HASAKAH (Press TV) – Dozens of U.S. military trucks have left Syria’s northeastern province of Hasakah for the Kurdistan region in northern Iraq, carrying tons of grain.
Syria’s official news agency SANA, citing local sources, reported that a convoy of 35 military vehicles loaded with wheat crops from silos of Tal Alou village in al-Ya’rubiyah region headed towards the Iraqi territories on Monday after passing through Waleed border crossing.
The sources said that another convoy of 11 U.S. military trucks left Syria for Iraq through the same border crossing hours later.
The developments took place only a day after a convoy of 86 U.S. military trucks, accompanied by dozens of armored vehicles, crossed al-Waleed border crossing from Kurdistan region in northern Iraq, and entered Kharab al-Jir military base in the Yarubiyah district of Syria’s Hasakah province.
The U.S. military has stationed forces and equipment in northeastern Syria, with the Pentagon claiming that the troops deployment are aimed at preventing the oilfields in the area from falling into the hands of Daesh terrorists. Damascus, however, says the deployment is meant to plunder the country’s resources.
The Syrian foreign minister says the United States is engaged in widespread plundering of Syria’s natural resources, and also reinforces terrorists to take on the Arab country.
“The U.S. ravages our resources and backs terrorist groups [inside Syria] by bringing weapons into the country,” Faisal al-Mekdad told Lebanon’s al-Mayadeen television network on Sunday.
Washington and its allies attack oil convoys inside Syria, he said, adding that the atrocity was “a mark of shame sitting [right] upon their forehead.”
The United States invaded Syria in 2014 at the head of scores of its allies under the pretext of battling the terrorist group of Daesh. The U.S.-led coalition retains its presence, although Syria and its allies, including Iran and Russia, defeated the terrorist outfit in late 2017.
On March 18 also, Syrian Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Bassam Tomeh told state-run and Arabic-language al-Ikhbariyah television news network that the U.S. and its allied terrorist groups are looting oil reserves in the war-stricken Arab country, revealing that Washington controls 90 percent of crude reserves in oil-rich northeastern Syria.
“Americans and their allies are targeting the Syrian oil wealth and its tankers just like pirates,” the Syrian oil minister said.
He noted that the cost of direct and indirect damage to the Syrian oil sector stands at more than $92 billion.