The US is continuing its systematic looting of Syria’s energy and food resources. Sources have told Syrian media that a convoy of 45 tankers loaded with Syrian crude oil was shipped out of the country via the Mahmoudiya border crossing into Iraq over the weekend, with a second, 50-vehicle convoy of trucks carrying feed grain and military vehicles crossing from Syria to Iraq through the al-Walid checkpoint.
Also over the weekend, eyewitnesses told local media that the US had sent some 30 vehicles’ worth of weapons, ammunition and logistical equipment to bases in the Hasakah countryside in Syria’s northeast, traveling through the city of Al-Shadadi, about 60 km south of the city of Hasakah, and then on to Hasakah proper. “The load of the convoy that was unloaded at the base [in Al-Shadadi, ed.] included advanced medium weapons, including anti-armored weapons, modern communication and jamming systems, in addition to large quantities of ammunition, including several containers intended to support the SDF militia,” a source said.
Northeastern Syria east of the Euphrates River is home to up to 90 percent of the nation’s oil and gas resources, and much of the nation’s most fertile food-growing areas. The country, which once enjoyed energy and food self-sufficiency and modest export earnings from oil and food, became a net importer of both amid onslaughts by US, Gulf and Turkish-backed militias, and then, from 2016 onwards, by the US and its SDF allies directly.
Syrian authorities have estimated that the country’s energy sector has suffered over $100 billion in damage and losses since 2011, including damage caused by smuggling, theft and looting, US-led coalition bombings and the improper exploitation of fields.
The fields’ occupation and exploitation by foreign militaries and terrorists have left Damascus lacking funds to rebuild from the decade-long CIA dirty war against the country, which is estimated to have caused as much as $1 trillion in damage, killed hundreds of thousands and turned millions of Syrians into refugees.
The US military presence in northeastern Syria has also served to prevent a reconciliation between the Damascus government and majority-Kurdish areas in the country’s northeast. Syrian forces have been careful not to deliberately target US forces occupying their country, given the danger of sparking an overwhelming and devastating American response. However, recent weeks have witnessed an escalation in the number of incidents between Syria’s allies and American occupation forces in the country, including aerial close calls involving US drones and Russian warplanes which the Russian military has characterized as “extremely provocative.”
The threat to US troops lives, combined with the danger of a further escalation of tensions between Washington on one side and Damascus, Moscow and Tehran on the other have prompted some US lawmakers to demand an immediate pullout of American forces from the country. The Biden administration prefers to keep the continued occupation of a third of Syria quiet, justifying the illegal US presence based on fears of the resurgence of Daesh (ISIS)*. Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump, had no qualms about admitting that US forces were in Syria “only for the oil,” which prompted President Assad to praise him as an “honest enemy” who doesn’t cover up US aggression with slogans about defending democracy or fighting terror.
* A terrorist group outlawed in Russia and many other countries.