ISIS Fuel Tankers Unharmed When US Planes Run Out of Ammo
Image: ISIS Fuel Tankers Unharmed When US Planes Run Out of Ammo This Oct. 22, 2015 photo shows destruction at Beiji oil refinery during U.S. and Russian military operations, some 250 kilometers (155 miles) north of Baghdad, Iraq. (AP Photo)
By Sandy Fitzgerald | Tuesday, 24 Nov 2015 02:10 PM
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This Oct. 22, 2015 photo shows destruction at Beiji oil refinery during U.S. and Russian military operations, some 250 kilometers (155 miles) north of Baghdad, Iraq. (AP Photo)
The U.S. military intended to “destroy every truck” during a second wave of attacks on ISIS-controlled oil tankers in Syria this weekend, Army Col. Steven Warren, spokesman for the U.S. coalition fighting the insurgents said Tuesday, but they ran out of ammunition first.
“The desire was to destroy every single truck there,” Warren said at a news briefing, where he played video of ISIS fuel tankers either being shot by machine gun fire from the air or being bombed, reports CNSNews.com.
All of the trucks were targeted, Warren said, showing a video with “the good shots that you’d like.”
Before hitting the trucks, the American forces dropped leaflets warning that an attack was coming, and as truck drivers are deemed to be non-combatants, they were told to “get out of your trucks now and run away from them” before the airstrikes hit.
But even through the troops ran out of ammunition, Warren praised the attack as “another example of the type of accuracy that we’re capable of here in the coalition, and that 283 fuel trucks were destroyed by American planes during the Sunday action.
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“A bomb would have been from an A-10, and then when you saw the guns, you know, the machine gun fire, that could either have been an A-10 or AC-130 Spectre Gunship,” said Warren.
But such attacks are different than in the movies, as machine guns have a certain degree of accuracy.
“The gunfire isn’t laser guided, so it’s individual strike a truck, or two or three trucks; move to the next batch, strike them; move, strike; move, strike,” said Warren. The trucks were not moving after the drivers were warned away, CNS reported.
The United States has now destroyed 399 ISIS tankers, but Warren said there is still “a long way to go,” and disputed Russia’s claims to have attacked and destroyed 500 ISIS fuel tankers last week, saying the actual number was more like 100.
