Iraq: Risking Flames and Mines, Iraq Oil Workers Battle to Cap Burning Wells

Nov 24, 2016 | John Davison, Reuters
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Qayyara's burning oil fields vividly depict the destruction the group wrought on northern Iraq, as Iraqi forces backed by a U.S.-led coalition battle to drive the jihadists out of their stronghold in nearby Mosul. Islamic State has made hundreds of millions of dollars through sale on the black market of oil from the fields it captured in Iraq and Syria when took over swathes of both countries in 2014, according to U.S. government estimates.