French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Monday that jihadists spearheading a militant offensive in Iraq have sold oil from captured areas to the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Fabius said the sale was evidence of the "confusing" nature of the escalating conflict in the Middle East in which Assad and the jihadists are in theory on opposing sides.
The rebels, previously known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), declared a "caliphate", or Islamist state, straddling Iraq and Syria at the weekend.
"We have proofs that when ISIL has taken over oil it has sold oil to the (Assad) regime," Fabius told a news conference in New Delhi, without elaborating.
Other revenues and weapons have been seized during the advance by the Islamist fighters, particularly in the town of Mosul.
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