US officials, protected in armored vehicles and with a helicopter cover, visited the towns of Kahtanieh, Habis and Naem, among other villages, where they met with clan and tribal dignitaries to call on young people to join the new armed group, local activists reported.

They said that the soldiers promised to pay high salaries taking advantage of the harsh economic hardships that the people are going through due to Washington’s stealing of wheat and crude oil, and imposing a suffocating blockade on the country, the sources denounced.

They described the move as an attempt to demographically divide the region, as the American military aides promised, according to the villagers, that the new group would be purely Arab, unlike the so-called Kurdish-majority Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which has been funded, armed and trained by the Pentagon since 2012.

The purpose is to absorb popular and tribal outrage towards the occupier and its SDF militia, and to guarantee protection for the US bases and oil fields it occupies.

The United States maintains at least a dozen military bases in the northeastern Syrian region of al-Jazira and one in the Tanef area bordering Iraq and Jordan.

The Damascus government denounced that this presence is illegal and violates international laws, and also destabilizes the situation in the country by sponsoring terrorist and separatist groups that attack government troops and their allies.

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