Russia calls US move to protect Syrian oil ‘banditry’

MOSCOW — Russia’s Defense Ministry on Saturday harshly criticized the United States’ 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.

But Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said “what Washington is doing now, the seizure and control of oil fields in eastern Syria under its armed control, is, quite simply, international state banditry.”

“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,” he added.

On Saturday, there were several troop movements in Syria as the various players adjusted to the recentl 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.

Syrian government troops had not set foot in northeastern Syria since 2012, when the government pulled out to focus on the war elsewhere in Syria. The Kurdish forces took control of the area and allied with the U.S. to fight Islamic State militants who swarmed the area.

But after President Donald Trump ordered his forces to withdraw from Kurdish-held areas, allowing for a Turkish offensive, Syrian Kurdish forces turned to Russia and Damascus for protection.