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Damascus, December 28 (RHC)-- Syrian government troops have confronted a US military convoy in northeastern province of Hasakah as the occupation forces were attempting to pass through a community in the energy-rich region.

Amid an increasing public anger over the presence of American occupation forces, Syrian army troops stationed at a checkpoint at the entrance to the village of Tell Dahab, which lies south of the city of Qamishli, blocked and expelled the convoy of several armored vehicles, according to Syria’s official SANA news agency.

The convoy was forced to turn around and return in the direction it had come from.  The development came days after U.S. occupation forces in northeastern Syria sent 95 tankers of stolen Syrian oil to Iraq in two separate convoys.

The batches of stolen oil were sent from the Jazira and Eastern regions in Syria’s Hasakah province to northern Iraq through the illegal Mahmoudiya and al-Waleed border crossings late on December 22.

The U.S. military has for long stationed its forces and equipment in northeastern Syria, with the Pentagon claiming that the deployment is aimed at preventing the oilfields in the area from falling into the hands of Daesh terrorists.

Damascus, however, maintains the deployment is meant to plunder the country’s natural resources.  Former U.S. President Donald Trump admitted on several occasions that American forces were in the Arab country for its oil wealth.