WASHINGTON (Dispatches) – The U.S. military has attacked a food convoy in eastern Syria over allegations that the trucks were carrying weapons, a report has revealed.
Tasnim news agency said that it obtained footage of the attack that took place in Syria’s eastern city of Al Bukamal near the border with Iraq.
According to the report, the U.S. had claimed that the trucks were carrying weapons, but the footage refuted the claim.
The video showed passers-by unloading a truck, with Tasnim saying that the vehicle’s driver allowed residents to unload it as he became sure that it was impossible to transfer the food to the central and western parts of Syria.
The report didn’t specify the exact time of the attack, but Reuters on Monday cited an Iraqi border official as saying that unidentified aircraft targeted a 10-truck truck convoy that crossed from Iraq to Syria on Sunday night.
The attack is seen as a U.S. attempt to disrupt imports from Iraq as another way to bring Syrians under pressure, and as a way to get revenge on the Syrian nation amid the U.S. inability to prevent attacks on its bases in Syria.
The strikes came amid rising anti-U.S. sentiment over Washington’s firm support for the Israeli onslaught against Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip, which has killed more than 9,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children.
The U.S. military has stationed its forces and equipment in northeastern Syria, with the Pentagon claiming that the deployment is aimed at preventing the oil fields in the area from falling into the hands of Daesh terrorists.
Damascus maintains that the deployment is meant to plunder Syria’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.
The Syrian nation has already been under U.S. pressure since 2011. Washington and its Western allies have dramatically tightened their economic sanctions and restrictions on Damascus after 2011 when the Arab country found itself in the grip of rampant foreign-backed militancy and terrorism.
The U.S. coercive measures intensified even further with the passing of the Caesar Act in 2019, which targeted any individual and business that participated either directly or indirectly in Syria’s reconstruction efforts.
Syrians are forced to rely on imports from Iraq as Washington and US-backed forces have occupied areas that served as food baskets for Syria, unleashing a food crisis in the country.