US Reportedly Sneaks 150+ Vehicle Convoy Out of Illegal Syria Base

Syrian media has regularly reported on the movements of US convoys into and out of the war-scarred country, catching Washington bringing military equipment and supplies in, and smuggling stolen crude oil and food out. This week, the leaders of Russia, Iran and Turkey called on Washington to end its occupation of eastern Syria.

US forces have evacuated a 156-vehicle strong convoy from the Kharab al-Jir Airport in Syria’s Hasakah province via the illegal al-Waleed border crossing, the Syrian Arab News Agency has reported, citing a local sources on the ground in the nearby town of Rmelan.

“A convoy of 156 vehicles, including 40 refrigerator trucks and more than 50 tankers carrying military equipment, containers, cannons, and a number of Hummers, some of [them] carry[ing] huge devices, came out into Iraq,” one source said.

The source added that the convoy was accompanied by 25 armored escorts.

SANA’s sources did not elaborate on the nature of these “huge devices,” but did say that the US occupation forces periodically remove defective weapons and vehicles to Iraq, occasionally replacing them with new ones. The refrigerated trucks are said to be filled with food, medicine and other logistical materials to support US forces in the country when they come back from Iraq.

Last month, sources told the news agency that US forces and their Kurdish Democratic Forces militia allies snuck a 40-truck convoy loaded with Syrian wheat out of the country, and, separately, removed a convoy containing 36 defective military vehicles to Iraq.

The US has justified its illegal military presence in eastern Syria by stating that its troops are there to prevent a resurgence of Daesh (ISIS).* Damascus has accused Washington of deliberately waging an economic war by controlling 90 percent of Syria’s oil resources and its best agricultural lands, while sanctioning the country and preventing the import of everything from medicines and food to emergency energy supplies.

Syrian authorities have nevertheless expressed confidence that Damascus will sooner or later restore control over all of its occupied territories, and have called on the ethnic Kurds who befriended the US in hopes that they would save them from terrorism to realize that Washington will abandon them sooner or later.

On Thursday, following this week’s trilateral summit in Tehran, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on Turkey’s US NATO allies to evacuate eastern Syria, and accused Washington of “feeding” the “terrorist groups” in the lands east of the Euphrates River.

On Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the US is pursuing a destructive policy in Syria, denying Damascus its legitimate right to control over one-third of the country, and supporting Israel’s illegal airstrikes. “We see that real threats of crime, extremism, separatism emanates from these regions. The destructive line of Western states led by the United States largely contributes to this,” Putin said.

For his part, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi called on the US to immediately remove its troops from Syria and the entire Middle East, and condemned Washington for violating Syria’s territorial integrity and destroying “peace and international security.”

* A terrorist group outlawed in Russia and many other countries.