In its latest propaganda line amid a 110-month conflict, economic crisis, and shortages, the Assad regime proclaims that the US, UK, France, Turkey, and Israel are burning the country’s crops.
The regime’s UN Ambassador, Bashar al-Ja’afari (pictured), declared on Monday in an official complaint to the UN Secretary General and President of the Security Council:
The US and Turkish occupation forces have deliberately set fire to the agrarian crops in Syria’s al-Jazeera region [in the northeast] to empty the Syrian food baskets from their resources.
This crime represents a new economic terrorism which rises up to the level of war crimes perpetrated by the occupation forces against the Syrian people.
Ja’afari also claimed that the countries were “looting natural resources”, including energy, and cutting off water.
The Ambassador offered no evidence for his claims.
The UK and France withdrew their military personnel and halted aerial operations with the defeat of the Islamic State, which lost its last village in northeast Syria in March 2019.
Israel has carried out a series of missile attacks on Assad regime, Iranian, and Hezbollah positions across Syria, but has not targeted farmland.
See Syria Daily, June 1: Reports — Another Airstrike Kills 5 Iran-Supported Militia
The US’s military operations are focused on support of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, which led the fight against Islamic State, and maintenance of a base at Tanf on the Iraq border.
In its latest strike, US warplanes killed Mutaz Numan Abd Nayif Najm al-Jaburi, believed to be one of the top three ISIS leaders, on March 26 in Deir ez-Zor Province in eastern Syria.
Turkey’s forces are in opposition-held Syria in the northwest and working with Russia to enforce a March ceasefire, which halted an 11-month Russian-regime offensive.
Ankara’s personnel also hold a corridor along the Turkish-Syrian border in northeast Syria after an October 2019 incursion.
A Regime Campaign Against Sanctions
Ja’afari’s unsupported claims were part of a denunciation of US and European Union sanctions, imposed on the regime since 2011 over its violent repression of mass protests.
In particular, he said that the “Caesar Act” that will soon take effect. The measure, part of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2020, authorizes further sanctions against the regime over its war crimes. It is named after “Caesar”, the defecting Syrian military photographer who brought out images of tens of thousands of detainees who were executed, killed by torture, or died from inhumane conditions in regime prisons.
In an ironic declaration, Ja’afari said the sanctions rather than the regime’s killing of hundreds of thousands of civilians and displacement of millions since 2011 were the “war crimes”.
Syria has lost about 75% of its GDP during the conflict. Despite Russian-enabled operations which have reoccupied much of the country, the Assad regime has carried out little reconstruction. Shortages of food, fuel, and electricity, accompanied by spiraling inflation, are commonplace.
In recent weeks, Russian State outlets and allies of President Vladimir Putin have blamed regime leaders, including Bashar al-Assad, for corruption and failure to revive the economy.
See Syria Daily, May 25: Food Prices Soaring
Syria Daily, May 27: Putin Appoints Special Representative Amid Russian Concern Over Assad
