ISIS revenues from smuggled oil decline after Sharqat liberation
Representational photo.
(IraqiNews.com) Salahuddin – The residents of Sharqat revealed that ISIS revenues from oil smuggling were affected by the loss of the city of Sharqat, which was liberated by Iraqi forces last week, because it was a center where ISIS used to refine oil at more than 100 small refineries.
Some residents of Sharqat informed, “ISIS had nearly 100 to 150 mobile refineries on the road near Sharqat,” adding that, “They brought crude oil from Qayyarah, Mosul and Syria and they refined it in the small refineries in Sharqat.”
“They separated gas and oil and transported them back to Syria and Mosul,” they explained.
One of the former workers declared that the refineries had been operating for two years and people from the area were doing the work for the militants because there were few other jobs, and also the quality of the oil was very bad.
Oil has been the main source of revenue for ISIS since it stormed across Iraq in 2014 and took over the city of Mosul.
Meanwhile, security officials stated that after Sharqat was liberated last week by Iraqi and coalition forces, in addition to other areas with oilfields and refineries that were retaken from ISIS in recent months, the revenues of the group’s militants from smuggled oil were cut by nearly 90 percent.