Jihadists control all main Syria oil fields

BEIRUT, July 4 (AFP): The jihadist Islamic State now fully controls all of Syria's main oil and gas fields, which are located in Deir Ezzor province next to Iraq, a monitoring group said.
IS declared an "Islamic caliphate" in areas it controls in Syria and Iraq, where it is spearheading an offensive against government troops.
"IS took control of the Tanak oil field, located in the Sheiytat desert area in the east of Deir Ezzor province," late Thursday after rival rebels withdrew, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Earlier that day the jihadists seized the major Al-Omar oil field.
They have still not captured the tiny Al-Ward oil field, which produces barely 200 barrels of oil per day and is in the hands of a local tribe, Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said.
IS seized Tanak and Al-Omar after rival fighters from Al-Qaeda's Al-Nusra Front and other Syrian rebel groups withdrew from those areas, said the Observatory.
In Deir Ezzor, IS has taken over nearly all the countryside, its forces bolstered by heavy weapons captured from Iraqi troops fleeing an offensive that it spearheaded.
In January, Al-Nusra and other Islamist militants turned their guns on the jihadists, then known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, as they swept across Syria imposing their hegemony and brutal abuse.