Syria's widest protests since Assad fall follow a 40 percent diesel rise

Syria's government raised diesel by 40 percent on Saturday, to 175 Syrian pounds a litre, about $1.32. That was the steepest of several fuel increases since the Iran war began. Household and industrial gas rose about 9 percent. Ninety-five octane petrol rose 28 percent to 195 pounds. Ninety octane rose 26 percent to 185 pounds. By Monday, protesters had blocked the Damascus-Aleppo highway, burned tyres on the road toward Turkey, and stopped crude tankers heading for refineries in the centre of the country.

Reuters, reporting from Aleppo, called the demonstrations the most widespread since Bashar al-Assad fell almost two years ago. Crowds were recorded in Hama, Khan Sheikhoun, Maarat al-Numan, Idlib, Raqqa, Deir al-Zor and Hasakah. Some protesters asked for the energy minister, the economy minister and the head of the Syrian Petroleum Company to go. Yasser Salim, speaking in Aleppo, said he did not want higher wages. All he wanted was lower diesel and other fuel prices. Bassam al-Ali addressed President Ahmed al-Sharaa directly: Border crossings bring in millions of dollars. We don't want new roundabouts or malls. We just want to live.

The Ministry of Energy, through the state agency SANA, called the new bulletin temporary. It blamed higher global procurement costs and the country's dependence on imports. Energy Minister Mohammed al-Bashir said Syria produces about 102,000 barrels of oil a day and needs about 325,000. The gap is filled by imports. Russia has supplied around 60,000 barrels a day this year. Damascus has told Washington it is willing to cut those purchases. Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries have reduced Moscow's exportable diesel and petrol, and Russia has tightened product shipments. That squeeze arrived while Syria's largest plant, Baniyas, sat closed for three months of its first full maintenance cycle. Officials say the overhaul will lift Baniyas from 80,000 to 130,000 barrels a day when it returns.

Diesel has more than doubled since February. Ninety-five octane has risen about 86 percent over the same stretch. Those two numbers sit under every taxi fare, bakery oven and irrigation pump. They also sit under the new government's claim that life after Assad would get cheaper. The protests are not a single organised opposition. They are a price shock meeting a public that can now gather without the old security service. That is a different political problem from the one Assad managed with force.

Sharaa's administration has already raised electricity tariffs sharply this year and set a wheat purchase price near $330 a ton while farmers asked for about $550. Fuel is the file that reaches every governorate on the same weekend. Blocking tankers is a direct hit on the refineries the state needs to ease the shortage. If those blockades last, the next bulletin will be written in an even tighter market.

The government says it will keep reviewing prices as world markets move and will expand refining and storage over a longer period. That promise does not cut the litre price this week. Protesters on the Aleppo road are not arguing about 2027 capacity. They are arguing about 175 pounds for diesel on a Monday morning.

Syria's fuel balance is simple and ugly. Domestic crude covers less than a third of need. The main external supplier is under attack. The main domestic refinery is offline for maintenance. The Iran war has lifted the cost of every cargo that still arrives. In that arithmetic a 40 percent diesel rise is a policy choice and a confession. The choice is to pass the import bill to households. The confession is that the state cannot subsidise the gap.

How Sharaa answers will show whether the new order treats street blockades as a price to pay for fiscal honesty or as a threat to be cleared. As of Monday the roads were still closed in places, the ministers were still in post, and the 175-pound diesel price was still on the board.