US: Islamic State is selling oil to Assad’s Syrian regime

Islamic State militants have made more than $500 million trading oil with significant volumes sold to the government of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and some finding its way to Turkey, a senior US treasury official said.

The United States, France, Britain, and Russia have vowed to defeat Islamic State, which uses an extreme interpretation of Islam to justify attacks and brutality in large parts of Syria and Iraq that it controls.

A US-led coalition is bombing the hardline Sunni group, as is Assad’s only big-power supporter Russia, in an attempt to kill its leaders and cripple the oil wells which the group uses to finance its rule and attacks abroad.