Activists say US-led coalition airstrikes hit Syrian oil refinery held by Islamic State group

This undated image released by the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units, known as the YPG, on Monday, March 9, 2015 shows Ivana Hoffman, 19, a German citizen fighting with Kurdish militiamen who was killed Saturday battling the Islamic State group near the village of Tel Tamr, Syria, according to Kurdish officials and activists. Hoffman, born in Germany to South African parents, is the third foreign national — and the first female foreign fighter — known to be killed fighting with Kurdish forces against the Islamic State group.(AP Photo/YPG) (The Associated Press)

BEIRUT – Activists say airstrikes by a U.S.-led coalition hit a Syrian oil refinery held by the Islamic State group.

Activists say the strikes late Sunday night targeted a refinery near the Turkish-Syrian border outside the town of Tel Abyad.

The Syrian activist group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently posted a video purporting to depict the strikes, showing an enormous fireball. The video could not be immediately verified, though it corresponded with Associated Press reporting about the attack.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also reported the strikes, estimating they killed about 30 people. The other group offered no casualty figure.

The Islamic State group, which controls about a third of Syria and Iraq, sells black-market oil to fund its conquests. The U.S.-led coalition did not immediately report the strike.