A March 5 missile attack on an oil refinery at al-Hamaran, near Jarabulus [9] in Syria's rebel-held northern pocket, was launched from Russian warships [10] off the country's coast, according to a monitoring group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights [11]. At least one person is known to have been killed in the the three-missile strike, which also hit a nearby market, possibly as "collateral damage." In a similar strike on Feb. 10, rockets fired from the Russian military base at Hmeimim [12], in Syria's coastal Latakia [17] province, struck an oil refinery in the town of Tarhin, also within the rebel-held pocket of Aleppo province. The pocket is in the hands of the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA [13]), and the strikes appear aimed at preventing SNA forces from resuming oil production in the region for black-market export to Turkey.
The Turkish-backed rebel factions now organized as the SNA took the area from ISIS in the 2016 Operation Euphrates Shield [18]. (DPA [19], Jerusalem Post [20], Al Jazeera [21])
Under a Moscow-Damascus deal announced [14] in 2018, Russia is to have exclusive rights to exploit hydrocarbons in Syria in exchange for military support to the Bashar Assad regime.
