ISIS Oil Sites Pounded for 2nd Day

The US-led anti-ISIS coalition has hit the militant group in the wallet for a second day, carrying out more airstrikes on the oil production facilities in eastern Syria believed to make millions of dollars a day for the group. Activists say that ISIS has started to cut back on the number of fighters at checkpoints—another chief target of the strikes—and civilians are fleeing ISIS-controlled areas. "Everywhere where there are ISIS buildings, the people living around these buildings are leaving," the director of an activist group tells the AP. "They are moving far from ISIS buildings, either to other villages or to other areas in the same cities." In other developments:

• FBI Director James Comey says there are only around a dozen Americans fighting with militants in Syria, not 100 as is often cited, Reuters reports. He explained that when he has used the figure of 100 or more, "that means people who have gone and come back, people who have attempted to go and we locked them up, people who have gone and stayed," the AP reports. Comey also says the US has identified ISIS executioner "Jihadi John."

• In the UK, lawmakers are debating whether the country should join the anti-ISIS coalition, reports the BBC. Making the case for strikes, Prime Minister David Cameron told Parliament the group is a "clear and proven threat" to British lives and has "already declared war on us." Last year, Parliament handed Cameron a major defeat when it rejected the use of force against the Assad regime.
• That same regime is welcoming the strikes against ISIS and another of its foes, the Nusra Front, the New York Times reports. "The US military leadership is now fighting in the same trenches with the Syrian generals, in a war on terrorism inside Syria," a Syrian diplomat told a pro-regime newspaper.

(More ISIS stories.)