<p>The looted fuel was sent to their bases in Iraq, through the illegal settlement of Mahmoudia.</p>
US occupying forces in northern Syria are continuing to plunder natural resources and farmland, a practice ongoing since 2011
Recently, US troops smuggled dozens of tanker trucks loaded with Syrian crude oil to their bases in Iraq.
The fuel and convoys of Syrian wheat were transported through the illegal settlement of Mahmoudia.
Witnesses report a caravan of 69 tankers loaded with oil and 45 with wheat stolen from silos in Yarubieh city.
Similar acts of looting occurred on the 19th of the month in the city of Hasakeh, where 45 tankers of Syrian oil were taken out by US forces.
Prior to the war and US invasion, Syria produced over 380 thousand barrels of crude oil per day, but this has drastically reduced to only 15 thousand barrels per day.
The country’s oil production now covers only five percent of its needs, with the remaining 95 percent imported amidst difficulties due to the US blockade.
The US and EU blockade prevents the entry of medicines, food, supplies, and impedes technological and industrial development in Syria.
So this article is thin on details and lacking any mention of historical or political context. The only cited sources it has are "witnesses" (unidentified). It's pretty clearly designed to give the reader a simple impression lacking in nuance or understanding. And in fact, it is a copy of propaganda articles being pushed by the Chinese Foreign Ministry as described in this article by Radio Free Asia. And here is the media bias rating for RFA.
This is a propaganda piece, and it's a poorly written one that doesn't even attempt to back up its claims with any other sources or explain the broader context of the conflict in Syria. The funny bit is, it's stale propaganda from 15 months ago, though it seems to have been updated with a new picture of a single truck on a road somewhere.
Adding to the general comic value, there are lots of pictures of trucks on unidentified roads in unspecified locations, but in spite of all the finger-pointing at the "US occupation forces" there isn't a single US soldier or vehicle pictured anywhere.
“Founded in 2005, La Nueva Televisora del Sur (teleSUR, English: The New Television Station of the South) is a multi-state funded, pan–Latin American terrestrial and satellite television network sponsored by the governments of Venezuela, Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Uruguay, and Bolivia that is headquartered in Caracas, Venezuela. TeleSUR has been accused of being a propaganda tool for Hugo Chavez and his successors.”
It’s not deemed to be a credible source given its direct governmental control and routine lack of transparency in its sources, if it provides any sources whatsoever.
There is also a long list of provably false reporting from this website.
I’m not saying that these kinds of actions don’t take place, just that this source is not reliable and I would guess that systemic theft from an incredibly scrutinized entity in a hostile country would be subject to a little bit more widespread reporting and corroborating evidence.
So who's growing the wheat? As I understand it, it's an ongoing practice for over a decade. So someone is growing wheat every year only for the US military to swoop in and harvest it? Or do they ambush trucks with already harvested wheat? Article doesn't seem to mention the hows, focusing on oil. But oil is a bit different from wheat
If I go digging, am I going to find out that this is an anti-Kurdish hit piece trying to manufacture consent so Assad can use chemical weapons on Rojava?
Look, this article runs every few months from the Syrian regime. To be blunt, the trucks bring in Wheat and probably arms or something else they shouldn't. The SDF (formerly called the YPJ and YPG) runs oil refineries and sells the oil as a means of finding themselves. The US... Well, 'Coalition' supplies them with the refineries.
Why all these steps? Turkyie hates the YPJ/YPG but Turkyie is part of the Coalition against ISIL. The 'SDF' gets bombed by Turkyie but the SDF also runs the largest ISIL prison in the region. So Turkyie and Syria don't team up against the SDF, the SDF doesn't get full US support, and resupply trucks have to 'sneak'.
Everyone in the region has stakes in not letting them break out. Iraq doesn't want it, Syria doesn't want it, the US and Coalition don't want it but, outside of the US, no one can publicly back the SDF and save face with their regional counterparts. The US makes sure the SDF has food and funds, everyone gets to keep the ISIL and Refugee camps 'running' and no one has to support the SDF and lose face with their local parties.
I'd call it shades of gray but it's more like shades of blood...