US Forces Continue Plundering Syria’s Wheat
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – US occupation forces took 38 trucks loaded with stolen Syrian wheat from the silos of Tal Alou in Syria’s Hasaka north eastern countryside to northern Iraq.
Local sources told SANA that 38 trucks, loaded with wheat, plundered from the silos of the village of Tal Alou in Al-Ya’rubiyah region, were taken out to northern Iraq via illegitimate Al-Walid crossing.
On Thursday, US occupation forces plundered a quantity of wheat and took it out through 18 trucks to Iraqi territory via Semalka border crossing.
Syrian Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, Bassam Tomeh, told state-run and Arabic-language al-Ikhbariyah Syria television news network on March 18 that the US and its allied Takfiri terrorist groups are looting oil reserves in the war-stricken Arab country, revealing that Washington controls 90 percent of crude reserves in oil-rich northeastern Syria.
“Americans and their allies are targeting the Syrian oil wealth and its tankers just like pirates,” the Syrian oil minister said.
He noted that the cost of direct and indirect damage to the Syrian oil sector stands at more than $92 billion.
The US military has stationed forces and equipment in northeastern Syria, with the Pentagon claiming that the troops deployment are aimed at preventing the oilfields in the area from falling into the hands of the Daesh terrorists. Damascus, however, says the deployment is meant to plunder the country's resources.
The US first confirmed its looting of Syrian oil during a Senate hearing exchange between South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham and former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo in late July last year.
On July 30 and during his testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Pompeo confirmed for the first time that an American oil company would begin work in northeastern Syria, which is controlled by militants from the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
The Syrian government strongly condemned the agreement, saying that the deal was struck to plunder the country's natural resources, including oil and gas, under the sponsorship and support of the administration of then-US president Donald Trump.