Rebels in Syria Claim Control of Oil and Gas Resources
By BEN HUBBARD, CLIFFORD KRAUSS and ERIC SCHMITT
Islamist rebels and extremists are using proceeds from the country’s
resources to underwrite their fights against one another and the
president, American officials say.
Rebels in Syria Claim Control of Resources
BEIRUT,
Lebanon — Islamist rebels and extremist groups have seized control of
most of Syria’s oil and gas resources, a rare generator of cash in the
country’s war-battered economy, and are now using the proceeds to
underwrite their fights against one another as well as President Bashar
al-Assad, American officials say.
While the oil and gas fields are in serious decline, control of them has bolstered the fortunes of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria,
or ISIS, and the Nusra Front, both of which are offshoots of Al Qaeda.
The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria is even selling fuel to the Assad
government, lending weight to allegations by opposition leaders that it
is secretly working with Damascus to weaken the other rebel groups and
discourage international support for their cause.
Although
there is no clear evidence of direct tactical coordination between the
group and Mr. Assad, American officials say that his government has
facilitated the group’s rise not only by purchasing its oil but by
exempting some of its headquarters from the airstrikes that have
tormented other rebel groups.
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The
Nusra Front and other groups are providing fuel to the government, too,
in exchange for electricity and relief from airstrikes, according to
opposition activists in Syria’s oil regions.
The
scramble for Syria’s oil is described by analysts as a war within the
broader civil war, one that is turning what was once an essential source
of income for Syria into a driving force in a conflict that is tearing
the country apart. “Syria is an oil country and has resources, but in
the past they were all stolen by the regime,” said Abu Nizar, an
antigovernment activist in Deir al-Zour. “Now they are being stolen by
those who are profiting from the revolution.”
He described the situation in his oil-rich province as “overwhelming chaos.”
The
Western-backed rebel groups do not appear to be involved in the oil
trade, in large part because they have not taken over any oil fields.
Syria
was once an important supplier of oil to Europe, and attracted
international oil companies like Royal Dutch Shell and Suncor to develop
its fields. Declining even before the anti-Assad uprising began, the
oil industry has taken a beating since, with production down to no more
than 80,000 barrels a day at the end of 2013 from about 400,000 barrels a
day in 2011. Violence has damaged pipelines and other infrastructure,
aggravating energy shortages and leaving the country heavily dependent
on imports from its allies.
As
the war has progressed, rebel groups have seized control of the oil and
gas fields scattered across the country’s north and east, while Kurdish
militias have taken over areas near the border with Iraqi Kurdistan.
Filling
the void left by the government’s withdrawal is a Wild West-like
patchwork of local efforts to try to wring any possible profit from the
remnants of the oil industry. In some areas, locals have used primitive
methods to extract usable products from crude they drain from pipelines
or storage tanks, often causing environmental and health problems in
their communities.
Elaborate
trade networks have also evolved, with oil being smuggled across
borders in plastic jugs and transported by trucks and on donkeys into
Iraq and Turkey.
“The
government practically doesn’t control anything anymore,” said Dragan
Vuckovic, president of Mediterranean International, an oil service
company that operates across the Middle East and North Africa. “The oil
is controlled by crooks and extremists. They sell it for a bargain
wherever they can find a buyer.”
Oil
has proved to be a boon for the extremists of the Islamic State of Iraq
and Syria, who have seized control of most of the oil-rich northern
province of Raqqa. The group typically sells crude to middlemen who
resell it to the government but sometimes sells it directly to the
government, said Omar Abu Laila, a spokesman for the rebels’ Supreme
Military Council.
“Selling the oil brings in more cash, so why not sell it to the regime, which offers higher prices?” he asked.
An
American official said the United States had received multiple credible
reports that the Syrian government had purchased crude from the Islamic
State of Iraq and Syria that was delivered in tanker trucks from areas
the group controls to behind Syrian government lines.
The
official also said Mr. Assad’s government had refrained from bombing
the group’s headquarters in Raqqa and elsewhere, although their
locations are well known and clearly marked with black flags and
banners.
A
second American official said that while Mr. Assad’s government is
growing ever more desperate for oil, the group is becoming increasingly
independent of wealthy donors in the Persian Gulf and other funding
sources. As the group has gained control of more territory, it has been
able to sustain its operations through a combination of oil revenues,
border tolls, extortion and granary sales, the official said.
While
other American officials discounted the possibility of tactical
military cooperation between the group and Mr. Assad’s government, they
said that Syrian intelligence had almost certainly infiltrated
opposition groups, including the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and the
Nusra Front, to track their activities.
“The
Syrian regime is as Machiavellian as they come, and there is little it
won’t do to hold on to power,” said an American counterterrorism
official. “If the regime could strike a tactical accord with an enemy
faction to achieve its larger strategic goals, it probably would.”
Denied
access to Syria’s oil regions, Mr. Assad’s government has become
increasingly dependent on its foreign allies and imports most of its
fuel from Iran and Iraq, while Hezbollah smuggles diesel and gasoline
over the border from Lebanon, according to regional oil experts. The
opposition also accuses Syria’s Kurds of providing the government with
oil.
While
rebel oil revenues are small by world market standards, they can help
groups exercise local power as well as finance their operations.
“Even
sold at discounted prices, this oil could be generating significant
revenue for rebels to arm themselves,” said Badr H. Jafar, chairman of
Crescent Petroleum, a regional oil and gas company based in the United
Arab Emirates.
The
politics of the local oil trade can be complex, insiders say. When the
Nusra Front and other rebel groups took over a natural gas facility in
the northern province of Hasaka, they sought to cut the supply to a
government facility, said Amer Abdy, a local activist.
But
local tribal leaders objected, saying that would simply invite
government airstrikes to destroy the plant. So they brokered a deal to
keep a limited amount of gas flowing so the area would not be bombed,
Mr. Abdy said.
When
the government first withdrew from the oil fields of Deir al-Zour
Province in the country’s east, said Abu Nizar, an activist there, rebel
brigades and local tribes took control of wells and sold or tried to
refine whatever oil they could extract to buy arms. Recently, however,
most of the area’s rebel brigades have left the administration of the
wells to an Islamic legal commission set up to run local affairs, he
said.
One
facility the group controls is a natural gas plant that feeds a major
power station near Homs that is still controlled by the government.
“We
can’t cut off the gas because it would lead to a power cut in a large
part of Syria,” Abu Nizar said, adding that he hoped the new commission
would effectively manage the area’s resources.
“Let’s
be honest. Some of the wells were used to arm the rebels and to fund
aid operations,” he said, “but unfortunately the majority were robbed
and exploited by thieves.”
Ben Hubbard reported
from Beirut, Eric Schmitt from Washington, and Clifford Krauss from
Houston. Michael R. Gordon contributed reporting from Washington.
European Pressphoto Agency
A tank at an oil refinery in Homs Province burned in
November. Violence has damaged pipelines and other energy infrastructure
in Syria, leaving it dependent on imports from allies.
Islamist rebels and extremists are using oil and gas proceeds to
underwrite their fights against one another as well as President Bashar
al-Assad, American officials said.
Some Movement Is Seen in Syria Peace Talks
By NICK CUMMING-BRUCE
A spokesman for the opposition said government representatives have discussed the creation of a transitional government.
GENEVA
— After days of deadlock and dispute, Syrian peace talks appeared to
inch forward on Wednesday when a spokesman for the opposition said the
Syrian government had agreed to negotiate within a framework that calls
for it to give way to a transitional government.
The
spokesman, Louay Safi, spoke to reporters after emerging from a
two-hour morning meeting with the delegation representing President
Bashar al-Assad at the United Nations headquarters here. He said the
talks had made “a positive step forward, because for the first time now
we are talking about the transitional governing body.”
The
two sides were scheduled to meet separately in the afternoon with
Lakhdar Brahimi, the special United Nations envoy for Syria. Talks
involving both delegations were scheduled to continue on Thursday and
Friday, when the opposition intends to discuss issues like the size and
responsibilities of a transitional government, Mr. Safi said.
The
Syrian government delegates in Geneva did not immediately comment, but
Mr. Safi’s remarks received some corroboration from Syrian state
television. It said, according to Reuters, that the government side had
announced its “full readiness” to discuss “paragraph by paragraph” the
framework for the talks, which was set out in the communiqué issued at
the end of the first Geneva conference on Syria.
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That
appeared to represent an advance from the position staked out by the
Syrian foreign minister, Walid Muallem, when the current conference
opened in Montreux last week. At that time, Mr. Muallem said the focus
of the talks should be on the Syrian opposition’s “terrorism,” and he
dismissed any idea of transferring power. It was not immediately evident
whether the government’s reported shift was one of tone or of
substance.
“They
seemed to be more ready to discuss the issue” of a transitional
government, Mr. Safi said of the Assad delegates. But he acknowledged
that pitfalls still lie ahead. And he said the government’s negotiators
still wanted to “change the order of the discussion in a way that will
make the talks not successful.”
The
two sides have apparently not made any progress so far on humanitarian
issues related to the conflict, like prisoner exchanges or getting aid
supplies to the besieged residents of the Old City section of Homs.
The desperation there of civilians, who have been largely cut off for more than a year, was detailed in a videotaped appeal
posted online this week by Father Francis, the patriarch of the Syriac
Orthodox Church. “We, Muslims and Christians, live in hard conditions
and suffer from a lot of problems, the biggest of which is hunger —
people cannot find food,” he is heard to say in the video, speaking in
Arabic with English subtitles. “We do not want to die out of pain and
hunger.”
International
aid workers in the region said they were worried that the attention
being paid in Geneva to the Homs situation was obscuring the plight of
Syrians trapped in other areas besieged by either government or
opposition forces. The United Nations lists seven such areas in which a
total of about 250,000 people are trapped.
As
he prepared to board a van after discussing the state of the Geneva
talks with a throng of reporters, Mr. Safi, the opposition spokesman,
appeared to retreat a bit from his initial optimism. “These negotiations
are going to be very tough,” Mr. Safi said. “The other party is
apparently not willing to give in to the demands of the Geneva
communiqué.”
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