A group of unknown gunmen has reportedly attacked a US military base inside an oil field in Syria’s eastern province of Dayr al-Zawr, prompting American forces at the site to respond.
Syria’s official news agency SANA reported that the assailants targeted the “illegitimate” base in the al-Omar oil field, which lies in the northeastern countryside of the province, as truckloads of military gears were reaching the site.
The report added that US forces fired artillery shelling and flare bombs in response.
On October 28, the US military started reinforcing its positions around oil fields in eastern Syria, asserting the new deployments were part of its purported counter-terrorist mission.
General Mark Milley, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said at the time that US forces would remain in Tanf along the Iraqi border, and more were being sent to the oil fields around Dayr al-Zawr in eastern Syria.
The Pentagon has earlier announced in a statement that the United States would station additional forces in eastern Syria to protect oilfields.
The statement claimed that the reinforcement would take place in coordination with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to prevent the oilfields from falling into the hands of the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group.
Syria's UN Ambassador Bashar al-Ja'afari says the United States has been occupying the country's oil fields and looting its resources as the UN remains silent on Washington's act of theft.
"The US occupies Syrian oil wells and plunders the Syrians' revenues in the shadow of the UN Security Council's silence," he told a meeting of the 15-member body in New York on November 23.
Ja'afari said the US state terrorism has targeted Syria in a bid to change the region's geopolitical map. "The Syrian war will end when foreign support for terrorism ends," he added.