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QAMISHLI, ERBIL — Sitting outside his small house in the village of Mashok, in Syria’s northeastern Hasakah province, Abu Fahd is worried about the situation in his village after Turkish shells hit a nearby power transformer and oil field.
“Since then, both electricity and water have been turned off, because the village well is not connected to the generator, but to the electricity grid,” he said. Syria Direct on Sunday, almost a week after the strikes. “We have one barrel of water left to drink, but no water for the house, no water for the animals,” lamented Abu Fahd. “The whole village depends on this well.”
This 56-year-old farmer, whose land is located along the Syrian-Turkish border, lived for months in fear of a Turkish attack. “We have about 15 hectares near the border that we could not cultivate this year because of tensions with Turkey,” he sighed.
Mashok is located in territory held by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has threatened with a ground offensive since May to create a “safety belt” along the border. On November 20, Turkey launched a military operation targeting parts of northern Syria and Iraq, carrying out dozens of airstrikes and shelling a wide range of targets over several days.
The operation, dubbed “Operation Sword Claw,” was straightforward the answer to the November 13 bombing in downtown Istanbul that killed six people and injured 81. Turkey said the attack was carried out by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the SDF, both of which have denied responsibility. Turkey considers the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (IPG), the main component of the United States-backed SDF in northern Syria, to be an extension of the PKK, which Turkey and the United States designate as a terrorist organization.
Turkey’s latest airstrikes and shelling have targeted the exiled PKK leadership in Syria and Iraq, as well as the IPG and some Syrian government forces. Ankara is earlier killed dozens of IPG members through targeted drone strikes in Syria.
But in addition to military targets, the Turkish bombing of November 20 hit civilian infrastructure, according to local media and human rights observers. Affected locations include a COVID-19 treatment center, grain silos, power transmission stations, oil fields and a gas station.
By targeting power grids, the Turkish military appears to be trying to cut off the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), which governs SDF-held territories, from its lifeline – oil production. But the strikes also left thousands of civilians without electricity, water and heating. And when areas such as oil fields are affected, the danger is not only the short-term impact on civilian lives, but also the long-term health effects through environmental pollution.
Abu Fahd talks about the consequences of the Turkish attacks on his village of Mashok, Hasakah province, 11/27/2022. (Solin Muhammad Amin/Syria Direct)
Energy crisis
“With these strikes, Turkey is trying to destroy the energy infrastructure of the region,” said Rasha Abbas, co-chair of AANES’s energy office for the Jazira region, which roughly corresponds to Hasakah province. Syria Direct. “They were shooting.” [Suwaidiyya] gas plant, which feeds all of northeastern Syria, producing about 13-14,000 gas bottles per day for domestic use.
Shelling of power plants and oil fields cut off water supplies in some localities as pumps and treatment stations were shut down without power.
In addition, “strikes on power transformers, oil stations and other energy infrastructure caused power outages in 17 villages around al-Kahtaniyya (Tirbespi),” said Muhammad al-Mahmud, a worker at the Mashok oil field. Syria Direct. According to Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a human rights watchdog, the blackout has left thousands of people in the cities of Qamishli and al-Malikiiah (Derik) without power, increasing reliance on fuel-powered generators.
In parallel, oil fields have also stalled in much of the oil-rich Hasakah province. In Mashok alone, “four wells out of seven stopped working after the shelling,” al-Mahmud added, pointing to blackened tanks and pipes.
Muhammad al-Mahmud examines the damage at the Mashok oil field in Hasakah province, northeastern Syria, November 27, 2022. (Solin Muhammad Amin/Syria Direct)
“The losses are huge and in millions,” said Abdul Latif Ahmed, an administrator Oudeh Petroleum Companysaid an AANES-affiliated company that operates Hasaka oil fields Syria Direct on Thursday. He requested a pseudonym because he is not authorized to speak to the media. “More than 20 oil production sites and sub-sites were affected.”
Speaking from another oil field near Al-Kahtania that was recently hit by a mortar shell, Ahmed said production — which is usually 400 to 600 barrels a day at this field — had completely stopped after two oil tanks were damaged. “We have the funds to fix the field,” he said, “but for now we don’t plan to do that because it could be targeted again.”
Wear and tear and pollution
As winter sets in, damage to fuel infrastructure and power plants is likely to increase the cost and availability of heating in SDF-held parts of Syria. It’s also a blow to AANES’s main source of income.
Exporting crude oil to Iraqi Kurdistan and regime-controlled parts of Syria allows AANES to perform essential services and pay salaries to SDF fighters. “Turkey’s attacks are probably a signal that they can make serious efforts to deny Self-Government.” [AANES] from generating revenue from fuel sales,” said Wim Zwainenburg, program leader at Pak for Peace, an NGO that has conducted several studies on the environmental impact of the war in Syria.
In addition to the oil fields that extract oil for export, the Jazira region is dotted with informal refineries that produce low-quality diesel fuel for the local market. These refineries — which emerged as an alternative to the damaged formal oil infrastructure during the war — have long been a major source of pollution across Syria, resulting in “local oil spills and years of oil spilling into local rivers and streams, while the absence of proper oil waste management and professional refineries cause serious air and soil pollution,” Zwijnenburg said.
Oil residue from informal refining contaminates the surrounding soil, as seen around these recently closed refineries in northern Hasakah province, 11/10/2022. (Lise Mauvais/Syria Direct)
Oil-related pollution has long been linked to high rates of cancer, respiratory disease and birth defects across northeastern Syria, health ministry officials told AANES Syria Direct in October. In recent years, de facto authorities have made limited but growing efforts to regulate the industry, banning child labor in refineries and banning the most basic types of furnaces.
But Operation Sword Claw could undo these efforts, increasing the need to maintain and repair damaged infrastructure as well as clean up localized spills. And with some of the larger oil facilities in the area out of commission, some of the closed informal refineries could reopen.
“The current strikes appear to have limited impact, mostly leading to localized air pollution and potential soil and water contamination, but due to a lack of sufficient equipment and capacity for remediation, cleanup and repairs could take a long time, exacerbating existing pollution and risking a wider oil collapse.” infrastructure,” Zwijnenburg said. “There are over 1,000 kilometers of outdated oil and gas pipelines in northeastern Syria that need to be replaced, at least 20 clusters of makeshift refineries still operating in Hasaka, and over 12 crudely constructed oil dumps.”
Widespread crisis
International humanitarian law prohibits warring parties from targeting civilian infrastructure—including energy infrastructure—unless used for military purposes, in which case evidence must be provided to justify the strikes. Additional protocol I The Geneva Convention also expressly prohibits “methods or means of warfare which are intended, or may be expected, to cause widespread, long-term and serious damage to the natural environment,” as can be expected when targeting oil fields.
But around the world, warring parties have so far shown little respect for these provisions, which have been difficult to hold accountable in international courts.
“According to current international law, there are serious gaps when it comes to state responsibility for environmental damage, because the threshold of responsibility is really high, that is, the damage must be serious, long-term and widespread at the same time,” said Zwainenburg. “Small spills in the case of northeastern Syria would not.” [meet this criteria]even the long-term damage to the local environment from oil waste dumping would not.
The latest strikes on energy infrastructure are part of a wider pattern seen repeatedly in Syria since 2011, as parties on all sides war on energy infrastructure.
Aleppo thermal power plant, one of the main power plants in the country, in 2015. shelled by the Syrian regime to cut off electricity in parts of the city of Aleppo that were then held by the opposition. In 2016, the Zayzun power plant in Idlib was destroyed by regime shelling and then looted by Islamist groups. Together, the two plants made 15 percent of electricity production in Syria. The following year, a key power plant was destroyed in Deir ez-Zor, this time by the US-led anti-Islamic State (IS) coalition. The international coalition too targeted oil fields in the Syrian and Iraqi deserts to deprive IS of income, leaving behind its own legacy of pollution.
As a result, Syria’s energy sector is in shambles. Many Syrians have grown accustomed to living on a few hours of electricity a day, waiting in lines for hours at gas stations to fill up their cars and battling cold winters with limited heating options. According to 2021 assessment, Syrians today consume 15 percent of the state electricity they relied on before the war. As a result, reliance on fuel-fired generators has increased across the country, increasing air pollution from the fumes they emit.
Today, thousands of people in northeastern Syria who have been directly or indirectly affected by Operation Sword Claw are trying to secure electricity, water and heating after the strike. The disruption in energy services could continue for weeks or months, depending on the course of Turkey’s military operation.
But even after immediate needs are met, the slow-moving disaster continues. The long-term effects of war on the environment continue to grow, with consequences that will last for years to come.
Oil residue around an informal refinery in the north of Hasakah province, 11/10/2022. (Lise Mauvais/Syria Direct)
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