Syria: Oil refinery attacks raise fears of ‘grave escalation’

About 200 oil trucks caught fire in missile attacks and it took 20 hours to bring blazes under control.

Attacks on rural Aleppo that caused severe damage to oil facilities have been described as “state terrorism” by the Syrian opposition, in what is a possible message to Turkish-backed forces in the region. The deadly attacks last Friday, reportedly launched by Russia from warships and by forces aligned with the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, hit makeshift oil refineries in al-Hamran near the town of Jarablus and the village of Tarhin near al-Bab in eastern Aleppo. The attack caused huge fires, especially in Tarhin, destroying more than 200 oil trucks and taking 20 hours to bring them under control, according to Syria’s volunteer civil defence, known as the White Helmets.