Imperial adventurism is grand theft on a global scale — seizing, controlling, and looting the resources of targeted nations, along with exploiting their people.
Operating from illegally constructed military bases in northern and southern parts of Syria, platforms for war and training of jihadists, the US controls about 30% of Syrian territory, including where most of the country’s oil reserves are located.
Pre-war, Syria was a small producer, the only Eastern Mediterranean country with significant/yet small reserves, estimated at about 2.5 billion barrels earlier by the Oil and Gas Journal, along with around 5.3 billion cubic meters of natural gas.
Looted Syrian oil by US-supported ISIS was earlier transported cross-border to Turkey for refining and sales.
President Erdogan, his family and cronies reportedly profited from the grand theft/smuggling operation.
Russia’s Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov earlier said
“Turkey is the main destination for the oil stolen from its legitimate owners, which are Syria and Iraq,” adding:
“Turkey resells this oil. The appalling part about it is that the country’s top political leadership is involved in the illegal business — President Erdogan and his family.”
Like the US, NATO, Israel, the Saudis, and their Middle East partners, Turkey supports regional jihadists these countries pretend to oppose.
Antonov earlier explained that
Erdogan and other “Turkish elites conspir(e) to steal oil from their neighbors in industrial quantities along ‘rolling pipelines’ made up of thousands of tanker trucks.”
“We are certain that Turkey is the destination for stolen (Syrian and Iraqi) oil, and (have) irrefutable facts to prove it.”
The illicit trade was worth hundreds of millions of dollars on the black market. Turkey may still be involved as the destination for US-stolen Syrian oil.
On Monday, Russian General Staff/Main Operational Directorate commander General Sergey Rudskoy accused US and allied forces of “highjack(ing)” Syrian oil from ISIS, profiting from its sales — perhaps shipping it cross-border to Turkey and/or elsewhere, the Trump regime running a black market operation with looted Syrian oil, adding:
US-supported ISIS and other jihadists were also trained to destroy Syrian (and perhaps Iraqi) oil and gas infrastructure, along with continuing attacks on government forces and civilians, using heavy and other weapons supplied by Western and regional countries, including Israel, Turkey, the Saudis and UAE.
Rudskoy added that the Trump regime is arming Arab and Kurdish fighters, working with them as well in the illicit trafficking of stolen Syrian oil.
US trained and armed jihadists are also being used against Russia’s Khmeimim airbase in Syria’s Latakia province, attacking it with Western-supplied drones and rocket launchers.
They’re deployed by US transport planes and helicopters to continue endless war in Syria. Thousands are being trained at the Pentagon’s Al-Tanf base in southern Syria near the Iraqi and Jordanian borders.
The US came to Syria, Iraq, elsewhere in the region, North Africa, Central Asia, and other parts of the world to stay — part of its imperial aim for global conquest and control, endless wars its favored strategy.
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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)
His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”
http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html
Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.
