Syrian villagers force US military convoy to return to base

Local people in Syrian village of Abu Qasaib in northeastern province of Hasakah stopped a US military convoy on Thursday, forcing the US troops to return to their occupied base.

The US convoy that sought to pass through the village near the city of Qamishli finally retreated, Syria’s official news agency SANA reported.

Earlier this month, a similar incident had occurred in Hamo, near Qamishli. In that incident, a convoy of five US military vehicles was heading to Hamo village, but was forced to return when locals gathered at a Syrian army checkpoint near the village and prevented the convoy from passing.

Also in late March, local people in another border village prevented a convoy of eleven US military vehicles from passing through their village.

In the past few days, the United States has dispatched truckloads of military and logistical equipment to Syria’s Hasakah as part of its plots to seize oil reserves and plunder natural resources in the war-battered country.

On Tuesday, SANA reported that a convoy of at least 40 trucks had crossed into the Syrian territory through illegitimate border crossing of al-Walid, and headed toward US positions in Hamo village, west of Qamishli.

US military brings in 35 trucks to oil-rich northeastern Syria: SANA

The US military dispatches 35 truckloads of military and logistical equipment to its positions in Syria’s northeastern province of Hasakah, SANA says.

In late October 2019, Washington reversed an earlier decision to pull out all of its troops from northeastern Syria, announcing the deployment of about 500 soldiers to the oil fields controlled by Kurdish forces in the Arab country.

The US has also deployed new troops to the Ain al-Asad base in the western Iraqi province of Anbar as well as new Patriot missile systems and Counter Rocket, Artillery, and Mortar (C-RAM) systems to a number of Iraqi bases it has occupied.

Turkey sends new troops to Idlib

Turkey has dispatched a new military convoy to Syria’s northwestern province of Idlib, despite a recent ceasefire deal that Ankara has signed with Moscow to halt the escalation of violence there.

The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) says a Turkish convoy of some 40 military vehicles entered Syrian territory on Thursday night and headed toward the Turkish observatory posts in the so-called “de-escalation zones”.

Ankara had earlier deployed nearly 6,000 troops to the de-escalation zones following the last month’s ceasefire deal with Russia.

On March 5, Russia and Turkey, which support opposite sides in the Syrian conflict, came to an agreement on a ceasefire regime in Idlib, where Turkish aggression against the Syrian government had risked sparking a war.

Under the agreement, joint Russian-Turkish patrols secure a six-kilometer-wide corridor along a highway connecting the two government-held provinces of Latakia and Aleppo.

‘Turkey smuggling terrorists out of Syria’

The Turkish army has been smuggling foreign terrorists and their families from Syria to Turkey, the SOHR reported, quoting its local sources.

While the Turkish troops have tightened security measures at its borders with Syria, they have turned a blind eye to several places to allow foreign militants and their families to cross.

According to SOHR sources, the terrorists and their families are smuggled from areas near Azmarin, where they cross the Asi river by water ferries through a Syrian who is involved in human smuggling. 

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