The U.S. Department of Defense (Pentagon) announced that its forces in Syria are no longer responsible for protecting oil, and their duty is to combat the Islamic State, contrary to what former President Donald Trump had announced.
Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby told reporters that "Department of Defense personnel and contractors are not authorized to assist a private company seeking to exploit oil resources in Syria or to its employees or agents." In response to a question about the mission of U.S. forces in Syria, Kirby clarified that American military personnel deployed in northeastern Syria (currently numbering around 900 troops) are present to support the mission against the Islamic State in Syria.
The vast majority of oil fields in eastern and northeastern Syria remain outside of state control, as they are located primarily in areas controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and their civil front known as the Kurdish Autonomous Administration.
The SDF had reached an agreement with the American oil company Delta Crescent Energy LLC that would allow SDF to escape U.S. sanctions on Syria; the U.S. State Department at that time announced its support for the agreement. The Syrian government condemned this agreement as invalid and Turkey expressed regret over Washington's support for this step, which disregards international law and threatens Syria's territorial integrity and sovereignty while providing cover for funding terrorism, emphasizing the need for natural resources to return to the Syrian people.
Trump stated in 2019, when he reversed his decision to withdraw all American forces from northeastern Syria, that he would keep a few hundred troops there "because there is oil."
