RABIA BORDER CROSSING, Iraq – Iraq has reopened the Rabia border crossing with Syria after more than a decade to accelerate overland fuel oil exports and revive cross-border trade amid disruption to Gulf shipping following the Iran war, Iraqi border officials said on April 20.
The crossing, located in Iraq’s northern Nineveh province, will allow fuel oil shipments to be trucked through Syria while also reopening the route to commercial trade traffic that has been halted since the conflict that followed Syria’s civil war, officials said.
With the Rabia post – known as Yarubiyah on the Syrian side – back in operation, all three border crossings between Iraq and Syria are now open.
Previously a major trade route between the two countries, the Rabia crossing in Nineveh province closed after the emergence of the ISIS terror group, which seized large swathes of Syria and Iraq in a lightning offensive in 2014.
Although the jihadists were later defeated, the border crossing remained closed and was only briefly used to deliver aid into war-torn Syria.
Until earlier 2026, Kurdish forces controlled the post on the Syrian side, before handing it over to the Syrian authorities, who overthrew former ruler Bashar al-Assad in December 2024.
Border Ports Authority chief Omar Al-Waeli told journalists during the reopening ceremony that Rabia “is a strategic border port” that had been shut for almost 13 years.
He said reopening Rabia would ease pressure on fuel shipments to Syria by allowing more fuel oil trucks to cross, with most convoys currently backed up at the al-Waleed crossing in western Iraq, the only operating border point.
Iraqi oil trucks lining up along the highway between Tartus and Latakia, Syria, on April 19, 2026.
PHOTO: EPA
Iraq is struggling to clear swelling fuel oil inventories after maritime exports through the Gulf were badly hit by the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
Iraq’s state oil marketer SOMO has recently turned to overland routes through Syria, despite higher costs, as one of the few viable alternatives to keep exports flowing. SOMO awarded contracts to supply about 650,000 metric tonnes of fuel oil per month from April to June to be trucked overland via Syria.
Convoys of tanker trucks loaded with Iraqi fuel oil are expected to begin crossing in the coming days, adding capacity to an operation that energy officials say has already stretched Iraq’s trucking and border infrastructure.
Iraq had previously exported the bulk of its fuel oil through the Khor al-Zubair terminal on the Gulf. REUTERS, AFP
