DISINFO: The US-led Coalition against ISIS in reality supported ISIS and was complicit in its oil-smuggling operations
SUMMARY
The US-led Coalition against ISIS (DAESH) did nothing to combat ISIS and was complicit in its oil-smuggling operations. ISIS was funded by exporting oil from Syrian oil fields in Karkuk and Deir ez-Zor that were under ISIS control. Thanks to the Coalition’s complicity, the oil was transported by tens of oil tankers from countries allied with the anti-ISIS Coalition.
RESPONSE
The article, which was published in the aftermath of the terrorist attack at a church in Nice, repeats recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative claiming that the US-led Global Coalition to Defeat Daesh/ISIS has supported this terrorist organisation instead of fighting it
This message is part of a broader conspiracy theory alleging that the United States and its allies have created and supported many jihadi terrorist organisations and control global terrorism.
It is not true that the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS/DAESH has not fought ISIS and that it has been complicit with ISIS in Syria.
In the autumn of 2014, confronted with the threat posed by ISIS victories in Syria and Iraq—both to the stability of the Middle East and to the well-being of citizens regionally as well as globally, the United States built a broad coalition to defeat the terrorist organisation. Led by the U.S., this coalition engaged primarily in direct airstrikes against ISIS military targets and strategic bases in Iraq and Syria. It also provided training, intelligence and military assistance to allied forces fighting ISIS on the ground. The Coalition has also engaged in considerable efforts to target ISIS’s sources of funding.
By the summer of 2019 ISIS lost control over most, if not all, of its territorial “caliphate,” to a significant degree this was the result of the US-led anti-ISIS coalition’s efforts.
It it also not true that the Coalition supported, or was complicit with, ISIS oil export operations. Precision airstrikes by the coalition targeted ISIS oilfields (including those in the Deir Ez-Zor province), refineries and tankers, thus disrupting the terrorist organisation’s main source of income.
Read a similar case claiming that the US supports ISIS while Russia defeated it.