China Blasts US for Its 'Banditry' in Syria

During a press conference on Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin was asked to comment on recent Syrian media reports that US forces had transported a large amount of "looted oil" from Syria to Iraq earlier this month.

“We are struck by the blatancy and egregiousness of the US’s plundering of Syria… Such banditry is aggravating the energy crisis and humanitarian disaster in Syria,” he said, citing Syrian government statistics purporting that “over 80% of Syria’s daily oil output was smuggled out of the country by US occupation troops” in the first half of 2022.

“The level of US greed in stealing resources from Syria is as striking as its “generosity” in giving out military aid often in the amount of billions or even tens of billions of dollars,” the spokesman said.

“Whether the US gives or takes, it plunges other countries into turmoil and disaster, and the US gets to reap the benefits for its hegemony and other interests,” he added. “This is the result of the US’s so-called rules-based order.”

On January 14, Damascus' state-run Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported that "a convoy of 53 tanks loaded with stolen Syrian oil" was transported from Hasakah province to US "bases in Iraqi territory," noting that the operation was carried out alongside local Kurdish militants who have long received American support.

According to the outlet, 60 more trucks smuggled stolen oil and wheat into Iraq earlier this month.

“The Syrian people’s right to life is being ruthlessly trampled on by the US. With little oil and food to go by, the Syrian people are struggling even harder to get through the bitter winter,” Wang added, demanding that “the US must answer for its oil theft.”

The United States first sent troops to Syria in 2014, beginning with a contingent of special forces and followed by more conventional ground troops the following year, most of whom were embedded with Kurdish fighters in the country's oil-rich northeast. Though then-president Barack Obama claimed the deployment was solely to combat Daesh (ISIS or ISIL) terrorists, Washington had long intervened in Syria's war against terrorist groups, sending and overseeing countless arms shipments to rebels seeking to overthrow Damascus' government since 2013.

Though American involvement in the conflict slowed under the next administration, president Donald Trump stated in 2019 that some US troops would remain in Syria "for the oil," implying that Washington would simply "keep" the energy resources.

Subsequent reporting in 2020 would reveal that the Trump administration had approved a deal between a US energy firm and Kurdish authorities in northeast Syria to "develop and export the region's crude oil" - a contract immediately condemned as "illegal" by Damascus. However, despite the fact that that particular deal fell through after President Joe Biden took office, Syrian authorities have continued to accuse Washington of plundering its resources, and some 900 US troops remain in the country illegally.