Convoy of oil trucks shows war-battered Syria selling itself as safe corridor amid regional conflict

Описание: (1 May 2026)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Tartous, Syria - 1 May 2026
++ DRONE SHOTS ARE MUTE ++

1. Various of drone shots of oil trucks lined up along the highway between Tartous and the port city of Baniyas (MUTE)
2. Various of trucks lined up on the highway between Tartous and Baniyas
3. Wide of truck drivers taking a break, sitting on the ground between trucks
4. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Rashid al-Hussein, Iraqi truck driver:
“We left Mosul in Nineveh and went to Basra, loaded fuel, then came to the border at the Al-Waleed crossing to reach Baniyas and unload at the Baniyas terminal.”
5. Wide of trucks lined up
6. Wide of truck drivers standing by their trucks
7. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Rafea al-Sawadi, Iraqi truck driver:
“Before, we used to work in oil in Iraq, at Iraqi ports. But at the Basra terminal, when the Strait of Hormuz was closed, traders and companies shifted to Syria. We loaded up, and the journey now takes about three to four days. The road is good and the situation is fine.”
8. Various of trucks
9. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Rafea al-Sawadi, Iraqi truck driver:
“Sometimes the trip takes a week, sometimes eight days, sometimes 10 days, even up to 15 days. It depends on how smooth things are at the border crossings and on unloading. If unloading at the port is heavy, we get delayed.”

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Baniyas, Syria - 1 May 2026
10. Various of drone shots of oil trucks lined up on a highway in the port city of Baniyas (MUTE)
11. Various of a large tanker at Baniyas port being prepared for oil loading
12. Various of drone shots of a tanker at Baniyas port (MUTE)
13. Various of drone shots of the Baniyas oil refinery and storage tanks (MUTE)
STORYLINE:
Hundreds of oil-laden trucks, some arriving from Iraq, queue along the road between Tartous and Latakia as they wait to unload into tankers at Baniyas port.

Following the outbreak of the U.S.–Israeli war with Iran and the subsequent closure of the Strait of Hormuz, oil shipments have been trucked from Iraq into Syria and shipped to European markets via Syria’s Baniyas port, bypassing the Hormuz route. A key border crossing between northern Iraq and Syria reopened last month after being closed for more than a decade, with officials touting it as an additional route for energy exports.

The overland route is less efficient and more expensive than shipping exports through the strait, but it provides a workaround as long as Iran maintains its stranglehold on the channel.


Rafea al-Sawadi, Iraqi truck driver:
“Before, we used to work in oil in Iraq, at Iraqi ports. But at the Basra terminal, when the Strait of Hormuz was closed, traders and companies shifted to Syria. We loaded up, and the journey now takes about three to four days. The road is good and the situation is fine," said Iraqi truck driver Rafea al-Sawadi, who uses the road.

Drone footage also show an oil tanker anchored off the Syrian coast, awaiting the completion of loading oil via offshore pipelines at Baniyas port before departing for export to international markets.

War-battered Syria has stood out as one of the few spots of calm in the region’s latest conflagration. Its leaders have been working to rebuild relations with Arab and Western countries that had shunned Syria under former President Bashar Assad, who was ousted in December 2024 by rebels, who then installed a new government.

Since the outbreak of the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, Damascus has seized on the opportunity to strengthen those relationships by staying neutral.







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