Tribes are supplying oil and gas to both the government and rebels to spare their villages from attack – and make money

A northern wind had been blowing since early morning, lifting a veil of dust that had blocked the sun and turned the sky the colour of ash. Abu Zayed was sitting on the porch of his unfinished concrete home, watching the storm build. He loved sandstorms. They reminded him of Dubai, where he had lived before the war. He admired the people there for turning a desert into a paradise. They had vision, he told his followers.

Six months ago, he left the Gulf emirate to join the Syrian revolution, attending opposition conferences in Istanbul and Cairo, jostling for position on behalf of his father, the leading sheikh of a powerful tribe in eastern Syria.

But Abu Zayed soon became disgusted with the bickering among the rebel leadership. "There is an opposition council in every hotel lobby in Istanbul," he said. "You can't distinguish them from the regime."

Instead, like other disaffected tribal leaders, Abu Zayed returned home to his ancestral land and put his energy into building up his clan, taking control of his energy-rich ancestral lands.

Most of the oil and gas fields in eastern Syria lie idle or pump meagre quantities that are refined using primitive techniques to generate a pittance, but Abu Zayed's land has a huge gas plant. It stands less than a mile from his home.

His father had chosen him out his 40 brothers to look after the plant because he was seen as a man of vision. The war had given him a chance to realise his dream: to build an oil-fuelled emirate.

The hard edges of Syria's frontlines – dogmatic, revolutionary, Islamist or pure murderously sectarian – almost melt away outside the oilfields. New lines emerge pitting tribesmen against battalions, Islamists against everyone else, and creating sometimes surreal lines of engagement, where rebels help maintain government oil supplies in return for their villages being spared from bombardment and being allowed to siphon oil for themselves.

"There is chaos now," Abu Zayed said. "The Free Syrian Army is chasing loot, and they don't care about civilians. The military councils are stealing the aid and then selling it. There are dozens of battalions here, we don't even know who is manning a checkpoint at the end of the street. Some people are saying the days of Bashar [al-Assad] were better, that the opposition has betrayed the people.

"But we can organise this situation," he said. "Look at this gas plant, it's under our control. Things are organised here and we can do the same for other oil and gas fields.

"Most of the people who control the oilfields around here are making about 5m Syrian pounds [£32,000] a day. They exploit a field for a few weeks, but because of the chaos, another powerful cousin or battalion soon arrives to fight for it and take control of it.

"I tell these people to lease me the field for S£10m a month. I collect all the fields under my control, bring in companies to exploit them properly and organise truck convoys to sell the gas to Turkey. Then we'll buy Patriot [missile] batteries and drones to protect the fields against the regime."

His ambition did not stop there. "Once you have economic power you can convene a council for the tribes here inside the country, and organise all the military units in one military council," he said.

Using the old definition of tribal land from the French colonial era, before the Syrian republic and its socialist laws that smashed feudal property, each tribe is now claiming ownership of the fields that lie in its wajeh (tribal territory). As the Syrian regime has crumbled, society in the desert east has fallen back on the tribes. "Even [al-Qaida affiliate] Jabhat al-Nusra can't do anything against us," said Abu Zayed. "They try to get fields but they can't. Not Nusra, not even the Americans could take these fields from us with all the weapons we have now."

He stood up and walked to the edge of the porch, the slow, deliberate, short-stepped walk of the Gulf "nobility", swaying slightly from side to side. He wore his keffiyeh [scarf] and dishdasha [robe] not in the style of the Syrian tribesmen but like the rich Sunnis of the Gulf.

Our land, our gas plant

He led me to a gleaming BMW 4x4 at the front of the house. Two gunmen jumped into the back seats, their presence just a precaution: there was no fighting in these parts, no shelling or air raids, only the wind blowing and the approaching sandstorm.

At the gates of the plant, four fighters standing guard hurriedly opened the gates. Once inside, Abu Zayed stepped out of his car and stood in front of the modern factory with its metallic chimneys, spherical storage tanks and eternally burning flames, like a benevolent ruler inspecting the latest achievement of his nation.

A few shafts of light escaped the sand veil shrouding the sun and danced wildly in the sky, bouncing off the chimneys and throwing coloured shadows at the walls. "This is a top-class factory," he said. "They built all these factories on our land and only 10 guards and two cooks from our area worked here. The rest all came from the cities. Now it's over. This is ours.

"This plant makes S£10m a day. We protect it and we wouldn't let anyone steal anything from here. We get gas and electricity from the plant and we sell the petrol that it produces."

Three engineers in blue overalls were walking about the perimeter of the factory inspecting some damaged warehouses. One of them broke away from the group and walked briskly to greet the sheikh. "Everything is going well," the broad-shouldered engineer reported to Abu Zayed. "But we shouldn't produce any more LPG [cooking gas]. We need it all pumped out today; I want to keep the tanks empty."

A shadow of annoyance flickered across Abu Zayed's face. The cooking gas was very important to him, as some of it was pumped to a nearby gas plant under the control of Jabhat al-Nusra to keep its fighters happy. The rest was bottled and sold in the market.

The engineer continued with his technical report to his new boss: "I am pumping 4.5m cubic metres of gas into the main gas grid. That's enough electricity for five times the needs of [the province of] Deir el-Zour."

Who controls the main grid? "The government," said the engineer, matter of factly. He had a weightlifter's physique but looked exhausted, with two very dark circles surrounding his small eyes and seemingly covering most of his face. "The regime wants production regardless of who is in control. I pump gas to the government and give the LPG gas to the terrorists," he said, only half joking.

"I tell the regime everything, I tell them that the Jufra field is under the control of Nusra, that the tribes have taken over the wells or have looted them. But the regime officials don't want to listen, they just want production. If we reduce production, they go mad. They tell me to send them my LPG production and I tell them the locals take that, so they shout at me. I tell them if they don't like it I will shut the plant, so then they shut up. In their heads I think the regime still consider themselves the masters. But where are they? Where are they to protect the facilities?

"I pump around 5m cubic metres of gas a day into the system that feeds the regime's power stations. Even though the regime is rationing the electricity to certain cities, if I stop pumping, the system will collapse. In the end he [Assad] doesn't mind dealing with rebels if they give him electricity."

A wall of dust loomed from behind the chimneys and moved like a giant wave over the plant, engulfing everything. Only the flame remained visible, and, as if by magic, all the lights of the factory turned on.

Caravan of tankers

The engineer invited us into his 1980s-style office. Only half the plant's workforce showed up each day, he said; the rest had all deserted. When he asked them why, he said, they told him that it wasn't only them and that he should look at what had happened to the rest of the country.

"I produce 120MW of electricity. I give this to the rebel areas because if I shut electricity off they will attack me tomorrow, and if I stop pumping gas to the government they will bomb all of this tomorrow.

"I feel like I am sitting on a bomb. The rebels fight at night," he said with a look of rebuke towards his new master "over their shares of the gasoline. They don't use Kalashnikovs any more but anti-aircraft guns. If one bullet got in the gas tanks, the whole area would explode. That's why I try to keep them empty."

As we drove back through the storm, Abu Zayed tried to explain why is he was still pumping gas to the regime. "If we don't pump, the regime will attack the plant, which is providing us with gas and electricity," he said.

"The engineer is a very honest and patriotic man. He stayed when others had fled. I brought him to my house and told him: 'Don't wag your tail and try to send fuel to others, this is our land and you have your factory here, fine, but it's ours now.'"

By nightfall the sandstorm had moved on, leaving everything covered in a thick brown layer. A cold wind was blowing over the porch, where more men had gathered.

Beyond it, a long trail of headlights followed the narrow road linking the highway to the gas plant.

Syrian rebels pump crude oil from a well under their control to dealers who will either export it or resell it to peasants to refine it themselves. Photograph: Ghaith Abdul-Ahad

This caravan of tankers and pick-up trucks was heading to the plant to fill up with petrol. As they did every night, tribesmen and their kinsmen from local rebel battalions congregated at the edge of the plant, where the pumping station is located, to scoop out the precious petrol that would be resold a few miles down the road to oil traders.

The tribesmen brought heavy 23mm anti-aircraft guns mounted on pick-up trucks as a precaution, should any disagreement arise over each group's quota. An old Russian tank stood like a muscled bouncer, ready to intervene.

Abu Zayed walked around the porch striking deals as the buyers sought his influence to increase their quotas, reduce those of other tribes, or buy tanks of cooking gas. It was the Syrian desert's equivalent of a London or New York club where major deals are negotiated.

Two commanders were sitting on the porch, watching the trail of lights and lamenting the state of revolution in theatrical voices. Each of them ruled a considerable oil fiefdom.

"Oh Hassan, what has become of us?" asked a commander with a very thick black moustache. "Where is the beauty of our early jihad? In the first days … before the damn oil came and everyone started building their fortunes, and leaving the fight."

Hassan, a notorious bandit-cum-rebel who had become one of the richest men in Deir el-Zour, replied: "I swear to Allah that with the revenue from my oil I am equipping and organising a battalion that will go fight in the city."

"Oh Hassan, this is why Allah is not rewarding me with martyrdom yet," said the commander with the moustache. "As long as the city is there waiting for us, we fight."



Oil fuels division

Hassan said the oil was dividing the tribes. "An oilfield belongs to the ancestral land of a tribe, but which clan? Which family? Which brothers? This is why everyone is arming and this is why there are daily clashes over oilfields and why a 23mm anti-aircraft gun has become a weapon of necessity."

Listening to the tribesmen lamenting the loss of their Jerusalem while busy making fortunes from the oil was Ahmad, a tall, athletic young man with a thick shock of hair always covered in gel that was now caked with dust. A barber by trade in his native Deir el-Zour and a corporal until he defected, he had a kind, self-effacing smile.

Ahmad's battalion commander had looted an oil tanker, which was then leased to Abu Zayed. The revenue from the lease supported a battalion of 200 men fighting on the frontline. Ahmad was the logistics officer in charge of collecting the rent, buying ammunition and weapons, and feeding the men.

"With the weapons you have collected, you could have liberated the city of Deir el-Zoura long time ago," Ahmad told Abu Zayed in his musical accent.

"You people of the city always blame the countryside," replied Abu Zayed. "You received weapons that would have liberated the city a few times. While we fight, you sit playing cards at the cafes in the city. We did our duty and liberated the countryside. Now it's your turn."

"And most of the fighters in the city are countryside people, not from the city," he added. "And yes, we have weapons but we have taken them with our hands. You sold your weapons."

"Have you seen the city? Ahmad replied. "We have been hammered day and night by Katyushas [rocket launchers] but look at you sitting on the veranda enjoying a breeze, there we would have been dead by now. We are eating dried bread. We mix it with water and eat it. This oil is for everyone. It's not your oil to treat like your property."

"This oil is ours, not yours, not al-Qaida's – and no one, no matter how powerful, can take it from us. We have weapons to fight America if we want – even the regime can't take this back now. And who wants to eat dried bread any more? We want to sell oil and build houses." Everyone laughed.

"You should make the ministry of oil here in the new Syria," laughed one of the men.

"And what about the gas plant," said Ahmad. "You don't think it's wrong that you are giving gas to the government that's shelling me 20km from here?"

The answer came back: "If I don't give them gas, he will bomb this whole village from the face of earth."

Later, on the frontline in Deir el-Zour, Ahmad told me how the new oil barons were draining the revolution of its strength in the east.

"Those oil lords, our version of warlords, they are the reason why we haven't won yet. They don't care if we all die here, they care about how much money they will make.

"They were with the regime and when they saw the regime collapsing decided to join the revolution. Now I don't recognise them as part of the revolution. I only see those around me on the frontlines as the real revolutionaries. The rest – they are mercenaries and they will be eradicated after the war."