“To support the agricultural sector in Deir ez-Zour, the U.S. Department of State and USAID are rehabilitating bakeries and mills, expanding access to subsidized bread for nearly 30,000 people,” the US embassy in Damascus announced on Facebook on Wednesday.
The US is also handing out seeds, fertilizer, drip irrigation equipment, and livestock to farming households, is aiding firefighters, and is rehabilitating irrigation canals that feed over 800 hectares of land, and a drinking water station in Hajin. Repairs to canals off the Euphrates River are expected to benefit 350,000 people in Deir ez-Zor and 50,000 people in Hasaka, to the north, according to the embassy statement.
It was in Deir ez-Zor that the Islamic State (ISIS) made its last stand before its so-called caliphate fell to the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the global coalition in 2019. The eastern province, which borders Iraq, is home to Syria’s largest oil reserves. Holding onto that oil is US President Donald Trump’s main goal in Syria now that ISIS is defeated.
American troops in Syria are “down to almost nothing, except we kept the oil,” Trump said in Washington last month.
US oil company Delta Crescent Energy LLC has reportedly struck a deal with the Kurdish administration of northeast Syria (Rojava) for that crude. The agreement is to repair and develop oil fields that were damaged during ISIS’ reign. Only 20 percent of the oil fields were still operational after the war with ISIS, according to senior Rojava politician Aldar Khalil.
Relations are strained, however, between the Kurdish-led administration and the Arab tribes of Deir ez-Zor. Normally simmering tensions exploded this summer after a high profile assassination of a tribal leader. Security is a concern in the province that borders regime-held areas and where small groups of ISIS militants remain active.
Intense talks are ongoing between senior Kurds, including SDF commander Mazloum Abdi who visited Deir ez-Zor in August, and tribal leaders, with the US military often playing a mediation role.
