Iran Press/ Middle East: US troops and their Syrian Kurdish militia allies control about a third of Syria, including its richest oil and food producing regions. The US occupation has hampered Damascus’s ability to rebuild from a devastating foreign-backed war and turned the nation from a net exporter to a net recipient of energy and food.
local media have reported,
The act of pillage is at least the second time in two weeks that local media have reported on the illegal smuggling activity, citing sources in the al-Ya’rubiyah countryside in the al-Hasakah governorate.
On November 22, it was reported that a convoy of 44 tankers had left the country via the al-Mahmoudiyah crossing and sent into Iraq.
The US and their Kurdish 'Syrian Democratic Forces' allies have been looting Syria’s oil resources for over five years, with American troops establishing a presence in northeastern Syria between 2016 and 2017 after pushing ISIS's self-proclaimed ‘caliphate’ out of lands east of the Euphrates River.
The Syrian military has repeatedly attempted to dislodge US occupation forces in the country’s northeast through a strategy of roadblocks and deployments in the area but has faced devastating attacks by US air power whenever it encroaches on American positions, leading to a cruel status quo in which the Pentagon is able to maintain control of Syria’s oil and gas fields, and major food-growing areas, using a small number of troops embedded alongside Kurdish militants as a form of insurance.
Damascus has repeatedly vowed to one day restore total control over all of its internationally-recognized borders and slammed the US and other Western powers for ignoring the American occupation.
An estimated 90 percent of Syria’s modest oil reserves are concentrated east of the Euphrates, and the country, which enjoyed modest export earnings and self-sufficiency in energy and food before 2011, has become a net importer of both, depending on assistance from its Iranian and Russian allies.
In 2020, Russian military intelligence calculated that the US and its allies were earning as much as $30 million a month from oil plundering activities in Syria. This is a drop in the bucket for Washington, but enough to help complement its efforts to starve Syria into submission, when combined with the severe sanctions regime against the war-torn and impoverished country, facetiously known as the ‘Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act.’
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