Islamic State Smuggles Oil Into Turkey—With Hostages as Insurance

Turks pay about 5 liras ($2.30) per liter at the pump, a higher price than in most European countries and more than double the average in the U.S.—the equivalent of almost $9 a gallon. That makes cheap oil and gasoline smuggled across the border from Syria and Iraq attractive. The fuel makes its way into Turkey by truck, hauled inside canisters, or is pumped through plastic pipelines. Middlemen purchase the fuel for 1 lira to 1.5 liras per liter, says Mehmet Ali Ediboglu, a Turkish legislator. By the time it arrives in the city of Gaziantep, a booming export hub in southeastern Turkey, it sells on the black market for about 3 liras, locals say.

The trouble is, much of that gas comes from Islamic State, the murderous proto-government that rules a swath of territory straddling Syria and Iraq. The Sunni militants control about 60 percent of Syria’s crude oil production assets and several oil wells in Iraq, says Luay al-Khatteeb, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Doha Center. While some of the fuel is sold or distributed in Syria and Iraq, the rest is smuggled to southern Turkey. “It’s the only export market that Islamic State has,” he says.