The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant has seized the country's largest oil field, the AP reports.
The extremist group controls large parts of northern Syria and captured territories in the northern and western Iraq last month. It is now in almost full control of a corridor stretching from the Syrian border town of Boukamal to the government-controlled provincial capital of Deir el-Zour to the northwest.
It is headed by an Iraqi militant known as Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. This week it unilaterally declared the establishment of an Islamic state, or caliphate, in the lands it has seized in Syria and Iraq. It proclaimed al-Baghdadi the head of its new self-styled state and demanded that all Muslims pledge allegiance to him.
