Syria: US continues to steal oil through Iraq

The United States continues to loot oil from Syria’s Al-Jazeera region through Iraqi territories, Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported yesterday.

“A US convoy, consisting of 30 tanker trucks laden with stolen Syrian oil has left the war-stricken country and sneaked into neighbouring Iraq through the illegal Al-Walid crossing in the Al-Yaroubia area,” SANA said.

The official agency added that the US forces, in collusion with the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), control most of the oil fields in northern and eastern Syria.

This was said to have been confirmed during a Senate hearing exchange between South Carolina Republican Senator, Lindsey Graham, and US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, in late July.

Syria’s United Nations envoy, Bashar Al-Jaafari, recently said that the American Delta Crescent Energy company had “entered into a contract with the SDF, with the aim of stealing Syrian oil and depriving the Syrian state and Syrian people of the basic revenues necessary to improve the humanitarian situation, provide for livelihood needs and reconstruction.”

The US move comes days after the US military announced plans to strengthen its troops’ deployment in northeastern Syria, despite previous efforts to limit its presence there – a step which politicians say might escalate tensions between Washington and Moscow.

READ: Trump says US troops to be reduced to 2,000 in Iraq, 4,000 in Afghanistan