US trying to remain relevant in Syria amid Russian raids: Analyst

The US is trying to remain relevant in Syria in the wake of Russia’s successful campaign in the Arab country, says an American analyst.

The comment was made by Steven D. Kelley, a former CIA/NSA contractor, who was speaking about Washington’s declared decision to step up airstrikes on Syria’s major oil fields under the pretext of disrupting the Daesh Takfiri group’s key source of income.

American officials confirmed this week that US military commanders are now focusing on causing damage that takes longer to fix or requires specially-ordered parts in the Arab country’s eight major oil fields.

The major fields; namely, Omar, Tanak, El Isbah, Sijan, Jafra, Azraq, Barghooth and Abu Hardan have been under months of study and surveillance before the new strategy was put into motion, the officials added.

This is while according to a report by the New York Times, only about two-thirds of the refineries and other oil-production facilities at these sites are controlled by Daesh.

The first attack under the new strategy was conducted on October 21, when US B-1 bombers along with other allied warplanes hit 26 targets in the Omar oil field, one of Syria’s two largest oil-production sites, which is located north of the strategic town of Mayadin near the Iraqi border.

“The United States is trying to remain relevant in this battle [in Syria], their reputation has been tarnished in that respect,” Kelley told Press TV Friday.

“They also need to appear that they are attacking a target that somehow has something to do with ISIL and yet will allow them at the same time to inflict damage and attack [Syrian President] Bashar al-Assad and the country of Syria,” he added.

The analyst emphasized that ISIL does not own oil facilities in Syria, and it is the Syrian people who have built these sites and are thus their true possessors.

He said Russians and Syrians will finally reclaim these assets and this begs the question that what is exactly behind Washington’s strategy of pounding these targets.

‘Turkey, Israel main Daesh oil customers’  

Elsewhere in his remarks, Kelley noted that most of the oil Daesh is stealing from those fields is going to “Turkey and Israel and is being distributed from those points.”

That is why the US has been hesitating in attacking these targets, the analyst added.

Last week, a senior Turkish politician said that Turkish and Iraqi businessmen have been involved in financing the Daesh terrorist group by buying oil from it on the black market.

“There is information that 27 Turkish and Iraqi businessmen are directly involved in this trade. Iraq's central government has taken a number of measures” to prevent it, Mehmet Ali Ediboğlu, the former deputy of the Turkish opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), said last week.

Kelley said the international community needs to take steps to prevent the terror organization from smuggling Syrian oil.

“There should not be a customer for this product,” he said.

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