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Sources: US troop reinforcements arrive to secure oil region in Syria

May 15, 2020 at 2:19 pm

Oil reservoirs in Syria on 1 November 2019 [Ömer Yasin Ergin/Anadolu Agency]

The US military has created a new base at Deir Ez-Zor, an oil-rich region in eastern Syria, reported the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) today in a report on the movement of US troops and Daesh forces in the region.

Some 300 US military shipments are reported to have reached Al-Jazrat over the past few days, according to the UK based institute. US troops are said to be expanding their base at the Al-Omar Oil Field, to the east of Deir Ez-Zor, where President Trump ordered his troops to take possession of Syrian oil and prevent it from being used by the Syrian regime.

SOHR, says that the US has established numerous illegal military bases in Syria, scattered through the north-east of the Iraqi border, and at the border triangle of Iraq, Syria and Jordan to the south.

READ: US officer and SDF fighters killed in Daesh ambush

The Syrian regime has hit out at the US troop build-up in the area. Damascus has demanded that all American troops leave Syria, as they are considered to be occupation forces and their presence in the country is illegal under international law.

Daesh forces, encouraged by the movement of US forces in the fluid border region between Syria and Iraq, are also said to be on the move.

In its report, SOHR reported Mohammed Mahdi Al-Bayati, a leader of the Badr Organisation in Iraq, saying: “Eyewitnesses living along the border with Syria have informed security officials that American forces are conducting extensive airborne transfers of Daesh terrorists from Syria to Iraq.” Daesh militants are said to have entered Iraq from the Syrian border of the former ‘Rojava’ Kurdish area in the north-east.

In an attack that was attributed to Daesh on Wednesday five Iraqi security personnel and three civilians were killed while several others were injured.

Daesh also kidnapped two farmers from their farm in Makhyas and burnt three acres of their wheat crops, as well as three tractors. The farmers’ bodies were later found near their fields.

READ: Daesh, Assad regime elements clash in Syria