US ground troops began trickling into Syria in November 2015, two months after Russia kicked off an air campaign targeting foreign-backed terrorists attempting to topple the Syrian government. Washington initially claimed that the deployments were meant to help fight terror. In practice, they have amounted to an illegal occupation.
Syria’s Foreign Ministry has reiterated its call on the US to end its “blatant violation of [Syria’s] sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity,” end its support for the separatist Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) militias, and “immediately withdraw” its troops.
In a statement provided to local media on Saturday, Damascus slammed Washington for its use of the SDF as a “cheap tool to implement its anti-Syrian schemes,” and accused the predominantly Kurdish militia, which occupies eastern Syria alongside US forces, of carrying out “criminal attacks on local residents in Deir ez-Zor, Hasakah and Qamishli, in addition to other villages in the eastern and northeastern regions,” leading to numerous casualties among civilians, including women and children.
“Military aircraft belonging to the American forces have provided support for the SDF militia by launching multiple raids targeting innocent civilians defending their families, villages and property,” the Foreign Ministry added, referring to clashes which took place this week between the SDF and local Arab tribesmen.
Referencing the SDF’s siege of government-controlled areas in eastern Syria, including places in the cities of Hasakah and Qamishli, Damascus emphasized that “all of these inhumane and immoral practices against [the Syrian] people in the eastern and northeastern regions, including preventing the arrival of food and drinking water, are aimed at doubling Syrians’ suffering and prolonging the war against them.”
“Syria calls on the United States to stop these practices, withdraw immediately from Syrian territory, and respect the will of the Syrians, who reject the presence and role of such separatist militias. Syria also stresses the will of its people to liberate their land and preserve their sovereignty, which will be achieved no matter how great the sacrifice, and that the terrorism and crimes of these militias will not weaken their resolve,” the statement said.
Longstanding tensions between Damascus and the SDF boiled over this week after the militia imposed a siege on government-controlled areas in Syria’s northeast, sparking shortages of drinking water, food, medicine, and other essentials.
Syria’s Al-Watan newspaper reported Friday that the situation is “catastrophic,” and that SDF fighters have blocked Red Crescent water tankers from making their way to the areas under siege, forcing residents to depend on unsafe and unsanitary wells and causing a spate of illness, poisonings, and gastrointestinal infections.
Additionally, the SDF has reportedly detained a number of Syrian Army troops and officers at checkpoints, ostensibly in a bid to compel the military to put pressure on local tribesmen who got into a firefight with SDF militiamen backed by US air power in the Deir ez-Zor countryside earlier this week. The tribal militia, dubbed the Arab Tribal Forces, said in a social media statement Wednesday that they would continue targeted attacks to free “the Arab land” from the US-backed militia’s “occupation.”
Tensions between locals and the SDF have been on the rise for years amid documented evidence of SDF and US forces’ plunder of energy and food resources from the region.
The estimated 900 troops the US has deployed in Syria guarding major oil and gas fields as well as other strategic sites have come under repeated rocket artillery and drone strikes, with attacks escalating last October after the start of the war between US ally Israel and Palestinian militia group Hamas in Gaza. An uneasy ceasefire halted strikes this spring, but they resumed in July in the wake of a series of Israeli provocations.
On Saturday, US occupation forces were put on high alert after a kamikaze drone targeted the Kharab al-Jir Air Base in Hasakah, causing explosions. A US official confirmed to Reuters late on Saturday that several US and coalition personnel had suffered smoke inhalation, and some personnel were being examined for “traumatic brain injuries” in the wake of the drone attack. No group has claimed responsibility for the strike.
The US has combined its occupation of areas of eastern Syria – which has robbed the war-torn country of self-sufficiency in energy and food production, with crushing sanctions known as the Caesar Act, designed to starve the country into submission. The present US strategy was implemented after the failure of the CIA dirty war launched in 2011 to try to oust Syrian President Bashar Assad.
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