Russia says 12,000 oil trucks involved in IS oil smuggling to Turkey

Islamic State smuggles oil via iraqi Kurdistan to Turkey. Photo: Russian Defense Ministry/video

MOSCOW,— A senior Russian military official has claimed that Russian intelligence-gathering efforts have detected nearly 12,000 oil trucks involved in illegal oil smuggling near the Turkish-Iraqi Kurdistan border.

Gen. Sergei Rudskoy, director of the Main Operations Center of the Russian General Staff, told reporters on Friday that due to the increasing number of air strikes in Syria, oil smugglers traveling to Turkey have changed their route.

Rudskoy shared satellite images with members of the media at a briefing in Moscow and said that Russia had spotted 4,530 oil trucks on the Turkish side of the border and another 7,245 on the Iraqi Kurdistan side.

“As of the moment of surveillance in the Zakho area, there were 11,775 fuel tanker trucks on both sides of the Turkish-Iraqi border. As many as 4,530 of them were on the territory of Turkey and 7,245 in Iraq,” Russia’s General Staff Main Operations Department’s chief Sergey Rudskoy told reporters.

He claimed that the destination of the oil trafficking is Turkey and that militants from the Islamic State (IS), stripped of their usual route due to intensifying air strikes in Syria, had changed their route to one traveling through the Iraqi IS-held Mosul and Zakho in Iraqi Kurdistan.

“First those oil trucks go to Mosul and then to the Zakho border gate. Then they head to Turkey,” he claimed.

Rudskoy also said Russia has so far destroyed nearly 2,000 oil trucks belonging to Syrian militants since the Russian campaign began.

He claimed that, according to satellite data, the number of trucks carrying crude oil following a northern route through Syria destined for an oil refinery in Turkey’s southeastern province of Batman had seen a sharp decline recently and that those using a western route headed to Turkey’s Port of İskenderun on the east Mediterranean coast after entering the country through Reyhanlı along the Syrian border had also fallen to 265.

Russia’s defence ministry said earlier this month it had proof that Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and his family were benefiting from the illegal smuggling of oil from Islamic State-held territory in Syria and Iraq.

Russian defence ministry officials displayed satellite images which they said showed thousands of tanker trucks loading with oil at installations controlled by Islamic State, and then crossing the border into neighbouring Turkey.

Ankara has sternly denied Russian claims of oil trade with IS. Turkish authorities say that while some people may purchase oil from the IS-controlled area, it is without the knowledge of the authorities and that security forces immediately crack down on illegal smuggling routes whenever they are discovered.

The oil minister in Iraqi Kurdistan Ashti Hawrami denied claims that IS militants have smuggled oil into Turkey through Iraq’s Kurdistan Region, calling the allegations “unsubstantiated.”

Hawrami stated “we do everything to ensure that every barrel is accounted for.”

“(These reports are) wild imagination and unsubstantiated,” Hawrami said, adding that the KRG is working to disrupt supplies from oil produced in parts of Iraq that remain under IS control.

Need to be mentioned that Ashti Hawrami routinely accused of corruption by observers, Kurdish officials and Kurdish media.

The oil business is Iraqi Kurdistan monopolized by Kurdistan Democratic Party KDP and its leader Massoud Barzani, according to Kurdish politicians and observers. Some observers have even described Kurdish oil deals as secretive.

Meanwhile on Saturday Iraqi Kurdistan Prime Minister arrive in Istanbul where he is to meet Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and PM Ahmet Davutoglu.