Local sources in Syria’s Hasakah governorate report that the US occupation army smuggled dozens of tanker trucks filled with stolen Syrian oil early on 6 August.

Eyewitnesses told SANA news agency that a convoy of 60 vehicles, most of them fuel tankers carrying oil from the Jazira region, left Syria through the illegal Al-Waleed crossing into Iraq.

This is the second time this week that US troops smuggle a shipment of Syrian oil to their bases in Iraq. In July alone, Washington’s forces stole nearly 200 trucks filled with looted oil.

US troops and their proxy militia in northern Syria – the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) – control most of the oil fields in Hasakah and Deir Ezzor governorates, operating under the pretext of “protecting” the resources from falling under the control of ISIS.

However, this claim ignores the instances in which US troops have been caught collaborating with ISIS fighters.

The occupation army is also responsible for plundering the country’s wheat, exacerbating an acute food crisis. According  to the World Food Programme (WFP), 12.4 million Syrians — or close to 70 percent of people in the country today — are food insecure.

The presence of US forces in Syria is illegal under international law, as their deployment was implemented without the consent of Damascus or the UN.

Last month, both Russia and China called on US authorities to put an end to their theft of Syria’s natural resources.

“We have common positions on the Euphrates River regarding the need for US forces to leave this land, and they must stop looting [from] the Syrian people by illegally extracting oil,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said on 19 July during a press conference in Tehran.

In the same vein, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said on 21 July: “The US military continues to occupy the main grain and oil producing areas in Syria, looting and plundering Syrian national resources, and worsening the local humanitarian crisis.”