In brief: U.S.-led airstrike in Syria sets off explosions, kills eight

MURSITPINAR, Turkey – A U.S.-led coalition airstrike on a gas distribution facility in a stronghold of the Islamic State group set off a series of secondary explosions and killed at least eight people in eastern Syria, activists said Saturday.

The airstrike targeted a distribution station in the town of Khasham in the oil-rich province of Deir el-Zour late Friday, Deir el-Zour Free Radio, an activist collective, said on its Facebook page. The collective said the slain men were mostly fuel tanker drivers.

The U.S.-led coalition has aggressively targeted Islamic State-held oil facilities in Syria, which provide a key source of income for the militants. But such strikes also endanger civilians, which could undermine long-term efforts to destroy the group.

In recent days many of the coalition’s strikes have focused around the Syrian border town of Kobani, which Islamic State militants have been trying to seize since mid-September.

Iraq approves Sunni, Shiite national security appointees

BAGHDAD – After a month of political wrangling, Iraq’s parliament on Saturday approved Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s choices for two crucial national security ministries at a time when the country is struggling to contain an assault by Islamic State militants.

The swearing-in of a Sunni Muslim defense minister and a Shiite Muslim interior minister ended a long stalemate that had constrained the government’s response to Islamic State, which has seized control of about a third of the country this year.

The United States has been pressing al-Abadi for a more inclusive government after eight years of Shiite domination under former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite who held the defense and interior posts himself from 2010 until he resigned in August.