The photo shows a U.S. military vehicle, part of a convoy arriving from northern Iraq, driving past an oil pump jack in the countryside of Syria's northeastern city of Qamishli. (File by AFP)

Damascus, June 4 (RHC)-- U.S. occupation forces have used dozens of tanker trucks to smuggle crude oil from Syria’s northeastern province of Hasakah to bases in neighboring Iraq.  Syria’s official news agency SANA, citing local sources in the town of Ya’rubiyah, reported that 45 tankers, laden with stolen oil, rumbled through the illegal Mahmoudiya border crossing on Saturday, and headed towards Iraqi territories.

On Thursday, Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council of the Russian Parliament Konstantin Kosachev said the presence of US military forces in Syria lacks legal justification. He said the deployment amounts to occupation of the territories of a member state of the United Nations.

“Americans have expropriated Syrian lands, and are plundering the country’s natural wealth for the sake of their own military, political and commercial objectives,” the senior Russian lawmaker told SANA in an exclusive interview in Moscow.

He said while the United Nations – under pressure from the United States – rushes to hold meetings on the situation in the war-battered Arab nation, it falls short of dealing with Washington’s intervention in the domestic affairs of other countries.

Kosachev said the United Nations does not carry out its duties and does not work hard enough to maintain peace and security across the globe, or at least in Syria.  The U.S. military has stationed forces and equipment in northeastern Syria, with the Pentagon claiming 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 rich mineral resources.  Former U.S. President Donald Trump admitted on more than one occasion that American forces were in the Arab country for its oil.