Iraq: The Smugglers Who Fuel ISIS

Oct 19, 2014 | Ma'ad Fayad, Asharq Al-Awsat
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Baghdad— On the road between Kirkuk and Erbil, which cuts across the fault-line between Iraq proper and the semi-autonomous Kurdish region, convoys of tanker trucks can be seen travelling northwards. When you ask where they are headed, local café owner Fahmi says “They are smuggling oil to Turkey.”

In the café in Altun Kupri—a town in Kirkuk province just south of Iraqi Kurdistan—Fahmi, a former tanker truck driver himself, tells Asharq Al-Awsat that he was only able to establish his café thanks to his former job as a smuggler. “I left because I was tired, even though I was making very good money as an oil tanker truck driver.”

Fahmi explains that the oil is extracted from wells in the Kurdistan region. “It is then prepared in Kirkuk, very close to the borders of Erbil province, on the road to Erbil you will see many tanker trucks on the side of the main road, they are waiting for crude oil loads to take to Turkey or Iran.” Some trucks waiting by the roadside will also smuggle oil to other parts of Iraq, Fahmi says.