Time For US to Vacate Its At-Tanf Military Base in Syria and Free The Rukban Camp Refugees
The base effectively blocks trade and commerce use of the Damascus-to-Baghdad Highway
[NOTE: US media provides little to no investigative journalism coverage about Syria, mostly it publishes Pentagon reports.]
The Syrian Army, with assistance from Russia and Iran, have defeated ISIS which now controls less than five percent of Syria’s sovereign territory. The US now controls more Syrian territory than ISIS. Because of the ISIS defeat Syrian war refugees have been returning in large numbers due to increasing stabilization of the Syrian government.
But the United States presently controls the Rukban Refugee Camp, housing over 50,000 refugees. The base is located at the Syrian-Iraq border and close to the Jordanian border. These refugees do not require US protection. The US has mostly blocked access into the camp by UN and Red Cross. It is believed — many would argue it’s been proven — that the US is using this military facility not only to block the highway but also to train anti-Syrian militants.
On November 11, 2016, as reported in Al-Masdar Al-’Arabi (AMN-News), Russian Defence Ministry representative Yury Tarasov slammed the United Stated for being responsible for horrifying conditions in the Rukban refugee camp:
“On Rukban’s territory, theft, prostitution and forced marriages are frequent. Sexual exploitation of minors and gender inequality are widely practiced. Marriages, births and deaths are not registered. Many temporarily displaced people in the camp do not have documents at their disposal.”
Tarasov also added, “The full responsibility for creating chaos in Rukban lays upon the USA which occupied this region illegally and used humanitarian problems in the refugee camp to legitimize their military presence in the south of Syria.”
This begs several questions:
- If Syrian war refugees are returning in large numbers all throughout Syria why can’t the Syrians who are held at Rukban?
- Is the US, for political purposes, holding Syrian citizens as prisoners on their own lands?
- How can the US possibly justify its uninvited presence in southern Syria, especially in an area where there is no longer any warfare against ISIS, and remain disruptive to Syria’s right to promote trade and commerce with its neighbors in the region?
- Why does the US media fail to report any of this?
Additional Reading:
https://medium.com/@m_weddle/why-potential-for-war-473985bdc66d
