Another US military convoy has been forced to turn back from an area in Syria’s northeastern province of Hasakah after a group of people blocked a road and prevented it from driving through their community.
Syria’s official SANA news agency reported that a US convoy of armored vehicles was forced to turn around and head back to the base it came from on Wednesday evening after residents of Khirbet Bunyan village, which lies in the al-Malikiyah district of the province, did not allow it to move and pelted it with stones. No injuries were reported.
A similar incident took place on Monday, when a US convoy was confronted by residents of Faris Kabir village in the same Syrian province as it tried to make its way through the area.
Groups of locals hurled stones at the foreign soldiers, forcing the convoy to “go back to where it came from,” according to a report published by SANA at the time.
The presence of US forces in eastern Syria has particularly irked the civilians, and local residents have on several occasions stopped American military convoys entering the region.
Since late October 2019, the United States has been redeploying troops to the oil fields controlled by Kurdish forces in eastern Syria, in a reversal of President Donald Trump’s earlier order to withdraw all troops from the Arab country.
The Pentagon claims the move aims to “protect” the fields and facilities from possible attacks by Daesh. That claim came although Trump had earlier suggested that Washington sought economic interests in controlling the oil fields.
Syria, which has not authorized the presence of the US military in its territory, says Washington is “plundering” the country’s oil.