DAMASCUS (Dispatches) – The U.S. military has reportedly used dozens of tanker trucks to smuggle crude oil from Syria’s northeastern province of Hasakah to neighboring Iraq, as Washington continues to plunder energy reserves in the war-torn country.
Syria’s official news agency SANA, citing local sources in al-Ya’rubiyah town, reported that a convoy of 37 tankers, laden with crude oil, left Syria through the illegal Mahmoudiya border crossing on Monday morning, and headed towards Iraqi territories.
The development comes less than a week after U.S. occupation forces sent 66 tankers laden with stolen Syrian oil from the energy-rich Jazira region in Syria’s Hasakah province to their bases in Iraq.
The U.S. military has for long stationed its forces and equipment in northeastern Syria, with the Pentagon claiming that the deployment is aimed at preventing the oilfields in the area from falling into the hands of Daesh terrorists.
Damascus, however, maintains the deployment is meant to plunder the country’s natural resources. Former U.S. president Donald Trump admitted on several occasions that American forces were in the Arab country for its oil wealth.
Syria says the U.S. occupation has cost Syria over $107 billion in oil and gas sector losses.
Damascus also complains that the U.S.’ thefts of Syrian oil, natural gas and other resources have led to energy shortages and have further deteriorated the economy and people’s livelihoods.
The UN chief warned in a new report that the already dire humanitarian situation in Syria is worsening and if aid deliveries from Turkey to the militant-held northwest aren’t renewed next month millions of Syrians may not survive the winter.
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in the report to the UN Security Council obtained by The Associated Press that cross-border aid to the northwest remains “an indispensable part” of humanitarian operations to reach all people in need.
Deliveries across conflict lines within the country, which Syria’s close ally Russia has pressed for, have increased but Guterres said they cannot substitute for “the size or scope of the massive cross-border United Nations operation.”