The IS group is looking at potentially vulnerable oil assets in Libya and elsewhere outside its Syria stronghold, where the militant group controls about roughly 80 percent of the oil and gas fields, a senior U.S. official said on Tuesday, Reuters reports this morning.
The official, who briefed reporters in Washington on condition of anonymity, said the United States was carefully examining who controlled oil fields, pipelines, trucking routes and other infrastructure in places that could be vulnerable to attack.
That concludes today's live-blogging of the crisis surrounding Islamic State. Check back here tomorrow morning for more of our continuing coverage.
Here's another item from our news desk:
Man Detained In France For Questioning Over Paris Attacks
A French judicial official and French police say a 29-year-old man has been arrested and is being held for questioning about the November 13 terrorist attacks in Paris that killed 130 people.
Agnes Thibault-Lecuivre, a spokeswoman for the Paris prosecutor's office, said the man was arrested on the morning of December 15 at his home in Villiers-Sur-Marne, an eastern suburb of Paris.
Authorities refused to identify the man and provided no further information about his suspected link to the attacks by French-born Islamic extremists who had declared loyalty to the Islamic State militant group.
Two French police officials also confirmed the arrest.
The man can be held for questioning for up to six days before being charged or released.
(AP, AFP, and BBC)
Here's a bit more detail from our news desk about the strikes on a Syrian fuel market:
Russian Air Strikes Target Syrian Rebels' Fuel Market
Syrian monitors say air strikes on a fuel market in a rebel-held village in northern Syria have killed and wounded dozens.
The Local Coordination Committees of Syria, a network of local groups that report on protests as part of the uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, said the air strikes were carried out by Russian warplanes on December 15 in the village of Maarat al-Naasan.
The leader of the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdurrahman, said the strikes killed and wounded at least 35 people at a market selling diesel fuel brought from areas under the control of the extremist Islamic State (IS) group.
Russia's General Staff said on December 15 that it had carried out 17 air strikes in Syria during the past 24 hours, hitting illegal oil production facilities, which it said were run by "terrorists."
It said six illegal oil production facilities and seven convoys of oil tankers were hit by Russian warplanes during the previous three days.
It also said Russian air strikes have destroyed more than 1,200 oil tankers since late September.
The United States and NATO have said Russia is targeting Western-backed rebel fighters who oppose Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime but are also fighting IS militants.
Russia has previously said that all opposition fighters in Syria are "terrorists."
But the Russian General Staff on December 15 acknowledged that there are 150 anti-Assad groups fighting against IS militants that have contributed to the Syrian government's battle against the IS group.
(With reporting by AP)