Assad plans to sue the US over ‘stealing’ Syria’s oil

Syria’s government is considering suing the United States in an international court over what a senior advisor to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad referred to as the ‘stealing’ of Syria’s oil.

“Syria is looking into the possibility of filing an international lawsuit against the United States, due to the fact that they steal Syrian oil,” Bouthaina Shaaban, Syrian Presidential Adviser, told Beirut-based Al-Mayadeen TV in an interview, carried by Iran’s Fars news agency.

After a surprise announcement of pulling the US troops out of Syria in October, US President Donald Trump said that the United States would protect Syrian oil fields from ISIS.

An American soldier sits on a military vehicle, at al-Omar oil field in Deir Al Zor, Syria © Reuters / Aboud Hamam

President Trump claimed that the US had taken control of the oil in the Middle East, tweeting that “The US has secured the Oil, & the ISIS Fighters are double secured by Kurds & Turkey.”

The President did not elaborate on what he meant by “securing the oil,” but speculations about the President’s statement assume he was referring to the US special forces that have been—and will continue to be—in control of oil and gas fields in Deir Ezzor, Syria’s oil region.

President Trump has vowed to protect Syrian oil fields from ISIS, and the United States may leave 500 troops in northeastern Syria and send in battle tanks and other equipment with the purpose to help the Kurds in the area to protect oil fields that used to be controlled by Islamic State during its so-called caliphate in parts of Iraq and Syria.

In a separate interview, with NBC News, Assad’s advisor Shaaban said that the United States had no right to Syria’s oil, warning of “popular opposition and operations against the American occupiers of our oil.”

The Kurdish SDF forces control most of Syria’s oil. Before the war, Syria was producing 387,000 barrels of oil per day, of which 140,000 bpd were exported.