Ground Zero Syria: The Illegal Oil Wells of Deir ez-Zor

According to reports Illegal oil wells and small clandestine home made refineries like those presented in this report is the source of millions of dollars in the ISIS coffers. . . EDITOR

Featured Image: Deir ez-Zour Syria. March8Square front. Uploaded by Heretiq  SOURCE: Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0

youtube by VICE

Published on Jan 29, 2014

Deir ez-Zor, Syria’s sixth-largest city, is also the country’s oil capital. For four decades, the al-Assad regime (first run by Hafez, and now by his son Bashar) struck deals with Western oil companies like Shell and Total that resulted in the extraction of as much as 27,000 barrels of black gold from the sand every day. A pittance compared with other Middle Eastern countries’ production, but it made Syria a bona fide oil-exporting nation. At least this was the case until international sanctions were imposed in 2011 in response to the regime’s crackdown on the antigovernment protests, which quickly morphed into a civil war.

Read the full article on VICE.com here: http://www.vice.com/ground-zero/syria…

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