Russia: US decision to safeguard Syrian oil fields ‘banditry’
MOSCOW — Russia’s Defense Ministry on Saturday harshly criticized the U.S. decision to send armored vehicles and combat troops into eastern Syria to protect oil fields, calling it “banditry.”
U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper has said the move is aimed at keeping the fields from potentially falling into the hands of Islamic State militants. The decision was the latest sign that extracting the U.S. military from Syria is more uncertain and complicated than President Donald Trump has made it out to be.
On Saturday, there were several troop movements in Syria as the various players adjusted to the U.S. decision to withdraw troops from the northeast.
A U.S. convoy of over a dozen vehicles was spotted driving south of the northeastern city of Qamishli, likely heading to the oil-rich Deir el-Zour area where there are oil fields, or possibly to another base nearby.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor, also reported the convoy, saying it arrived earlier from Iraq.
A large convoy of Syrian government troops was also spotted heading toward the M4 highway. The Syrian state news agency
SANA said troops have entered the region of Ras al-Ayn, deploying to eight villages along the highway and up near the Syrian-Turkish border.
The Observatory called Saturday’s deployment of Syrian forces the largest in the area in nearly seven years.
“All hydrocarbon deposits and other minerals located on the territory of Syria do not belong to the IS terrorists, and even less to the ‘American defenders from IS terrorists,’ but exclusively to the Syrian Arab Republic,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said.