DAMASCUS (Dispatches) – Residents of a village in Syria’s northeastern province of Hasakah have reportedly blocked a U.S. military convoy as it was attempting to pass through their community, amid boiling public rage over the presence of American occupation forces in the energy-rich region of the war-ravaged Arab country.
According to a report published by Syria’s official news agency SANA, the convoy of five armored vehicles had to turn around and head back in the directions it came from after locals of the village of al-Mujaibra, which lies on the outskirts of Tal Tamr town, and Syrian army troops intercepted and expelled it from the area on Tuesday.
The development came less than a week after a U.S. convoy of five American military vehicles was forced to retreat after locals of the village of Qabur al-Granja in the Qamishli district of Hasakah province blocked the road and prevented its movement.
The U.S. military has stationed 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 rich mineral resources.
Separately, dozens of people in Syria’s Hasakah province staged a demonstration in protest at the deployment of U.S.-sponsored and Kurdish-led militants from the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the area and the their arbitrary practices.
SANA, citing local sources, reported that the residents of al-Yousefiyah and al-Junaidiyah villages held a rally on Tuesday, protesting the seizure of their property as well as looting and smuggling of crude oil by SDF militants.
Meanwhile, Turkish military took the Western Syrian province of Aleppo’s villages under a heavy bombardment campaign on Tuesday evening.
The offensive took place against as many as 10 villages across the province, Lebanon’s al-Mayadeen television network reported.
The Turkish forces unleashed at least “200 missiles and artillery shells” against the targeted areas, it added.
The network identified the source of the offensive as the Turkish missile and artillery units that are deployed across Turkey’s illegal bases south of the city of Afrin, which is located in the Arab country’s extreme northwest.
The attack came less than a week after the Turkish military brought the Syrian army’s bases in the northern part of the Aleppo Province under similar artillery and missile strikes.
Since 2016, Turkey has launched three military operations inside Syria to target the United States-backed Kurdish militants, who are known as the People’s Protection Units (YPG). Turkey accuses the YPG of being linked to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militant group, which has been fighting a decades-long separatist war against Ankara.