Turkey’s state news agency, Anadolu, quoting to local sourcing, reported that U.S. troops increasing its military presence in Syria’s northeast Al-Hasakah province.
According to the Anadolu news agency, the U.S. decided to expand its two largest military bases in Syria’s oil-rich Deir ez-Zor governorate.
This is the base at the Omar and Tal Baidar oil fields in the northwest of Hasek province. Agency sources emphasize that the US has begun expanding its bases amid growing tensions between Washington and Moscow.
Voice of America previously reported that U.S. forces in northeast Syria again prevented Russian military convoys from touring near the Iraqi border on Friday, in what locals described as an increased escalation between both sides over freedom of navigation in the predominantly Kurdish region.
A VOA reporter saw American Humvees patrolling the main road of al-Malikiyah town, also known as Derik, in northeast Hasakah province, in what local sources said was an effort to prevent an approaching Russian convoy from passing by the region.
The sources said the dispute was over the control of M4 highway, al-Malikiyah and Tall Tamr areas that became a dividing line between the two sides following the October 2019 Turkish incursion that forced the U.S. to pull out from much of the Turkey-northeast Syria border region.