Black Lands: Conflict-caused Oil Spills in Iraq and Syria Seen from Space

Wim Zwijnenburg
4 min readAug 31, 2017

The destruction brought upon Syria and Iraq in the last six years has left deep scars throughout these countries’ urban and rural landscapes. As part of our ongoing work to monitor conflict-related environmental damage and related health and social-economic cost for communities, PAX has been tracking attacks on the oil infrastructure of these war-torn states.

Operation Inherent Resolve footage of a strike against an oil wellhead, Syria, 2016

In northern Iraq and a large part of eastern Syria, oil resources have played an important developmental role prior the war. This resulted in the build-up of significant oil infrastructure throughout these countries, including refineries, wellheads, pumping jacks, pipelines, storage and transportation facilities.

After the war in Syria broke out, all warring parties scrambled to acquire or hold access to oil-related infrastructure and its relevant transportation routes. Crude and refined oil have provided major financial revenues to keep the war machine up and running. As time passed, expert oil workers fled and the oil infrastructure itself became a target by either the US-led Operation Inherent Resolve — -which targeted oil sites controlled by the so-called Islamic State — -or by the Russian Air Force. In other locations, armed groups attacked oil facilities or destroyed these sites, for example the Shareer gas field in Syria as well as the Qayyarah and Hamrin oil fields in Iraq.

Footage released by the Russian Air Force of an attack on the Omar Oil Refinery, 2015

The major collapse of the oil industry also meant less maintenance and repairs, which likely resulted in leakages, spills and malfunctioning. In other places, armed groups of civilians tried to tap oil from the pipelines, causing spills, or armed groups attempted to disrupt the flow of oil from the various fields in Deir az Zor to refineries in western Syria by attacking these transport routes.

The results can be seen from space, as black veins and lakes of oil are crawling through the Syrian and Iraqi landscape. Using remote sensing to identity these oil spills and resulting environmental pollution risks can help observers understand the impacts of the war on both its energy infrastructure and the potential acute and long term environmental health risks for civilians that live in affected areas, as well as the wider damages to the local ecosystems.

The most recent example of how these oil-related problems can create direct health risks can be found in the Arisha Internally Displaced Person (IDP) camp set up in between artisanal oil refineries in Hasakah province. These(mostly civilian-operated) makeshift refineries are used to heat up crude oil and produce various oil products such benzine and diesel, which is sold on the black market The ICRC raised alarm as children were playing between the toxic waste of these oil refineries next to this IDP camp, exposing them directly to hazardous materials. Wikimapia link

Images ©2017 Planet Labs, Inc. cc-by-sa 4.0

Below are four selected examples of significant oil spills created by either illegal tapping, direct targeting by the US-led Coalition forces, the Russian Air Force or attacks by armed groups. Thanks to Twitter user @Obretix for his help

Hamrin oil fields, south of Hawijah, Iraq

Oil wells at this location have been burning since 2015, with various attempts to extract crude oil by ISIS, leading to an 11km long oil spill. Wikimapia link

Images ©2017 Planet Labs, Inc. cc-by-sa 4.0

Homs-Raqqa oil pipeline

Oil pipeline transporting crude oil from various oil fields in Raqqa to Homs. At various locations, spills can be seen, likely from civilians trying to tap into the pipelines. The spill in in the image below stretches roughly over 500 meters. Wikimapia link:

Images ©2017 Planet Labs, Inc. cc-by-sa 4.0

Jaffra oil field

This oil field and refinery in Deir az Zor governorate has been targeted multiple times by Coalition forces and the Russian Air Force. Damage to wellheads and refineries lead to oil spills and a booming makeshift oil industry nearby. Wikimapia link

Images ©2017 Planet Labs, Inc. cc-by-sa 4.0

Kabibah oil spills

Various oil spills from wells have been detected in this oil field in Hasakah province. Spills at the transportation hub where oil is loaded into the trucks are also clearly visible. Wikimapia link

Images ©2017 Planet Labs, Inc. cc-by-sa 4.0

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Wim Zwijnenburg

|Drones & robots| Arms Trade | Conflict & Environment| Middle East| Cyber security| views are my own. Project leader @