Watch a US-led airstrike wipe out a major ISIS revenue source in the heart of Syria
Iraqi forces continue to battle ISIS neighborhood by neighborhood in Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city and ISIS' last stronghold in the country.
In neighboring Syria, progress against the terrorist group has been less forthcoming. While fighting rages in Aleppo, operations against Raqqa, ISIS' capital, have been stalled. But the US-led coalition continues to target ISIS infrastructure in Syria.
On December 8, a coalition airstrike, a clip of which you can see below, obliterated 168 tanker trucks belonging to the terrorist group near Palmyra, in the center of Syria.
The strike was one of seven mounted over Syria on December 8, and it cost ISIS more than $2 million in revenue, according to an Operation Inherent Resolve release. Northeast of Palmyra, a strike destroyed an ISIS oil wellhead near Dayr Az Zawr.
"The Coalition continues to forcefully prosecute the air war on ISIL revenue capability," Col. John L. Dorrian, an Operation Inherent Resolve spokesman, said in a release.
Khalil Ashawi/Reuters
"When ISIL has access to large sums of money, they use it to conduct violent terror attacks against anyone who doesn't share their barbaric ideology," Dorrian added.
ISIS oil infrastructure in Syria has been a major target for coalition forces in recent months.
While Kurdish militants' efforts to retake Raqqa, ISIS' capital city in northeast Syria, have largely bogged down, US-led airstrikes continue to hit oil-related targets in the surrounding province.
Farther west, the regime of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad appears to have gained the upper hand. Earlier this week, the Syrian army and its allies looked closer than ever to retaking Aleppo, rebel forces' last urban stronghold.
Intense fighting in much of the city has endangered the lives of thousands of Syrian civilians, many of whom have been cut off from food and aid for months and have tried to flee the city in recent days.
While the Russian military said on Friday that it had helped more than 8,000 Syrians flee areas in eastern Aleppo, the UN has warned that 150,000 people there "are threatened with extermination."
Khalil Ashawi/Reuters
Other UN reports have voiced concern that hundreds of Syrian men have gone missing since fleeing eastern Aleppo for Syrian government-held areas.
The US and Russia are reportedly "poles apart" from agreeing to terms for civilian evacuations from Aleppo, and the US has increasingly been on the outside looking in at the multi-party talks seeking a peaceful end to Syria's bloody, five-year civil war.
You see the full video of the December 8 strike below.
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