DAMASCUS (Xinhua) – The U.S. forces have smuggled 92 tankers and trucks of stolen Syrian oil and wheat from northeastern Syria to U.S. bases in neighboring Iraq, state news agency SANA reported.
The oil tankers and wheat trucks were sent to Iraq through illegal border crossings set up by the U.S.-led so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
The report said two separate convoys of U.S. military trucks and tankers carried tons of grain and crude oil from the northeastern province of Hasakah to the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region in northern Iraq, as part of Washington’s systematic smuggling of basic commodities out of Syria.
After entering Syria in 2014, the U.S. forces, under the pretext of fighting terrorist groups, established military bases in oil-rich areas in northeastern and eastern Syria, and started systematic stealing of Syrian oil.
The Syrian Oil Ministry said in August that the U.S. forces were stealing 80 percent of Syria’s oil production, causing direct and indirect losses of about 107.1 billion dollars to Syria’s oil and gas sectors.
On September 21, China called on the United States to stop plundering Syria’s national resources and respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Arab country.
“We call on the United States to respect Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, unilaterally lift sanctions, and end the theft of Syria’s national resources,” China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told a news briefing.
Wang said, “This is not the first time that the United States military has stolen oil from Syria and they seem to be becoming more and more uncontrollable.”
The Chinese spokesman also said the U.S. government has a duty to investigate robberies committed by intervening military forces, as well as to compensate for the damages caused.