US-led coalition building new base in Syria’s Hasakah near Iraq, Turkey borders: Report

    The Lebanon-based and Arabic-language al-Mayadeen television news network reported on Monday that the military site is being built in the town of Ayn Dewar, which lies just north of the small Syrian city of al-Malikiyah. Ayn Dewar is located in the most northeastern point of the country, and sits on the border with Iraq and Turkey. Local sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a convoy of about 50 trucks belonging to the US-led alliance and carrying logistics as well as military equipment entered Syrian territories through al-Waleed border crossing on Sunday. The sources added that the convoy arrived at US-led coalition bases in the Kurdish-populated city of Qamishli and elsewhere in Hasakah. US military forces have reportedly been redeployed on the outskirts of al-Ya'rubiyah town in al-Malikiyah region after establishing a new military base inside a former agricultural service airport.US forces have apparently surrounded the site with concrete walls, and built a helipad to provide a safe environment for military helicopters to perform landing and takeoff operations. This comes as other sources also told SANA that US occupation forces, in a new step to seize the Syrian oil and boost their control over the oil areas, brought in dozens of military vehicles, coming from the Iraqi territories and heading towards al-Malikiyah region in Hasaka northeastern countryside. This is while Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said on February 8 that US forces in Syria are no longer responsible for protecting oil fields in the country, while admitting that an American firm is looting Syrian crude oil without authorization from Damascus. Kirby told reporters that since an American firm had signed a deal with Kurdish militants in northern Syria last year to help exploit the country’s oil reserves, US troops were not involved. Damascus has said the agreement — signed between the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) militant group and an American oil company named by media sources as Delta Crescent Energy LLC — is null and void, and that the parties involved are plundering Syria’s national resources. Pentagon official added that the US military personnel and contractors “are not authorized to provide assistance to any other private company, including its employees or agents seeking to develop oil resources in northeast Syria.” Kirby said about 900 US service members were deployed to Syria to in a declared claim to fight the remnants of the Daesh terrorist group. “It’s important to remember that our mission there remains to enable the enduring defeat of ISIS,” he said, using an alternative acronym for Daesh.Syria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates, in two identical letters addressed to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and former rotating President of the UN Security Council Tarek Ladeb on January 20, strongly condemned the actions of US occupation forces in the country’s northeast, saying they amount to a blatant violation of the Syrian sovereignty and territorial integrity, and a flagrant breach of international law. The ministry also renewed the Damascus government’s calls for an immediate and unconditional withdrawal of US forces from the Syria’s territory. It added that US occupation forces continue their regular hostile measures in Jazira region of Hasakah province, including “systematic looting … of the Syrian resources, agricultural crops and oil …, in addition to bringing in huge military reinforcement, logistic equipment, various kinds of weapons, tools and military vehicles from Iraq” to some of the US military bases in the countryside of al-Ya'rubiyah town via the al-Waleed crossing.