The cost of uprooting Islamic State since the terrorist group cut a swathe through the Middle East is still reverberating across the region. Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi’s soldiers have left a trail of corpses across the region and in five years between 2013 and 2018, tens of thousands of civilians were killed in the cross-fire as international and regional actors fought house-to-house to eject Islamic State from cities such Raqqa and Mosul. While airpower played a key role in bringing Islamic State to its knees, it has also wrought havoc on Syria’s environment as the international coalition and the Russian military sought to dismantle an essential cog in Baghadi’s war machine: Oil.
Before the civil war started, Syria’s energy sector has been played an increasingly important part in the local and regional economics. According to the Energy Information Administration, Syria is an only relatively significant crude oil-producing country in the eastern Mediterranean region boasting 2.4 billion barrels of petroleum reserves and gas reserves of 8.5 trillion cubic feet. Before the civil war, the main recipients of the oil were European countries and its neighbour Turkey and were mainly produced in the eastern part of the country near the border with Iraq and along the Euphrates river.
Oil and gas have been a precious resource for the insurgency waging war on Assad’s regime. From the outset, Syrian rebels targeted the state-owned oil installations in Homs as early as 2011 and 2012 to economically cripple a government already under international sanctions. In eastern Syria, non-state actors took control of the oil installations and a large piece of Syria’s oil economy. As months turned to years and it became clear the Assad regime would not fall, there was a substantial increase in the development of makeshift oil refineries by the Syrian Kurds - who were seeking to carve out their own mini-state Rojava - and the Syrian opposition, who need all the resources at their disposal to bring down Assad’s war machine. When the intra-jihadist conflict between Jabhat Al-Nusra and Islamic State broke out in 2013, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi’s men were quick to drive the all opposition from key installations absorb eastern Syria’s oil reserves into its territories into its future caliphate. These reserves made up the majority of Syria’s known oil reserves.
Oil was quickly identified by the U.S-led coalition as a key piece of Islamic State’s war economy in territories under the group’s occupation. At its height, Islamic State-controlled 60% of Syria’s petrol production and 10% of Iraq’s. In 2015, the group’s oil revenues were estimated to be as high as $250-600 million. The control of these revenues generated $1 million to $3 million a day for the terrorist organisation as they did business with regional actors, including their natural enemy, the Assad regime. With a war economy estimated to be worth $2 billion, Islamic State’s control of oil installations and makeshift oil refineries made it a primary target of the U.S-led coalition and Russian military.
As demonstrated on AirWars, an NGO which monitors civilian harm during the interventions of the U.S-led coalition and Russians in Syria’s civil war, the group’s interactive map shows that eastern Syria was subject to heavy bombardment by airpower during the conflict with Islamic State. The Russians concentrated its efforts between Deir Ez-Zor and close to oil-rich areas near Iraq’s western border town, Al-Qa’im. The Euphrates River effectively split the Russians and Americans and their proxies as their respective campaigns against Islamic State intensified. As Russia intensified their air-raids in September 2017, in coordination with Special Forces and Assad’s soldiers around Deir Ez-Zor, coalition forces concentrated their firepower on the city of Raqqa and in the north-east around the town of Al-Hasakah.
According to a report published by Directorate-General for External Policies in the European Parliament’s Policy Department, most artisanal refineries detected were being ‘exploited by the Syrian Kurds, Islamic State and the rebels in the east of the country.’ The location of the majority of artisanal refineries and multiple oil installations- locations surrounding Deir Ez-Zor along the Euphrates toward Al-Qa’im and around Ash Shaddadi - was where air raids, Russian and American-led, were concentrated. B-1 bombers, AC-130 gunships, Predator Drones and A-10 attack planes were utilised by the U.S-led coalition to destroy thousands of tanker trucks along key roads to choke Islamic State’s oil smuggling activities. The Russian Ministry of Defense and Operation Inherent Resolve’s website released footage of their military efforts to target Islamic State-controlled oil facilities.
By 2016, Operation Inherent Resolve had claimed to have destroyed 1,620 oil facilities. In one air-raid alone in 2015 outside Raqqa, 140 munitions were dropped, striking five gas and oil separation points, as well as two crude oil collection points. As the spokesman stated, a microcosm of the Combined Joint Task Force’s broader strategy to degrade Islamic State’s “war-sustaining activities”. These airstrikes were pre-planned and occurred regularly for years and were diligently reported by Operation Inherent Resolve’s Public Affairs Office. Major oil-producing sites in Syria, including Omar, Tayyem and Abu Kamal were neutralised by the U.S-led coalition.
Russia’s Ministry of Defence asserted that by 2016, its military had disabled 66 oil facilities, and targeted over 1000 oil tankers. The destruction of these oil facilities ‘drove Islamic State, as well as local civilians, to step up the construction’ of artisanal refineries so that the group could keep their war economy afloat, and provide civilians with livelihoods. In Deir Ez-Zor alone, as PAX demonstrated, at five selected locations, there were at-least 5,791 makeshift and artisanal refineries by 2016. Such refineries had been created with increasing regularity after the coalition forces and Russia stepped up their bombing campaigns against Islamic State. Parallel to the destruction from the air, and reminiscent of their scorched earth policies in Iraq, Islamic State fighters set fire to oil fields when enemies closed in on their positions.
By 2018, the damage to oil installations across the landscape of Deir Ez Zor, Al-Hasakah and Raqqa were evident from satellite imagery provided by the European Space Agency. ‘Years of bombing by the U.S-led Coalition and Russian Airforce, combined with fighting around and attacks on oil refineries have resulted in a severely damaged oil industry.’ Several oil spills occurred at Isba oil field, Thayyem, Jafra, Abu Kamal, Abu Hardan, and Tanak in 2017 and 2018. In the case of Thayyem, Tanak, and Abu Haran, Russian and U.S airstrikes, and heavy fighting between Islamic State and Russian-backed forces, were responsible for oil spills which occurred in these specific locations. In Thayyem refinery, the extent of the damage to the oil pipelines caused by fighting was such that an oil spill stretched 7 kilometres.
The long-term impact of the bombing of oil installations and artisanal refineries across northern and eastern Syria and the secondary effects of the destruction of the sector are profound both at a human and environmental level. Firstly, the destruction of Syria’s conventional oil facilities turned Islamic State, and now the Syrian Democratic Forces who control its former territories, to using makeshift and artisanal refineries to produce and smuggle oil to fill their war coffers, and to provide livelihoods. Young children were frequently working at these makeshift sites and crude oil filtering as child labour. These concerns were raised by both UNICEF and Save the Children in Deir Ez Zor and reported by media outlets such as VICE and The Telegraph.
Medical staff living in cities such as Deir Ez-Zor - where makeshift oil refineries expanded as Syria’s oil industry was decimated - cited the toll on health the hazardous work was taking. “Cancers, especially lung and skins, as well as fetal malformations, are being reported in regions outside the government’s control in the countryside. The numbers are very high compared to 2011,” said the Health Care Director based in Deir Ez-Zor. This phenomenon described by the doctor was occurring in territories held by Syrian Democratic Forces, proxies of the U.S-led coalition, and Islamic State. The environmental damage caused by explosives dropped on oil installations and facilities has contributed to various secondary impacts on human health, similar to the fallout caused by fighting between Islamic State and the Iraqi government where serious damage was done to the environment across north-west Iraq by aerial attacks and sabotage.
The east of the country is commonly referred to as Syria’s ‘breadbasket’. However, with the destruction of agricultural soil by oil spills, livelihoods were destroyed due to soil pollution and salinisation. Without enough economic subsidies, this will increase levels of malnutrition and hunger across the countryside. Without a livelihood or food, many families including young children are turning to these makeshift refineries because there is no alternative income. “Those who work here say if they don’t die of cancer or lung diseases, they will surely die of hunger,” said one Kurdish oil worker. Water-borne diseases caused by water pollution have also increased the risk of a major public health crisis in oil-rich provinces such as Raqqa, Al-Hasakah and Deir Ez-Zor.