Recently released satellite images by the Russian Defense
Ministry show tank trucks guarded by US military servicemen and private
military companies were busy in smuggling oil from fields in the eastern part
of Syria to other countries. It suggests that Washington is looting Syrian oil
and transporting it to outside Syrian territories under American military guard.
The revenues of the US government from the theft were estimated more than US$30
million per month.
Washington is capturing and holding oil fields under its
control in the eastern part of Syria. This is a clear international
state-sponsored gangsterism, say Russians. These resources inside the Syrian
territories belong to the Syrian Arab Republic. They neither belong to Daesh
nor to the American protectors. The cost of one barrel of oil smuggled from
Syria estimated at US$38 generates monthly revenue for the private business
exceeds US$30 million.
While US President Donald Trump has ordered a partial
withdrawal of the approximately 1,000 US troops from Syrian territory, who have
been enforcing an illegal military occupation under international law. The US President
himself and US officials have admitted that some will be staying in Syrian.
They will remain on Syrian soil not to ensure the safety of any group of
people, but rather to maintain control over oil and gas fields. Donald said openly,
“We want to keep the oil.”
The US military has already killed hundreds of Syrians, and
possibly even some Russians, precisely in order to hold on to these Syrian
fossil fuel reserves. Washington’s obsession with toppling the Syrian
government refuses to die. The US remains committed to preventing Damascus from
retaking its own oil, as well as its wheat-producing breadbasket region, in
order to starve the government of revenue and prevent it from funding
reconstruction efforts.
It is for the first time, Trump has openly confirmed the
imperialist ulterior motives behind maintaining a US military presence in
Syria. “We want to keep the oil,” Trump confessed in a cabinet meeting on
October 21. “Maybe we’ll have one of our big oil companies to go in and do it
properly.”
Few days earlier, the president had tweeted, “The US has
secured the Oil.” “President Trump is leaning in favor of a new Pentagon plan
to keep a small contingent of American troops in eastern Syria, perhaps
numbering about 200, to combat the Islamic State and block the advance of
Syrian government and Russian forces into the region’s coveted oil fields.
“We secured the oil (in Syria), and therefore a small number
of US troops will remain in the area where they have the oil,” Trump said.
“And we’re going to be protecting it. And we’ll be deciding what we’re going to
do with it in the future.”
“We have troops in towns in northeast Syria that are located
next to the oil fields. The troops in those towns are not in the present phase
of withdrawal. Our forces will remain in the towns that are located near the
oil fields.
Unlike Trump, others offer an excuse to justify the
continued US military occupation of Syria’s oil fields. He insisted that
American soldiers remain to help the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)
hold on to the resources and prevent ISIS jihadists from taking them over.
But any observer who carefully witnessed the press
confirmation during his press conference would have been able to detect the
real goal behind the prolonged US presence in northeastern Syria. It seems the
purpose of those troops, working with the SDF, is to deny access to those oil
fields by ISIS and others who may benefit from revenues that could be
earned.
It is clear that the US strategy is to prevent Syria’s
UN-recognized government and the Syrian majority that lives under its control
from retaking their own oil fields and reaping the benefits of their revenue. US
military massacred hundreds to keep control of Syrian oil fields. This is not
just speculation. CNN made it plain when reported the following in an
undeniably blunt passage, citing anonymous US senior military officials:
The oil fields are assets that have also been long sought
after by Russia and the Assad regime, which is strapped for cash after years of
civil war. Both Moscow and Damascus hope to use oil revenues to help rebuild
western Syria and solidify the regime’s hold. CNN acknowledged that the US
military had killed up to “hundreds” of Syrian and Russia-backed fighters
seeking to gain access to Syria’s oil fields. It massacred these fighters not
for humanitarian reasons, but to prevent the Syrian government from using “oil
revenues to help rebuild western Syria.”
This shockingly direct admission flew in the face of the
popular myth that the US was keeping troops in Syria to protect Kurds from an
assault by NATO member Turkey. The CNN report was an apparent reference to the
Battle of Khasham, a little known but important episode in the eight-year
international proxy war in Syria.
The battle unfolded on February 7, 2018, when the Syrian
military and its allies launched an attack to try to retake major oil and gas
reserves in Syria’s Deir ez-Zour governorate, which were being occupied by
American troops and their Kurdish proxies. The US has aimed to prevent Damascus
from retaking profitable territory, starving it of natural resources from
fossil fuels to basic foodstuffs.
In 2015, the then President Barack Obama deployed US troops
to northeastern Syria on the grounds of helping the Kurdish militia the
People’s Protection Units (YPG) fight ISIS. What started as several dozen US
special operations forces quickly ballooned into some 2,000 troops, largely
stationed in northeastern Syria.
While Trump has pledged to bring US soldiers home and end
their military occupation of Syrian territory, it is evident that the broader
regime change war continues. A brutal economic war on Damascus is escalating,
not only through sanctions but through the theft of Syria’s natural treasures
by foreign powers.
