US steps up efforts to protect oil fields

THE US is increasing its efforts to protect Syria’s oil fields from the so-called Islamic State group, as well as from Syria itself and the country’s Russian allies.

After the dramatic killing of the IS leader, defence secretary Mark Esper indicated the new highstakes push is under way even as American troops are withdrawn from other parts of the country.

Mr Esper said the oil field mission will also ensure income for Syrian Kurds who are counted on by Washington to continue guarding IS prisoners and helping American forces combat remnants of the group – even as president Donald Trump continues to insist all US troops will come home.

“We don’t want to be a policeman in this case,” Mr Trump said on Monday, referring to America’s role after Turkey’s incursion in Syria.

In the face of Turkey’s early October warning that it would invade and create a “safe zone” on the Syrian side of its border, Mr Trump ordered US forces to step aside, effectively abandoning a Kurdish militia that had partnered with US troops.

Mr Esper and General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke at a Pentagon news conference to cheer the mission by US special forces on Saturday that ended with IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi blowing himself up.

Mr Esper called al-Baghdadi’s death a “devastating blow” to an organisation that already had lost its hold on a large part of territory in Syria and Iraq.

Gen Milley said the US had disposed of al-Baghdadi’s remains “appropriately” and in line with the laws of armed conflict.