A few days ago, we from IKHRW have reported about a US-backed SDF-raid on the river crossing to eastern Euphrates, near the town of Qaterji. We have told you about the river crossing the SDF just didn’t seem to be able to secure.
This new satellite photo above shows this river crossing with about 70 tanker trucks ready to be loaded on ships.
On this photo, we see a parking lot nearby, holding another 100 trucks, used in the same smuggling operations.
People should not be fooled, smuggling operations like these could not succeed without the SDF closing an eye. It seems very likely, these operations prove for a nice income for the SDF themselves.
Smuggling on a scale as large as this is easy to be prevented. One simply cannot hide 170 trucks in the desert. If the SDF did not cooperate in these operations, smugglers would not dare to breath so easily in the open, at daytime.
Authorities should question why the SDF, PYD’s armed wing, is stealing and smuggling Syria’s resources in an area that does not even hold a Kurdish population. This might just be one of the biggest reasons the local population does not accept them.
