Video attributed to "Fuel Tankers on their way from Syria to Iraq".. What is its truth?

- Accounts on social media circulated a video claiming to show scenes of fuel tankers arriving from Syria to Iraq, coinciding with the fuel shortage crisis in the country. The video, which garnered over two million views on the X platform, shows a large convoy of fuel transport trucks traveling on a desert road.

A post claimed that "dozens of tankers loaded with gasoline are coming from Syria to Iraq to alleviate the fuel crisis caused by Iran's ban on importing gasoline to Iraq through the Strait of Hormuz." By breaking the video into still shots and using reverse image search, we found older versions published on Facebook dated May 12.

Iraqi pages reported at that time that the scenes were related to "the passage of tankers loaded with oil from Iraq to Syria through the Rabia crossing in Nineveh." In early May, the first operations for exporting Iraqi crude oil to Syrian territory began through the Rabia-Al-Yarubiyah border crossing between the two countries, according to the Iraqi News Agency citing the head of the Iraqi border crossings authority, Amro Al-Waeli.

Al-Waeli stated in a statement reported by the agency at that time that Iraq had begun sending 70 tankers loaded with oil, considering that "the step represents the start of activating the Rabia-Al-Yarubiyah crossing as a strategic route for exporting crude oil." The return of the video to circulation coincides with the fuel shortage crisis that several Iraqi provinces have witnessed in recent weeks, which prompted the questioning of the Minister of Oil, Basim Khudair Al-Abadi, by the House of Representatives.

Meanwhile, the Syrian Petroleum Company announced on Sunday that operations for unloading and shipping gasoline tankers to Iraq are ongoing, according to a statement from the company. The company's Deputy CEO, Ahmad Qabaji, stated that "the Baniyas terminal has received 10 gasoline tankers so far, while loading operations continue within equipped yards that can accommodate 8 tankers at a time, with efforts to gradually increase the capacity," before being reloaded by land to Iraq.