DAMASCUS (Dispatches) – A convoy belonging to the U.S.-led coalition has reportedly transferred military equipment, ammunition and fuel from American bases in Iraq to neighboring Syria.
Citing unnamed sources, Lebanon’s al-Mayadeen news channel reported that the convoy had entered eastern Syria through the Faysh Khabur border crossing in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region on Monday night.
The U.S. military has in recent months ramped up its military presence in Syria, a country gripped by a foreign-backed militancy since 2011 which has repeatedly denounced the deployment as “illegal”.
Last month, the Pentagon sent a convoy to the bases in eastern Syria’s Dayr al-Zawr province through the Al-Waleed border crossing between Iraq and Syria.
Comprised of around 50 vehicles, the convoy reached U.S. bases in the Koniko natural gas field and al-Omer oil field on August 14.
The Pentagon claims that the deployment of its forces and equipment in Syria is aimed at preventing oil fields from falling into the hands of Daesh terrorists.
Damascus, on the other hand, maintains that the deployment is meant to plunder the Arab country’s natural resources.
In letters sent to the UN on Sunday, the Syrian Foreign Ministry called for an end to the illegal presence of U.S. occupation troops and return of the country’s energy reserves and natural resources to the Damascus government.
It also put the damage inflicted on the Syrian oil and mineral sectors as a result of “acts of aggression and sabotage” by U.S. troops and their allied terrorists at $115.2 billion.
In an article published on Sunday, SANA referenced the letters sent by Syria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and Albania, which currently holds the UN Security Council presidency for September. In this communication, Syrian diplomats asked international organization to put an end to what they view as violations of international law and the UN Charter by the U.S., which has stationed troops illegally in the northeast and southeast regions of Syria.