U.S. Building New Base in Crude-Rich Dayr al-Zawr

Date: 13 October 2020 - 22:10

News ID: ۸۳۸۱۵

DAMASCUS (Dispatches) – The U.S. military is setting up a new military base in a town in Syria’s Dayr al-Zawr province, just 1-2 kilometers from the border with Iraq along the Euphrates River, a Sputnik Arabic correspondent has reported, citing local sources.
Work on the base in the Badia Desert town of al-Baghuz is said to have begun last week, with the first steps including the construction of a helipad to secure logistics. Sputnik’s sources have also said that Kurdish so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) militants were deployed to the area around the base for guard duty.
The U.S., in collusion with the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a U.S.-backed alliance of Kurdish militants operating against Damascus, controls most of the oil fields in the region.
The U.S. has already established three illegal bases in Syria’s Dayr al-Zawr province, including near the al-Omar oil field and the Koniko gas plant, as well as the administrative border between the provinces of Dayr al-Zawr and Raqqah.
U.S. President Donald Trump has openly said on several occasions that the American military presence in Syria was "only for the oil,” contradicting his own officials who have said the remaining forces were there to "fight terrorism.”
The practice of seizing or taking advantage of oil resources in a foreign country, without the consent of the sovereign authority, amounts to a violation of international law.
The development comes a day after media report said that a U.S. military convoy of 30 vehicles, loaded with logistic reinforcement, arrived in Syria’s oil-rich northeastern province of Hasakah.
Official news agency SANA, citing local sources, reported that the U.S. military brought truckloads of weapons and logistical equipment into the Jazira region of Hasakah through the al-Walid border crossing.
The sources said the convoy, which had come from Iraq, headed toward military bases run by the U.S. near Qamishli in the oil-rich province.
SANA reported on Saturday that a convoy of 20 American tankers had reportedly transported crude oil stolen from Syrian fields to neighboring Iraq.
In another development, sources in Dayr al-Zawr’s countryside told Sputnik Arabic that U.S. troops and SDF militants have carried out three days-worth of raids on civilian homes in the Arab-majority tribal towns of Theban, al-Hawaij, al-Busirah and al-Shuhail, arresting over 50 people