Strong Signal to Turkey: Syrian Army Destroys Jihadist Oil Facility in Major Ballistic Missile Strike

The Syria Arab Army (SAA) reportedly launched a ballistic missile strike on a major oil facility in the country’s Idlib governate, which is currently under the control of Al Qaeda linked jihadist insurgents with whom the country’s forces have frequently clashed. Idlib has been classified in U.S. Military reports as the world’s largest Al Qaeda safe haven since 2001, with over 50,000 jihadist militants occupying the territory. The SAA used its most precise class of ballistic missile for the attack - which is thought to have been a North Korean-supplier KN-02 Toksa solid fuelled short ranged missile. The Toksa entered service in the SAA in the mid-2000s, and is closely derived from the Soviet Tochka ballistic missile which Syria also fields in small numbers. Footage allegedly showing the burning oil facility indicate that the strike may have been carried out by a single precision guided missile. Idlib is currently the only part of Syria under the control of Islamist insurgent groups, and while the SAA took ground in the governate in clashes from January-March 2020 it failed to reunify the country due to a large scale Turkish military intervention in support of the militants. 

Oil facilities in Idlib have provided a key source of revenues for militants controlling the area, and are reported to have been sold illegally and transited through Turkey. The fact that oil facilities have remained outside the Syrian government’s control has notably hindered post-war recovery efforts by denying Damascus key revenues. Further to the east, the United States Military has also occupied large parts of Syrian territory illegally and focused on fortifying oil producing facilities. It has similarly exported the oil and appropriated the revenues. With Syria and its defence partners taking a harder line against the presences of Western and Turkish forces on its soil, the strike on the oil facility in Idlib could be seen as a warning of potential future attacks on key oil facilities being illegally used by its adversaries in future. The ballistic missile attack notably closely coincided with Russian air strikes on militant targets in Idlib.