Syria has condemned in the strongest terms the United States military for carrying out multiple air strikes in the eastern parts of the Arab country against resistance groups, saying the raids are a cover-up for Washington’s ferocious attempts to further plunder energy resources there.
Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates made the remarks in a statement on Saturday, after the US conducted airstrikes in Syria on Thursday, blaming Damascus for a drone attack that purportedly killed an American contractor, wounded another, and also hurt five US troops.
The statement denounced the brutal attack launched by the US forces against some areas in Dayr al-Zawr province, which claimed the lives of a number of people, left several others injured, and caused property damage in the targeted regions.
‘The US allegations about the targeted sites are nothing but a failed attempt aimed at justifying the act of aggression, which constitutes a blatant violation of Syria’s sovereignty, unity, and territorial integrity,’ it added.
The US military has carried out multiple airstrikes in eastern Syria in another flagrant breach of Syria’s sovereignty.
The Syrian foreign ministry also said that such hostile acts are in line with the attacks that the Israeli regime and Daesh Takfiri terrorists have launched against local residents, and serve as a cover-up for the continued looting of Syrian oil by US occupation forces.
‘Syria repeats its demand for an immediate end to the presence of American occupation troops, increased authority of the Damascus government over all districts in the country, and cessation of Washington’s support and sponsorship of separatist and terrorist groups,’ the statement also read.
It also urged the international community to condemn the latest Israeli air strikes, stand with the conflict-stricken Arab country, and help it preserve its territorial integrity and national unity.
US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said the strikes in Syria against the positions of resistance fighters were carried out at the direction of President Joe Biden and targeted facilities used by groups affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps.
However, local sources pointed out that the target was not an Iran-aligned military post as the US military claimed, but rather a rural development centre and a grain centre in Hrabash neighbourhood, near Dayr al-Zawr military airport. No Iranian was killed in the act of aggression.
A military source in Syria told Press TV that the resistance groups reserve their right to respond to the American attack and will take reciprocal action.
On Friday, after the Pentagon carried out multiple airstrikes against Syrian troops, a military base housing US forces in the eastern province of Dayr al-Zawr came under a rocket attack.
Local sources reported that the rockets landed in the vicinity of the US-controlled al-Omar oilfield at around 11am local time (08:00 GMT), causing several explosions.
On Saturday, Iran’s Arabic-language al-Alam television news network reported that more than 20 rockets had been fired against two illegal bases belonging to American occupation forces in eastern Syria.
The news channel specified the targets as American outposts based near the al-Omar oilfield and the Koniko natural gas field in Syria’s Dayr al-Zawr province.
Meanwhile, a number of Republican legislators in the House of Representatives and the Senate have called on the Biden administration to withdraw all US troops from Syria in the wake of recent attacks against them in the country.
Congressman Matt Gaetz stated that: ‘Warmongers in both parties say that the presence of troops in Syria is necessary to maintain the balance of power. This is not true.
‘If there is such a belief, they should directly convince the families of the American forces who are in Syria and have to sleep there and protect the oilfields … We must bring our soldiers home.’
He added that it is very sad that we continue to see Americans get killed and soldiers injured in Syria, noting this is the price of protecting oil fields in other countries, which will probably continue forever.
Congressman Ben Cline echoed Gaetz’s remarks, saying this week’s development was exactly why he voted ‘to withdraw US armed forces from Syria and bring them home’.
Rand Paul, a senator from Kentucky, also considered the latest rocket attacks against American occupation troops as a reason for the need to withdraw the forces from Syria.
He said: ‘Bring our troops home from Syria and end all illegal wars today.’
The US military has for long stationed its forces and equipment in northeastern Syria, with the Pentagon claiming that the deployment is aimed at preventing the oilfields in the area from falling into the hands of the Daesh terrorists.
Damascus, however, maintains the deployment is meant to plunder the country’s natural resources. Former US president Donald Trump admitted on several occasions that American forces were in the Arab country for its oil wealth.
- The Israeli regime has always had the tendency for extermination of the Palestinians, but now it is becoming more openly genocidal, according to an academic.
David Miller, a leading critic of Israeli acts of aggression against Palestinians, who had been sacked for his anti-Zionist stances from the University of Bristol in 2021, criticised Israel’s ‘fascist approach’ and its tendency to expel the Palestinians.
Zionism is ‘moving more and more towards a fascist approach. So, it becomes more and more openly genocidal, but the tendency has been there from the beginning,’ he said.
In February, the Times of Israel which was launched just over 11 years ago to peddle Israeli propaganda, published a piece under the title ‘Palestinian children are the explosives of the future?’
Some argue that the headline could be understood as an incitement to genocidal violence against Palestinian children.
‘They had to have the tendency to want to expel the Palestinians. That tendency is only showing itself much more nakedly now and we now see, even in titles like (that of the) Times of Israel, naked promotional genocide,’ Miller said.
In addition to the recent piece, in 2014, the Times of Israel called for genocide against Palestinians in another article by Yochanan Gordon with the extremely inflammatory headline ‘When genocide is permissible.’
Within the piece, Gordon compared the ground invasion of Gaza, carried out by the Israeli military to an NBA basketball game. His piece hit out at politicians and news channels for pointing out the numbers killed by Israel during a campaign that saw over 2,000 Palestinians exterminated.
He concludes his tirade with the following sentence: ‘If political leaders and military experts determined that the only way to achieve its goal of sustaining peace is to genocide, is it then permissible to achieve these responsible goals?’
Following a significant backlash online, the article was removed by The Times of Israel editor, Miriam Herschlag who claimed it breached the website’s editorial guidelines.
Miriam Herschlag has a history of publishing pieces written by serving Israeli soldiers to beautify the image of the army of occupation.
When challenged online and asked if the publication of the piece involve the military directly, her answers were evasive.
Miller explained that the article writer Gordon is a member of an extremist Zionist sect, Chabad Lubavitch.
The religious faction of Chabad is held by the Zionist intelligence agency, Shin Bet, to be responsible for most ‘price tag’ revenge attacks on Palestinians including murders.
‘The price tag attacks are largely carried out in a particular part of the West Bank by a group which is known as the hilltop youth, … so, we see a real encouragement here to direct attacks on Palestinians and the murders of Palestinians,’ Miller concluded.
