The Death of the Nation and the Future of the Arab Revolution by Vijay Prashad

Author:Vijay Prashad
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780520293250
Publisher: University of California Press

ISIS OIL

Since ISIS posed such a grave threat, it seemed bewildering that neither did the United States target the ISIS oil infrastructure nor did the Turkish government prevent the entry of ISIS oil into Turkey. From its early entry into Syria, ISIS took control over oil fields in eastern Syria. This was a small cache compared with what it would be able to control once it seized Mosul and its hinterland. How did ISIS get its oil to market? Some of the oil, particularly in Syria, was sold in the domestic market—making its way to urban areas in western Syria. But the Mosul fields produced far more than ISIS could use or sell in its area. Such a lucrative field began to provide millions of dollars in revenue for ISIS.

How did ISIS convert the oil into cash? Older networks created by Iraqi Kurdish business interests in the 1990s came to be useful. Officials at the Iraqi Oil Ministry in Baghdad have long complained about the oil smuggling from northern Iraq through Turkey. This was lost revenue for the Iraqi exchequer. There was no clear evidence that the Iraqi Kurdish autonomous government benefited from the smuggling; but the Kurdish authorities seemed to do little to stop it. Oil from northern Iraq was sold to smugglers who would cart it in tankers to the Turkish border.90 Primitive refining operations ran along the road to convert the crude oil to partly refined oil. The reason for this is that Turkey requires a license for crude oil’s transit across its border; refined oil comes across without papers of provenance. The trucks cross at the Ibrahim Khalil border post and go to Silopi, where they are turned over to mysterious people, such as Uncle Farid or Hajji Farid, an Israeli-Greek dual national. Brokers like Uncle Farid organize the movement of the oil across the length of Turkey to the Mediterranean ports of Mersin, Dortyol, and Ceyhan. On board tankers, the oil then goes to Malta, where some of it is transshipped to destinations such as Ashdod (Israel). This has long been a bone of contention between the Iraqi government, the Kurdish Regional Government, and the Turkish government. The Turkish journalist Tolga Tanis accuses the son-in-law of the Turkish president of involvement in this illegal scheme.91

The Russian dossier on ISIS oil, released on 2 December 2015 by Deputy Minister of Defense Anatoly Antonov, went further. The Russians accused the BMZ Group Denizcilik of being a major agent for the transport of the oil. It turns out that one of the owners of BMZ, Bilal Erdoğan, is the son of the president of Turkey. BMZ Group purchased two new tankers in September 2015.92 The movement of oil through this company has increased in recent months—which might indicate the flow of ISIS oil. Two marine engineers studied the volume of oil passing through the Ceyhan port and ISIS military gains—finding a high correlation between the two.93 This oil then goes by tanker to the coastline of Malta, where,

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