Assad has secret Iraq oil lifeline

Damascus. The Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad has received substantial imports of Iraqi crude oil from an Egyptian port in the last nine months, shipping and payments documents show, part of an under-the-radar trade that has kept his military running despite Western sanctions.Assad’s government has been blacklisted by Western powers for its role in the two-and-a-half year civil war, forcing Damascus to rely on strategic ally Iran as its main supplier of crude oil.An exclusive Reuters examination based on previously undisclosed commercial documents about Syrian oil purchases shows however that Iran is no longer acting alone.Dozens of shipping and payment documents viewed by Reuters show that millions of barrels of crude delivered to Assad’s government on Iranian ships have actually come from Iraq, through Lebanese and Egyptian trading companies. The trade, which is denied by the firms involved, has proven lucrative, the documents appear to show, with companies demanding a steep premium over the normal cost of oil in return for bearing the risk of shipping it to Syria.It also highlights a previously undisclosed role of Egypt, Iraq and Lebanon in Assad’s supply chain, despite those countries’ own restrictions on assisting his government.There was no evidence that the Iraqi or Egyptian governments were involved in shipping Iraqi oil through Egypt’s port, as crude can change hands after first being exported.Both the Syrian national oil company that received the oil, Sytrol, and the Iranian shipping operator that delivered it, the National Iranian Tanker Co (NITC), are on US and EU sanctions lists.The cache of documents describing the trade between March and May this year was shown to Reuters by a source on condition of anonymity.