BAGHDAD (Dispatches) – A roadside bomb struck a convoy of trucks carrying logistics equipment belonging to the U.S.-led coalition forces in southern Iraq on Thursday, Anadolu reported.
The agency quoted a police officer as saying that the attack took place on the highway linking the provinces of Babil and Diwaniyah and caused material damage to one of the vehicles. No casualties were reported.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, and there was no comment from the Iraqi authorities.
However, some sources identified As’hab al-Kahf (Companions of the Cave), an anti-occupation group, as the party behind the attacks, and cited it as naming the exact locations where the incidents happened.
In recent weeks, attacks with missiles, booby-traps and explosive devices against the U.S. embassy and foreign troops have escalated throughout Iraq.
Last January, the Iraqi parliament voted by a landslide in favor of a law ordering expulsion of all foreign forces from the Iraqi soil.
In neighboring Syria, amid reports that the U.S. military is systematically smuggling basic commodities out of the country, a convoy of three dozen tankers has carried thousands of liters of Syrian crude oil from Hasakah to the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region in northern Iraq.
Local sources, requesting anonymity, told Syria’s official news agency SANA that 30 tankers laden with stolen Syrian oil entered the Iraqi territories on Thursday after crossing al-Waleed border crossing.
The sources said a number of covered trucks as well as armored vehicles escorted the convoy as it arrived at the crossing.
The development came only a few days after American forces allowed a convoy of 80 vehicles, including tanker trucks carrying stolen Syrian oil, to cross the “illegitimate” al-Waleed crossing into Iraq.
SANA cited local sources from Rmelan town in Hasakah province as saying that the convoy was accompanied by armored vehicles.
Last week, SANA reported that a U.S. convoy, consisting of more than two dozen tanker trucks loaded with crude oil looted from the al-Jazira region in Syria’s Hasakah province had left the war-ravaged country and entered neighboring Iraq.
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 says the deployment is meant to plunder the country’s resources.