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Firemen try to extinguish a burning fuel tank at an oil refinery in the province of Homs, Syria, yesterday. The refinery was set ablaze by mortars fired by what sources claim were ‘terrorist groups’. No casualties were reported.
BEIRUT: Islamist rebels led by Al Qaeda-linked fighters seized Syria’s largest oilfield yesterday, cutting off President Bashar Al Assad’s access to almost all local crude reserves, activists said.
There was no immediate comment from the government and it was not possible to verify the reports of the capture independently.
But the loss of the Al Omar oilfield in the eastern Deir Al Zor province, if confirmed, could leave Assad’s forces almost completely reliant on imported oil in their highly mechanised military campaign to put down a two-and-a-half-year uprising.
“Now, nearly all of Syria’s usable oil reserves are in the hands of the Nusra Front and other Islamist units ... The regime’s neck is now in Nusra’s hands,” said Rami Abdelrahman, head of the pro-opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Until the reported insurgent capture of the field, a pipeline transporting the crude to central Syria for refinement had still been working despite the civil war. Most oil reserves are now in the hands of rebels, local tribes or Kurdish militias, some of whom may be willing to sell oil to Assad. Assad is also believed to be getting fuel from Iran.
A video posted on the Internet showed rebels in camouflage and black scarves driving a tank under a sign that read “Euphrates Oil Company – Al Omar field”. The speaker in the video said the field was overrun at dawn yesterday, but the authenticity of the footage could not be independently verified.
Syria is not a significant oil producer and has not exported any oil since late 2011, when international sanctions took effect to raise pressure on Assad. Prior to the sanctions, the country exported 370,000 barrels per day, mainly to Europe.
In the northern province of Aleppo, army air strikes killed at least 40 people and wounded dozens, most of them civilians, the Observatory said. But opposition fighters, particularly powerful Islamist factions, still hold large swathes of territory in northern and eastern Syria.
Rebels are trying to retake the town of Oteiba in order to break a heavy blockade on the opposition-held suburbs in the east that ring the capital.
Minister survives
State television, meanwhile, reported that National Reconciliation Minister Ali Haidar escaped an attempted assassination yesterday that left his driver dead. The attack took place on the road between Masyaf, in central Hama province, and Qadmus, in the coastal province of Tartus.
State news agency SANA later quoted the minister as saying: “If the intention is to kill me, they will fail. I will continue my mission until I fall as a martyr on the soil of my country.”
Haidar, head of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, was appointed national reconciliation minister by President Bashar Al Assad in June 2012. He belongs to that part of the opposition which is tolerated by the regime and distances itself from the rebels fighting to overthrow Assad.
Foreign powers are trying to bring together the warring parties at an international peace conference, dubbed ‘Geneva 2’, planned for mid-December. Both the Syrians and their international partners are at odds over terms for the talks. Syria’s peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi discussed the conference yesterday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Geneva. He is expected to meet US Secretary of State John Kerry later.
Reuters/AFP
