Troops Will Keep Guarding Syrian Oil, But US Won't Keep Profits, Pentagon Says

This March 27, 2018 file photo, shows Syrian workers fixing pipes of an oil well at an oil field controlled by a U.S-backed Kurdish group, in Rmeilan, Hassakeh province, Syria. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

Military.com | By Richard Sisk

Published November 08, 2019

The U.S. won't be keeping the profits from pumping oil at fields in eastern Syria guarded by U.S. troops, Pentagon officials said Thursday.

"The revenue from this is not going to the U.S., this is going to the SDF," Pentagon chief spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said, referring to the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces who led the drive against ISIS in Syria with U.S. support.

At a Pentagon briefing, Hoffman and Rear Adm. William Byrne, vice director of the Pentagon's Joint Staff, said U.S. troops, now including mechanized forces sent back into Syria, were guarding wells near the Iraqi border in cooperation with the SDF.

U.S. troops were "shoulder to shoulder with our SDF partners," Byrne said, despite the U.S. withdrawal from northeastern Syria last month. The announcement of withdrawal was quickly followed by a Turkish invasion of the region aimed at the SDF.

Byrne said the SDF was still joined with the U.S. in the fight against ISIS remnants and "security of the oil fields is a subordinate task to that mission."

The oilfields once held by ISIS generated about $1.5 million daily for the terror group.

"We're just not going to let that happen again," Byrne said.

The U.S. will also continue supporting the SDF, he said.

The SDF are "[still] our partners and we are still working with them in our fight against ISIS and we're still going to provide them with the support and ability to be able to continue that fight," Hoffman said.

The apparent commitment to let the SDF have the profits from the oil fields contrasted with Trump's remarks in recent weeks that the U.S. might want a major firm such as ExxonMobil to come in to develop the fields.

Last Friday, Trump told reporters on the White House lawn that eventually "we want to bring our soldiers home" from Syria but some would be staying there "because we're keeping the oil."

— Richard Sisk can be reached at Richard.Sisk@Military.com.

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Related Topics: Military Headlines Syria Global Hot Spots Pentagon

Richard Sisk

Richard Sisk has more than 45 years of journalism experience in reporting and editing in the U.S. and abroad for United Press International, the N.Y. Daily News and now for Military.com. He has covered police beats, the courts, transportation and politics in New York City and Washington, D.C., and had numerous assignments in the Mideast, Europe and Latin America. He has covered six presidential campaigns and since 2016 has been Military.com’s Pentagon reporter. Sisk is a Vietnam veteran who served with the 2nd Battalion, Fourth Marines, in 1967-68. Read Full Bio

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