dogan news agency said.