This week, Dr. Bouthaina Shaaban, a top political and media adviser to Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, issued a warning of sorts to the United States – that Washington’s illegal three year occupation of various parts of northeastern Syria could be coming to an end. She warned that Damascus will not accept Washington’s open-ended military deployment inside her country’s borders, and the ongoing theft of Syria’s natural resources.
It is no secret that since the US entered the country, both Syria and Russia have adopted a ‘no military engagement’ policy with the US, in effect, tolerating the uninvited illegal US presence inside of Syria in order to avoid the sort of confrontation which the US would surely relish and most certainly use as a pretext to elevate its military deployments in the region, placing America back on full war footing again.
Soon after it began its supposed ‘anti-terror’ bombing missions over Syria, the official excuse for Washington’s illegal occupation of Syrian territory was that it was there to “degrade and destroy” the Islamic State (ISIS). However, available evidence strongly suggests that from the onset the US has really been ‘managing’ ISIS rather than working to eradicate it. A declassified DIA document from 2012 confirmed that ISIS and its affiliated groups, particularly those brigades entrenched in northeastern Syria, were allowed to continue receiving support from Western allied militaries, including Turkey, along with America’s Gulf allies – all because Washington viewed them as essential in helping to achieve its own goals of regime change in Damascus:
“the Salafist, the Muslim Brotherhood, and AQI (al-Qaeda in Iraq) are the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria,” the document states that “the West, Gulf countries, and Turkey support the opposition,” while Russia, China and Iran “support the (Assad) regime.”
“… there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist Principality in eastern Syria (Hasaka and Der Zor), and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime, which is considered the strategic depth of the Shia expansion (Iraq and Iran).”
This very same reality was also reflected in comments made by Dr. Shaaban earlier this year:
“Today we hear a lot of talk from the Western alliance about “containing” ISIS, “limiting” ISIS; and lastly, you all heard the speech of CIA Director John Brennan, who said that we did not succeed even in limiting the influence of ISIS. Why? Because there is no real desire and wish, really, to get rid of ISIS.”
Not surprisingly, ISIS was allowed by the US to hold Syria’s oil and gas fields which they occupied for nearly 3 years, before effectively handing over to the US-backed Kurdish ‘SDF’ proxy militants in 2017.
This situation may come to a head soon, should Washington continue its brazen violation of international law.
NBC News reports…
DAMASCUS, Syria — A top adviser to Syria’s president says the United States has no right to Syria’s oil and has warned of “operations” against American troops guarding the oil fields.
Bouthaina Shaaban, who is a political and media adviser to Bashar al-Assad, recently told NBC News that the U.S. has “absolutely no right; it is our oil.”
“He’s talking about stealing it,” she added in her office at Syria’s presidential palace in Damascus, referring to President Donald Trump’s declaration earlier this year that the U.S. would “keep” Syrian oil.
In October, the Trump administration announced plans to withdraw some 1,000 troops from Syria, amounting to most of the U.S. military presence in the country. But he later reversed course, approving an expanded military mission to secure an expanse of oil fields across eastern Syria.
Shaaban went on to warn of “popular opposition and operations against the American occupiers of our oil.”
Shaaban, who often speaks for Assad, said there was no question in his mind that “our land should be totally and completely liberated from foreign occupiers, whether they are terrorists, or the Turks or the Americans.”
Her words came as Syrian government forces pressed ahead with an operation in northwestern Syria to take back the country’s last rebel stronghold, having in recent years gained the upper hand in the civil war.
See more at NBC News
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