Multiple mainstream media reports claim Pentagon officials are reportedly seeking permission from the White House to deploy hundreds of U.S. troops and dozens of tanks to eastern Syria to protect valuable oil fields currently held by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
Newsweek on Wednesday quoted a “senior Pentagon official” who said as many as 30 Abrams tanks could be deployed as part of the defense force, which would be tasked with keeping the oil fields safe from resurgent Islamic State forces, the Syrian government, and militia forces allied with Iran.
Fox News on Thursday cited unnamed U.S. officials who said the troop deployment is “likely” and would come from “a unit already deployed to the Middle East.”
According to the sources, the American troops would move into “the same area near Deir ez-Zur, Syria, where U.S. gunships and jets were called in last year to destroy hundreds of Russian mercenaries and forces allied with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad after he threatened U.S. troops in the area.”
“The U.S. is committed to reinforcing our position, in coordination with our partners in northeast Syria with additional military assets to prevent those oil fields from falling back into the hands of ISIS or other destabilizing actors,” a defense official told Fox News, the partners in question being the SDF.
President Donald Trump discussed the eastern Syrian oil fields in a Twitter post on Thursday:
CBS News noted the Deir ez-Zur area has been held by “about 200 lightly armed troops” from the United States who are working in concert with the SDF to keep the Islamic State from recapturing or sabotaging the oil fields, which were once a major source of revenue for the ISIS “caliphate.”
The Associated Press reported the Trump administration “sees some benefit to Kurds being in control of the oil,” since the battered remains of the Syrian oil industry have become a significant revenue source for the Kurds and has purchased them a degree of autonomy from the brutal government headquartered in Damascus and its patrons in Moscow:
A quiet arrangement has existed between the Kurds and the Syrian government, whereby Damascus buys the surplus through middlemen in a profitable smuggling operation that has continued despite political differences. The Kurdish-led administration sells crude oil to private refiners, who use primitive homemade refineries to process fuel and diesel and sell it back to the administration.
The oil was expected to be a bargaining chip for the Kurds to negotiate a deal with the Syrian government, which unsuccessfully tried to reach the oil fields to retake them from IS. With Trump saying he plans to keep forces to secure the oil, it seems the oil will continue to be used for leverage — with Moscow and Damascus.
NBC News quoted a “senior defense official” who said both President Trump and Senate Republicans have been “briefed by Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on the importance of securing the oil fields so they can’t be seized and used to fund ISIS’ terrorist activities.”
According to this official, U.S. Central Command chief Gen. Kenneth McKenzie is exploring “a number of options” for reinforcing the oil fields, possibly including air support.
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