Rockets Strike US Military Base in Eastern Syria

SANA announced late on Tuesday that several rockets had targeted a US military base near the Conoco oil field controlled by American troops and Kurdish militants in the eastern Syrian province of Deir Ez-Zor. There was no immediate report on the possible casualties. This comes a day after a US air raid on a Syrian military checkpoint in the northeastern city of Qamishli killed a soldier and injured two others. Since late October 2019, the United States has been redeploying troops to the oil fields controlled by its Kurdish mercenaries in eastern Syria, in a reversal of US President Donald Trump’s earlier order to withdraw all troops there. The Syrian government views the US military presence as an illegal occupation of the country aimed at plundering its natural resources. On July 30, during his testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo confirmed for the first time that an American oil company would begin work in areas controlled by the US-backed so-called Syrian Democratic Forces [SDF] in northeastern Syria. Syria says the deal is “an affront to national sovereignty” that amounts to “theft.” The presence of US forces in eastern Syria has particularly irked the civilians, and local residents have on several occasions stopped American military convoys entering the region. Source: SANA